I likely won’t congratulate all the teams that win their Conference Tournaments.  That is because as the week goes on, my focus goes more on my insane attempt at being a brackettologist – and showing that these folks in the media who spend a full season ranking teams might do a good job of seeding teams – but when it comes to figuring out the 68 teams the Selection Commitee will choose, some crazy statistician with a week of gathering data and looking at Team Sheets can do almost as well.

But it is Monday – there are very few games tonight and so was able to watch some of the smaller conference teams play.  And so congratulations to Iona – who has managed to win their 4th straight MAAC Championship – as they ran away from Monmouth in the second half to win 81-60.

Tuesday night will be an exciting night as 5 more conferences (Colonial, Horizon, Northeast, Summit and West Coast) will decide their tournament champions.  Four of these games should be fantastic from the perspective of this is it for these teams – they might have been champions, co-champs or runner-ups in their conference regular season, but if they want to make the NCAA Tournament, they need to win tomorrow night.

Of course, the West Coast final will feature the #1 team in the country – Gonzaga.  And so obviously, if tonight’s late semi-final game winner between St. Mary’s and San Diego can pull the ultimate upset, the Bubble will remain safe from any bid-stealers.  Before you think that happens, lets just remember that the Zags have won their last 21 games by double digits (including all their games against West Coast Conference schools).  In fact, the Zags have won by 20 or more points in 15 of those 21 games.  That is right – if Gonzaga had spotted their opponents 19 points before the game started, they would still be 15-6 since their last loss to North Carolina.

While it is fun watching upsets – that is what March is all about – I suspect that the West Coast Championship in Las Vegas is not going to be where that will happen.  Maybe St. Mary’s or San Diego will prove me wrong…….