Thursday’s heartbreaker at Louisiana-Lafayette and Saturday’s pratfall at North Texas, combined with other results around the Sun Belt, doomed Denver to a #3 seed in next week’s Sun Belt Tournament in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and a first-round game against East cellar-dweller Florida International (of Isiah Thomas fame) instead of a bye into the quarterfinals. That’s a real bummer, considering Denver started the conference season 6-0 and 7-1, and once enjoyed a three-game lead in the loss column in the Sun Belt West.
Still, the bracket is, at least arguably, reasonably friendly to the Pioneers. With the league’s best overall team, Florida Atlantic (13-3 in SBC play, 21-9 overall), and its hottest and second-hottest teams, Louisiana-Lafayette (10 straight conference wins since starting 1-5) and Western Kentucky (8 wins out of last 12 since starting 0-4), all on the “top” side of the bracket, and Denver on the “bottom,” the Pioneers would seem to be in the “weaker” half of the field. Unfortunately, that also means the Pioneers would likely have to get past Arkansas State in a near-home game in the semifinals in order to qualify for the championship game on Tuesday (which I’ll be at, if Denver gets there).
Below is an unofficial version of the bracket that I created, typing the teams with known seeds on top of the conference‘s official blank bracket. Only two spots, the #4 and #5 seeds in the West, remain up in the air, which is why they say “UNT/UALR”; more on that below.
The first two steps on Denver’s road to a conference title are actually identical to last season, when they beat Florida International and Middle Tennessee before losing to North Texas in the semifinals. This year’s third step could potentially be the same, too, but only if North Texas loses tomorrow’s blizzard makeup game against Arkansas-Little Rock (winner gets the #4 seed, loser gets the #5), then beats South Alabama and then upsets Arkansas State. If UNT beats UALR tomorrow, then two of Denver’s three potential semifinal opponents would be Arkansas teams, with South Alabama the Pioneers’ only hope of avoiding a virtual road game in the semis, assuming they get there. If I’m Joe Scott, I think I’d much rather play either North Texas or South Alabama — both potential “revenge” games — than either of the Arkansas teams in the semis, so I think I’m rooting for UALR tomorrow night.
As an aside, how exciting is it to be looking at brackets again? I started constructing a hand-drawn version of this bracket on Saturday morning (here’s what it looked like by Saturday night), and immediately felt a little twinge of excitement just to be constructing a bracket. It’s almost March!!! Whee!!!