American East and CAA

American East

All games will be played on campuses of the higher seeds. Vermont is the prohibitive favorite having gone 14-2 in the league and winning it by 4 games. They finished the year 24-7 and have a win over St. John’s on their resume. Their only 2 losses in Conference this year were at home to UMBC and Stony Brook. Vermont is 66th in KenPom and will be a trendy pick as a bracket buster.

The aforementioned Stony Brook is the only other team in the league in the top 200 of KenPom at 183. The tournament begins Saturday and stretches over the next week with the title game on Saturday.

The Pick: Vermont

CAA

The CAA begins tournament play on Saturday from Washington D.C. and concludes Tuesday night. Hofstra won the regular season title by a game over William & Mary. Hofstra is 119th in KenPom which is by and far the best of the league. They have a win at UCLA before UCLA righted the ship and have won 9 of 10.

William & Mary finishes 2nd based on a end of season 5-game winning streak. They’re 192nd in KenPom. They split the regular season matchups with Hofstra. Both teams won those respective games on the road. As you probably know, the Tribe have never made the NCAA Tournament.

The rest of the contenders are Towson, 149th in KenPom and 3rd place finishers in the league, Charleston and Delaware who tied for 4th and 161st and 182nd in KenPom and Northeastern who went 9-9 in league but is 143rd in KenPom.

This tournament could yield some chaos as the middle is pretty tightly grouped. The bottom half is wretched but the semi-finals should be competitive.

The Pick: Hofstra