Does Winning Your Conference Tournament Help Your NCAA Chances?

Every conference has one (except the Ivy League) and whoever wins gets a free ticket to the national tournament (except the Great West).  I'm talking about conference tournaments.  In an earlier posting I shared my excitement for championship week.  But come bracket time, I never shared that excitement with picking teams that won their conference tournament to win the national tournament.  My reasoning was that I felt it's very difficult for a team, even the best in the country, to show up roughly ten straight games in win or go home situations and come out the victor.  Especially when going up against the top competition in the nation.  Boy was I wrong, no wonder why I can never win a bracket challenge.

Since some of the power conferences didn't have tournaments prior to 1998 (Big 12 1997, Big Ten 1998, Pac-12 2002) so I went back 15 years.  But the numbers are staggering.  Of teams that won their conference tournament 26 of 60 (43%) were Final Four teams, 16 of 30 (53%) made the Finals, and 10 of 15 (67%) were National Champions.

To some it seems obvious, partly because only two (2011 UConn and 2006 Florida) were not a 1-seed.  But there are only six teams that win a title in power conferences (no team outside power six has won national title), which means there are far more quality teams that don't.  You hear it every year from big time coaches like Tom Izzo and Mike Krzyzewski, they are almost happy for losing early in the conference tourney because it gives their team a chance to rest.  But we know now that's actually a bad thing.  How much rest do their teams need anyway?  We have to remember these are 19-21 year olds, not 30 year old season vets with bad knees.  So the rest thing really shouldn't be much of a factor.

This is just some food for thought while you are filling out the all important bracket.  Before you get too high on certain teams here's a list of top 4-seed teams that did not bring home a conference tournament championship

Indiana, Duke, Georgetown, Florida, Michigan State, Marquette, Michigan, Kansas State, Syracuse

Here's a list of teams that won a title to keep an eye on

Louisville (Big East), Kansas (Big 12), Gonzaga (West Coast), Ohio State (Big Ten), Miami FL (ACC), New Mexico (Mountain West), Saint Louis (A-10), Ole Miss (SEC), Oregon (Pac-12)

And, here's the list of Final Four teams from the last 15 yeaers.

Teams in parenthesis won their conference tournament. Underlined teams won championship. Bold teams were in the finals.

2012 – Kentucky, Kansas, Ohio State, (Louisville)

2011 – (UConn), (Butler), (Kentucky), VCU

2010 – (Duke), (Butler), (West Virginia), Michigan State

2009 – UNC, Michigan State, UConn, Villanova

2008 – (Kansas), Memphis, (UNC), (UCLA)

2007 – (Florida), (Ohio State), (Georgetown), UCLA

2006 – (Florida), (UCLA), LSU, George Mason

2005 – UNC, (Illinois), Louisville, Michigan State

2004 – (UConn), Georgia Tech, Duke, (Oklahoma State)

2003 – Syracuse, Kansas, Texas, Marquette

2002 – Maryland, Indiana, Kansas, (Oklahoma)

2001 – (Duke), Arizona, Michigan State, Maryland

2000 – (Michigan State), Florida, UNC, Wisconsin

1999 – (UConn), (Duke), (Michigan State), Ohio State

1998 – (Kentucky), Utah, (UNC), Stanford

National Champions – 10 of 15

Finals appearances – 16 of 30

Final Four appearances – 26 of 60

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