1 Week Till Madness

Image: ESPN

One week from today, it begins. In just seven days, we'll see the tip-off of the first games of the 2022 NCAA Tournament. As of this morning, we've got 5 teams who have punched their ticket to the big dance, but looking at some of the results, it makes some of the other 63 spots even more contentious. With 19 more Conference Tournaments starting this week, I'm devoting this week's column to the most open competitions that you should be checking out.

The Most Open Conference Tourneys

Atlantic 10: As of now, Davidson is pretty much locked into an at-large bid, meaning that a few teams will be hungry to claim that much needed automatic slot. If Dayton and VCU get to meet in the Semifinals, it may just be the best game of the tournament.

Big West: After going 7th and 8th respectively in the preseason poll, Long Beach State and Cal-Fullerton enter the tourney as the 1 and 2 seeds. Look for one of these guys to complete their Cinderella story this weekend.

Ivy League: The two top scorers in the conference go head to head in the semifinals on Saturday when Jordan Dingle's Penn takes on Azar Swain's Yale. You do NOT want to miss this one.

MAC: It's going to be a battle of the hot streaks in the MAC. The top four seeds are separated by just three games in the conference standings, and when you look at their schedules this year, they spent the better part of conference play just eating each other alive.

Mountain West: On this week's episode of "The Best Mountain West Ever," four teams within two games of each other will wrestle for that auto bid.

WAC: With three teams tied for the regular season championship, and two more just a game behind, the fight to stay out of the NIT will be absolutely BRUTAL in three consecutive rounds of this tournament.