As we move through Championship Week, we’ll continue to bring you short reviews of each of the automatic qualifiers to help you fill out your bracket. In this post, we have your America East, Conference USA, MEAC, Southland, Big 12 and Pac-12 conference champions. Here’s what you need to know about these recent bid winners.

Missouri

• Big 12 Conference Champion (30-4, 17-4)
• RPI/Pomeroy/Sagarin = #11/#8/#7
• Adjusted Scoring Margin = +16.0
• Likely NCAA Seed: #1-#2

The Big 12 Champions Will Be a Very Tough Out

Three Bruce Pearls of Wisdom.

1. It goes without saying that a 30-win season where Missouri won the Big 12 Tournament is already one of the best years in program history. Whether the Tigers end up as a #1 or #2 seed in next week’s NCAA Tournament, the elephant in the room is that despite 24 NCAA appearances and five trips to the Elite Eight (as recently as 2009), Mizzou has never experienced the grandest stage of a Final Four. Whether this is the year that the program finally breaks through depends on a number of factors, but there’s no question that Frank Haith‘s group has tremendous ability, experience and team chemistry. It will take an exceptional opponent to knock this team out of the Dance.
2. Missouri’s biggest strength is that it owns the most efficient offense in college basketball, scoring over three more points per 100 possessions than the second best team (Kentucky). In playing a solid non-conference and Big 12 schedule, the only team that proved capable of slowing down the Mizzou attack was Kansas State, who beat the Tigers twice by beating them up on every cut, drive and rebound attempt. The Wildcats held the seasoned group of Marcus Denmon, Kim English, Phil Pressey, and Michael Dixon to 11-36 from the field in the first game, and 19-47 in the second game for a total shooting display of 36.1% (they group shoots 47.4% on the season). If Missouri is to be upset in the NCAAs, it will be by a team who plays a similarly bruising, defensive style — trying to run with this oft-spectacular offensive squad will not work.
3. The Tigers’ weakness is its pedestrian defense (ranked #77 in efficiency), but their offense is so explosive that it rarely faces a situation where it has to make a stop to win the game. You might think that its lack of interior size other than Ricardo Ratliffe is another issue, but that’s not been much of a problem for them this season. Ratliffe only fouled out once all year (against Baylor’s huge front line Saturday, incidentally), and with the exception of those two K-State games, the Tigers’ experience and savvy usually allows them to dictate the style and pace of the game. In order to knock this team out, it’s going to take a tremendous defensive effort that can keep up with all of these talented guards. There are only a handful of teams in the country capable of doing that. As a result, this might finally be the year where Missouri faithful experience the wonders of the Final Four.

Colorado

• Pac-12 Conference Champion (23-11, 15-7)
• RPI/Pomeroy/Sagarin = #70/#81/#83
• Likely NCAA Seed: #13-#14

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The Atlantic 10 quarterfinals will tip off Saturday between four teams that all believe they should be in the next week’s NCAA Tournament. The truth is that two, maybe three, are likely to be invited. This is no time to leave anything to chance, which is why the semifinals should be outstanding and competitive. It’s UMass-St. Bonaventure in the early game, followed by Xavier-St. Louis in the mid-day slot. Join us!

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The Atlantic 10 quarterfinal round has already opened up with top seed Temple losing to Massachusetts earlier this afternoon. Among tonight’s teams, Xavier, Dayton, and St. Louis all have dreams of at-large bids, while La Salle is thinking tournament title. It should be an equally competitive and fun evening from Atlantic City tonight down on the Boardwalk.

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It certainly wasn’t the most compelling day of basketball we’ve ever seen on a Thursday of Championship Week, but sexy or not, 38 more teams were eliminated from national title contention yesterday. This now leaves us with 111 total teams remaining, and from here on through the weekend, we’re going to tend to be over-inclusive when it comes to bubble teams. You just never know what the Selection Committee will do (see: UAB, 2011), and for that reason alone we’re going to keep most any team in the bubble discussion on our Circle of March. Still, over the next 72 hours, we’d expect to drop another 25-30 schools to get to a healthy 80 or so going into the unveiling of the brackets Sunday night.

Another huge day of games awaits us today, but no championship games until tomorrow, when 12 will be played…

We’re in the middle of Championship Week and roughly 80 hours away from learning the names of the 68 teams that will compete in this year’s NCAA Tournament. Most of the elite teams have yet to suit up in their conference tourneys so we thought it would be a good time to take another look at how Vegas bookmakers are viewing the best teams heading into this final weekend prior to the bracket release on Sunday. We ran through this exercise in both the preseason and again in December before conference season got under way, so it’s always instructive to see how the perception of teams has changed in the eyes of those who make their livelihoods from knowing such things. Although there’s been a good amount of movement among the top 10 teams on our list, the top two have remained Kentucky and North Carolina with a bullet, far above the rest of the field all season long. As the season has progressed, Vegas has gotten even more in these two teams’ corners, at this point suggesting that combined (and normalized to 100% total among all teams) the Wildcats and Tar Heels have a 33.7% chance of cutting down the nets in New Orleans. One in three — not bad at all.

*The remaining listed schools were too numerous to name, but they included most of the remainder of the power conference teams.

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Due to technical difficulties Tuesday night, we weren’t able to get a new Circle of March up in time for Wednesday’s games, so this is a two-fer. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, another 43 teams were eliminated from national title contention, leaving us with a total of 149 teams now left. Thursday and Friday will be huge days, as 14 conference tournaments will be in action with many of them at the knockout-heavy first or quarterfinal round.

There’s only about 78 hours until we’ve narrowed this thing down to 68 teams vying for the ring. The names drop off quickly, don’t they?

Brian Otskey is the Big East Correspondent for RTC. He is reporting from the Big East Tournament all week, and will sum up his thoughts on the day’s action each evening. You can find him on Twitter @botskey.

The Big East Tournament is the best college basketball has to offer, bar none. Wednesday’s second round certainly didn’t disappoint as the day started off in style with an overtime thriller between No. 8 seed West Virginia and No. 9 Connecticut, a game won by the Huskies by the score of 71-67. Georgetown took care of Pittsburgh in the second game of the day session. In the evening, Seton Hall hurt its NCAA chances by losing to Louisville while South Florida won yet again, dispatching Villanova in a very ugly game. It was an exciting day but the best game actually came first this time around.

Shabazz Napier Was Spectacular in the Second Halfset on Wednesday Afternoon (Big East)

• After struggling early, Shabazz Napier stepped up in a big way – Napier had an awful first half, scoring four points on 1-7 FG but he really turned it around in the second half. He scored 22 points after intermission and led UConn’s late charge to tie it up before fouling out with 2:35 left in the extra session. Napier has been an enigma for this Huskies team all season long but found his game at the right time. He saved the season with a game-winner against Villanova and likely pushed Connecticut into the NCAA Tournament for good with today’s second half performance, leading the UConn comeback. The Huskies will have a chance to leave no doubt when they take on top-seeded Syracuse at noon on Thursday. Win that one and we can seriously talk about Connecticut making another magical March run at Madison Square Garden.

• Jim Calhoun had back surgery? – If you were on another planet for the last month, you’d never know Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun missed eight games with spinal stenosis. The Huskies coach looked young and agile, jumping up and down the sidelines like he was playing. Calhoun was satisfied afterward and noted how proud he was of his squad. After the game, the UConn head man said he was so confident he thought his team would win the game in regulation despite being down for much of the second half. Calhoun isn’t expecting any magic but he’s clearly confident in his team and deep down I really believe he thinks he can win this tournament. Read the rest of this entry »

[Ed. note: Technical difficulties last night led to late publication of this post. For that, we apologize.]

Last Night’s Lede. For some in the Northeast, the Big East Tournament is the most spectacular event in the college basketball season. The classic six overtime Connecticut-Syracuse game from the 2009 tourney was replayed last night on ESPNU and brought us all on a trip down (recent) memory lane to one of the best games of the past decade. The conference’s powerhouses will hopefully bring us some more classic moments in Madison Square Garden this week, though Tuesday night’s first round didn’t include a single close game. Elsewhere, three more NCAA Tournament bids were earned in small conference tournaments, and the Ivy League’s champion was also determined a bit earlier than expected. Let’s get into the rundown of another fun Championship Week night…

Your Watercooler Moment.  South Dakota State Finally Dances.

SDSU Celebrates Its First Ever Trip to the Dance (Summit League)

It was a shocker when top-seeded Oral Roberts fell in the semifinals of the Summit League Tournament last night to Western Illinois, and last night’s heavily favored Jackrabbits nearly suffered the same fate. WIU led for much of the night on Tuesday and had a chance to win this game in regulation but could not convert. The Leathernecks (great team name, by the way) had another chance to tie or win it in overtime down by two but again fell short, giving South Dakota State its first ever Summit League championship and NCAA Tournament berth. The Jackrabbits have a mid-major star in Nate Wolters, who averages 21.5 points, 6.1 assists, and 5.1 rebounds per game, and will look to lead SDSU to an upset victory in next week’s Big Dance. South Dakota State has a fine RPI of #55 and could actually end up as a #14 or even #13 seed, giving it a realistic chance to bust open a bracket with an upset or two. Wolters scored just 14 points on 5-22 shooting in Tuesday’s low-scoring, 52-50 affair, but the guard is capable of going for 30 in any game.

Last night’s Quick Hits…

• Western Kentucky the Most Unlikely Bid Winner Thus Far. In early January, Western Kentucky was a 5-14 team that had just fired its head coach after one of the strangest finishes you’ll ever see to a game, in which WKU’s opponent used six players on the final possession to win the game. Interim coach/permanent coach Ray Harper is now two months later leading the Hilltoppers to the NCAA Tournament after their 74-70 win over North Texas on Tuesday night. This Sun Belt champion was the #7-seed in the tournament and will enter the NCAA’s as the sixth team in the past decade to have a record below .500, at 15-18. This resilient Western Kentucky team has gone through a wild ride and now will surely be playing early next week as part of the tournament’s ‘First Four’ games, looking to advance to take on a #1 seed. Read the rest of this entry »

Ain’t no party like a Twitter party, or so the kids say these days.

Later this afternoon, from 3-4 PM ET, Microsoft search engine Bing has invited RTC to take part in its March Madness Twitter party. We’ve never been a part of one of these events, but it seemed like an interesting way to spend an hour ‘chatting’ about college hoops heading into the best three weeks of the year, so we’re on board.

Join Us at 3 PM Eastern Time This Afternoon

To participate, follow @Bing and @rushthecourt and tweet out your questions and commentary with the hashtag #BingIt. As an added bonus, Bing will be giving away a fifty dollar gift card to two lucky winners. We hope to enjoy some great conversation this afternoon — see you there!

As mentioned yesterday, we decided to utilize our national network of correspondents with this week’s series of RTC Podblasts. If you’re arriving a little late to the party, we broke down the awards and conference tournament matchups for the Big East, Big 12 and Pac-12 on Tuesday. Today, we finish up our analysis of each power conference league, beginning with the ACC (with Matt Patton), and followed by the SEC (with Brian Joyce) and Big Ten (with Ryan Terpstra). We had a lot of fun with these, so give us a listen!

ACC Tournament

http://www.buzzsprout.com/4606/42996-rtc-acc-tournament-podblast

SEC Tournament

http://www.buzzsprout.com/4606/42997-rtc-sec-tournament-podblast

Big Ten Tournament

http://www.buzzsprout.com/4606/42998-rtc-big-ten-tournament-podblast