Conference USA Tournament 2017 Printable Bracket

Here’s the bracket for the Conference USA Tournament, where top-seeded Middle Tennessee State is the heavy favorite.

An automatic qualifying spot in the Big Dance will be on in the line in the 2017 Conference USA Tournament, which begins on Wednesday and runs through Saturday’s title game in Birmingham.

One year after stunning Michigan State in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, Middle Tennessee State is much-improved and ready for another Cinderella run in March. The Blue Raiders enter as the No. 1 seed after a 27-4 regular season, and were a three-point loss at UTEP away from a perfect run through Conference USA play.

While Middle Tennessee is going to be tough to beat, we’ve seen top seeds go down in a number of other mid-major conference tournaments. No. 2 seed Louisiana Tech put together a solid 22-9 campaign in its second year since Michael White moved on to Florida, while UTEP could get another crack at Middle Tennessee in Friday’s semifinals.

UAB, the defending regular season Conference USA champion, slipped all the way to seventh after Jerod Haase took the Stanford job. Even 7-24 Florida International, which is ineligible this season, gave Middle Tennessee a major scare last Thursday, so anything is possible in Birmingham over the next few days.

Here’s the bracket for the 2017 Conference USA Tournament.

The big question is if the Blue Raiders could potentially get an at-large bid even with a loss in the earlier rounds of the Conference USA Tournament. Middle Tennessee’s resume is likely good enough thanks to key wins over Vanderbilt, UNC-Wilmington and Belmont, but the committee has been harsh to mid-majors with similar profiles in the past.

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Bubble teams will be rooting hard for Middle Tennessee state, as no other Conference USA team is in the at-large picture.