Southland Conference 2017 Printable Bracket

With the Southland Conference Tournament starting today, we preview it here and provide you at home with a printable bracket

The Southland Conference Tournament tips off this afternoon, and there should be plenty of good basketball to come. The top four teams in the conference all finished within a game of the top spot in the standings with New Orleans taking the regular season crown. New Orleans, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Stephen F. Austin, and Houston Baptist make up the top four. The Southland will be a one bid league this year, so the conference tournament is a winner-take-all affair.

Those top four teams will fight Sam Houston State, Lamar, Southeastern Louisiana, and Central Arkansas. Because the Southland Conference has 13 teams but only invites eight into the tournament, there was a battle for the last bid down the stretch. Five teams tied for eighth in the conference standings at 7-11. Two of those teams, Abeline Christian and Incarnate Word, were ineligible for postseason play as they transition to Division I. That led to a three-way battle between Nichols State, Northwestern State, and Central Arkansas for the last spot. The tie breaking procedure in the Southland is complicated, so I won’t explain it in detail here. Just know that Central Arkansas took the spot by merit of going 4-3 against the other four teams tied at 7-11 and going 1-1 vs Northwestern State.

So how is this tournament going to shake out? New Orleans is the only team in the conference inside Kenpom’s top 200 and have the top seed. They are founded on a great defense, surrendering under 70 points per game. They are also home to the conference’s Player of the Year, Erik Thomas. New Orleans has the advantage going in, but they don’t call it March Madness for nothing.

So what does each team’s path to the NCAA bid look like? Here is how the Southland bracket looks. Just click on the image below to get a printable version.

The last time New Orleans and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi met was back in December, but the game was a thriller, resulting in a 73-72 New Orleans overtime win. It may not get to that, though, as New Orleans lost earlier this year to Sam Houston State while Texas A&M-CC lost to Stephen F. Austin twice.

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Stephen F. Austin has represented the conference in the NCAA Tournament each of the last three years, and won two NCAA Tournament games over that span. With that track record, whoever gets the Southland’s bid this year should put their first-round opponent on upset alert.