March Madness: Predicting who wins every major conference tournament

CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 09: Kenny Williams #24 of the North Carolina Tar Heels reacts after a play against the Duke Blue Devils during their game at Dean Smith Center on March 09, 2019 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /

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Predictions for every major conference tournament, including who wins the ACC, SEC and Big Ten as March Madness heats up.

Selection Sunday is days away, and that means college hoops fans have a lot to look forward to this week as the major conference tournaments get underway. All the major conferences, along with a ton of mid-major leagues, will stage their conference tournaments to hand out their automatic bids to the dance.

While the fun of watching the little guys put it all on the line for one shot at glory is awesome, we’re going to focus on the larger conferences today. These leagues will give us the majority of the at-large bids to the tournament, so the results from these events will help shape the field of 68 in a significant way.

There are nine tournaments to watch this week with the ACC, SEC and Big Ten among the most compelling with No. 1 seeds on the line. So who will cut down the nets and boost their seeding for the NCAA Tournament?

Let’s dive into predictions for every remaining conference tournament.

AAC

Dates: March 14-17
Location: Memphis, TN
Top Seed: Houston

The AAC tournament is a very top-heavy one, but definitely worth monitoring as you get ready to fill out your brackets next week. The league has two locks for the NCAA’s in Houston and Cincinnati, while UCF is awfully close to locking up an at-large as well.

The fourth team to keep an eye on in the AAC is Temple, which has a win over Houston on its resume and finished the regular season strong with a much-needed home win over UCF. If all four of those teams make the semifinals on Saturday, the league should get four bids to March Madness.

One sleeper to watch here could be the Memphis Tigers, who won four of five to end the regular season, with the one defeat being a two-pointer at Cincinnati. The Tigers also have the closest thing to a home court advantage in the field, so they are a threat to make a bid-stealing run.

Prediction: Houston