Champ Week: Predicting Power 6, top mid-major college basketball conference tournament champions

College basketball's regular season is over and Champ Week is officially here. The remainder of the 32 automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament are up for grabs and conference tournaments offer one last chance for bubble teams to make a positive impression on the Selection Committee prior to Selection Sunday.

While there are over two dozen conferences handing out March Madness tickets this week, the tournaments that will have the most sway with the Selection Committee are the Power 6 (ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, SEC, Pac-12) along with the three mid-major leagues (American, Atlantic 10 and Mountain West) with the potential of placing multiple teams into the field of 68.

Let's take a look at each of those tournaments and project some winners before the action goes into full swing this week.

Champ Week Conference Tournament Predictions

American Athletic Conference Tournament Prediction

• Dates: March 13-17
• Location: Fort Worth, Texas
• Venue: Dickies Arena
• Top Seed: South Florida
• Bracket

One of the more intriguing conference tournaments is the American, which has a No. 1 seed in South Florida that actually needs the auto bid to go dancing after a rough start to the season. Memphis also had a run in the Top 25 early in the year before losing Caleb Mills to a season-ending knee injury, leading to some struggles that dropped them to the No. 5 seed in Fort Worth.

The team to watch here is Florida Atlantic, which is the safest entrant to the field from the league and spent a large portion of this season ranked following their run to the 2023 Final Four. Experience will play a big role for the Owls here and bubble teams will be rooting hard for Florida Atlantic to avoid seeing a potential bid thief emerge.

Prediction: Florida Atlantic