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

Big Ten Tournament Prediction

• Dates: March 13-17
• Location: Minneapolis, MN
• Venue: Target Center
• Top Seed: Purdue
• Bracket

The Big Ten is suffering through an uncharacteristic down year when as few as six teams appear positioned to make the field, a figure that could drop as low as five if Michigan State drops its first tournament game to Minnesota. The end result appears to be a relatively clean path to the title for Purdue, which was a cut above the rest of the conference all season long.

The Boilermakers get the Michigan State-Minnesota winner in the quarterfinals before a potential showdown with No. 4 seed Northwestern in the semis. There are more potential land mines on the other half of the bracket, making it easy for Purdue to state their case for the No. 1 overall seed in March Madness.

Prediction: Purdue

Mountain West Tournament Prediction

• Dates: March 13-16
• Location: Las Vegas, NV
• Venue: Thomas & Mack Center
• Top Seed: Utah State
• Bracket

If you're looking for chaos in Champ Week, the Mountain West is the league you want to watch. The league is in line to send up to six teams to the NCAA Tournament, a group that doesn't even include No. 4 seed UNLV, which is hosting the tournament and will have home-court advantage in their games.

Anyone is capable of winning this thing, so picking a winner in the Mountain West is truly a roll of the dice. The path that Boise State has is solid, as they could open with a New Mexico team they swept during the regular season before taking on either Nevada or Colorado State, and they're the choice here.

Prediction: Boise State