The CollegeInsider.com Tournament began with 3 MAC teams among 24 entrants. Half the field was cut, but the MAC remained pristine. Buffalo beat Quinnipiac, OHIO escaped Marshall and Western Michigan outlasted Tennessee Tech.
Here's where the voodoo seeding comes into play. Perhaps because they beat one of the strongest teams in the field, OHIO advances directly to the quarterfinals. (Maybe the CIT is like Chutes and Ladders.) But WMU and Buffalo were pooled into the second round, which is made up of eight teams.
Hey, Buffalo and Kalamazoo are kind of near each other. Hence, that's your matchup. MAC on MAC violence is upon us. Buffalo will play at WMU on Saturday.
Downside: Obviously, there's no chance that three-eighths of the field will be full of MAC attitude.
Upside: The quarterfinals will be one-quarter MAC.
This means that whichever team advances to the QF round? Well, they might play OHIO. The rest of the teams, territorially: East Tennessee State, Jacksonville, Northern Iowa, Air Force (Colorado), Santa Clara (California), Hawai'i, Iona (NYC), SMU (Texas), and San Francisco.
You could see WMU play UNI and Buffalo would likely get Iona, but who's to tell what the centrifuge will spit out. Perhaps Ball State will be placed in the Euroleague and face the Vancouver Grizzlies.
Elsewhere: Miami was just out of ethanol in their 17-point loss to Rhode Island, as exemplified by the fact that nobody played more than 33 minutes. The Rams hit shots, passed the ball around, and just wore down the RedHawks, who kept slipping further and further away. Their season ends at 16-17, which looks bad but they just tried to bite too much off their schedule. Next year: smaller bites, please.
In the WNIT, the Toledo Lady Rockets topped Delaware 58-55 after a slight comeback was necessary. UT was down eight points in the final four minutes, mostly because of Blue Hen forward Elena Delle Donne, who was my favorite Gilda Radner character on SNL. Delle Donne finished with 31 points, 20 in the second half, but UT sparked a mini-comeback to prevail. UT will host the winner of tomorrow's Tennessee Tech-Auburn winner on Saturday.
Buffalo's women were also postseasoning it up, but they fell to Wright State 82-79 in the WBI. The score is misleading; the Raiders had a huge lead (15 points with 4:36 to play) and while the Bulls did all they could to get back in it, they never had a realistic chance of tying or taking the lead. C'est la vie.