2025 conference tournament previews, part 3 of 4
All Saturday, March 15 championship games included
Hello! If you missed the first two editions of these previews, some of which are now out of date, go here to read them.
Thank you again to Heat Check CBB for the below infographic, the very best I am aware of as it pertains to keeping track of the madness of Championship Weeks 1 and 2. See below:
Here at the newsletter, I have a bit of a tradition. I break down all 31 conference tournaments, with each of the following included:
KenPom conference ranking
Favorites (30% or higher to win)
Darkhorses (10% or higher)
Best team overall, in non-conference, and in conference play
The average analytics ‘seed’ (aka, where they ranked in the regular season) of the winner
Number of times the non-best team won the conference tournament
Tournament analysis (who’s hot, who’s not, if previous matchups may matter, etc.)
Best pick for March Madness
Winner prediction, as provided by RANDOM.ORG
And a watchability rating out of 10!
It’s a lot to digest, but it’s so much fun to do every year. As is standard this year, the first conference covered will be free for all to read, but the remainder will be behind a paywall. As it stands, it’s $20 for a year of the newsletter, which I think is a steal when there will be 30+ articles on here in the month of March.
This edition covers every single championship decided on Saturday, March 15. The first (America East) is free; all others are paid.
America East
Championship game: March 15 (Saturday) on ESPN2, 11 AM ET
KenPom conference ranking: 26th of 31
Favorites: Bryant (55.5%)
Darkhorses: Vermont (27.5%), Maine (9.2%)
Best team…
Overall: Bryant
Non-conference: UMass Lowell
Conference: Bryant
Average analytics ‘seed’ of winner, 2012-present: 2.0
Number of times the non-#1 team won the conference (out of 12 possible), 2012-present: 6
We join this one already in progress, but without much in the way of meaningful changes. All of the top four seeds won their quarterfinals yesterday, which means that 1) no reseeding has to happen 2) an actual decent team will win the league. Hopefully.
The best team all year has been Bryant, who was a little lesser than UMass Lowell (a team our friend Tanner McGrath describes as “openly hating each other”) in non-con but the clear best option once January came around. Bryant is a Shot Volume specialist: they don’t really shoot well and were actually below the conference average in 3PT%, but they were #1 by significant distances in both TO% and OREB%. It was actually a very Vermont-like run to the title, in that they had the league’s best offense and defense.
After an atrocious non-conference run, Vermont did figure it out enough to not only go 13-3 in conference play, but to run their win streak over third-place Maine to 30 straight games. Maine has to run a thin line to offensive success: they don’t get to the line often, they’re average at 2PT%, and they don’t rebound. So they merely hit 39.4% of threes in conference play to go 10-6 (33.2% otherwise).
Vermont, meanwhile, simply isn’t themselves. I wouldn’t call them terrible, but at 293rd, they’ve got easily their worst offense of the John Becker era. The upside: the defense remains its usual solid self, excellent at suppressing fouls and offensive rebounds. They swept Maine and went 1-1 against Bryant, which makes them an intriguing sleeper here. Albany also plays in this conference and went 1-1 against both Bryant and Maine, but they were outscored in conference play and have the worst defense remaining by some distance.
Best pick for March Madness: By a large margin it’s Bryant for the sole reason that they have the capability to be a shot volume monster offensively. (They’re also fine on defense.) It’s worth noting that two of their top 15 comps are 2011-12 Norfolk State and 2014-15 UAB, but almost more important is 2008-09 ETSU being on there. No one remembers that team, but they trailed 1-seed Pitt by all of four points with two minutes to go. One other aspect here of note: they run everything off the line and allow a ton of drives to the rim, yet they block a lot of shots. I don’t know! More interesting than the average 15/16.
The winner is… Stupid simulator. Vermont over Bryant in the final.
Watchability rating: 4/10. It’s not what it once was.