Summit League Tournament Preview

SUMMIT LEAGUE (ranked 19^th by kenpom)

March 5-8

Hosted by: Sioux Falls Arena in, Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Sponsored by: Our second subtitle! “The Summit League at the Falls.” Not as exciting as the OVC tournament. But, go to the website. The place looks really nice. I think this thing is actually sponsored by the Sioux Falls Sports Authority.

Tickets: $99 for all 14 games. Good deal. Take everyone to Mount Rushmore inbetween.

The Bracket:

As was the case with the Northeast Conference, only 8 of the 10 teams are invited to Sioux Falls. Unfortuntaely, Western Illinois and Centenary will not be joining the rest of the teams. Quick sidenote: Centenary avoided infamy by beating Western Illinois on Thursday. Prior to that, they were 0-28. They finished 1-29. Kenpom has them ranked as the third worst team in the nation, ahead of Chicago State and Southern (not to be confused with the conference. Southern is, ironically, in the Southwestern Athletic Conference).

Saturday March 5: #1 Oakland v. #8 Southern Utah

#2 Oral Roberts v. #7 North Dakota State

Sunday March 6: #3 IUPUI v. #6 Missouri – Kansas City

#4 IP-Fort Wayne v. South Dakota State

Monday March 7: Semis

Tuesday March 8: Finals (ESPN2)

Why they split up the quarterfinals into two days? I have no idea.

The Favorite: Oakland. They ran threw the Summit League, losing only once @ IUPUI (that’s Indianapolis University – Purdue University in Indianapolis. The abbreviation is pronounced oo-e-poo-e). Oakland is battle tested, however, as they played West Virginia, Purdue, Illinois, Michigan State, Michigan, and Ohio State in the non conference. Pretty brutal. They didn’t beat any of them, but lost to MSU by 1, and Illinois by 11. They did, however, beat Tennessee. A first round upset isn’t out of the question.

Trivia: We don’t have to look hard to find the memorable moments that the Summit league has produced. Their website offers a “Memorable Moments” slideshow. Several upsets: Cleveland State over Indiana in 1986, Missouri State over Clemson in 1987, Northern Iowa over Missouri in 1990, Green Bay over California in 1994, Valpo over Mississippi in 1997, and Oral Roberts over Kansas in the regular season in 2006. Wow! What a history. Only problem is that only one of those teams still plays in the Summit. That’s Oral Roberts. Many of the teams relocated to the Horizon in the mid 90s, and others to the Valley and others to the OVC. You need to be a rocket scientist to understand the history of all this, but you can look at it here: if you want. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Summit_League

No current teams have won a game in the tournament, as a team in the Summit, if that makes sense. Oral Roberts lost to Kansas in 1974 in the Elite Eight 93-90 in OT. This has been dubbed “the most important basketball game ever played in Tulsa.” That must be some list.