Northeast Conference NCAA Tournament Betting

Northeast Conference NCAA Tournament Betting

Only three teams in the recently expanded Northeast Conference finished the regular season with a winning record. This is the third-worst conference in the country according to Ken Pomeroy, so there’s a good chance that the conference tournament winner will either be playing in Dayton or be a No. 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Bryant and Wagner are seen as the two teams to beat in the conference this year. The Bryant Bulldogs are the No. 1 seed entering the NEC Tournament after finishing the regular season 15-2 against conference foes, and they won 13 of their final 14 games to close out the year. Their only two losses were on the road against Wagner and Long Island, and they bested the Seahawks in their season finale on Saturday to claim the regular season conference title. They were run off the court by the four top 125 teams they played according to Ken Pomeroy though, and they lost 111-44 to Houston. Their only win over a top 200 team all year was against Wagner, and their next best victory came over 13-15 Brown.

The Bulldogs are led by their guards, and Peter Kiss is averaging 25.1 PPG despite hitting just 28.3% of his threes this season. Most of the offense runs through him, so he has a very high usage rate while averaging 3.2 APG and 4.2 turnovers per game. Charles Pride and Adham Eleeda are the other players scoring in double digits for Bryant, but neither guard is hitting over 35% of their threes. As a team, the Bulldogs are making just 30.9% of their treys, so they could certainly be knocked off in the conference tournament.

Wagner has been more impressive than Bryant this season. The Seahawks went 19-5 in the regular season, and they scored a big win over VCU. They won 14 straight games at one point, but they stumbled down the stretch with losses in three of their last five games to let a regular season conference title slip through their grasp. Two of those three defeats were in overtime as poor three-point shooting doomed this team.

The Seahawks were abysmal from beyond the arc this season, making just 27.3% of their threes. However, reigning NEC Player of the Year Alex Morales has been the top player in the conference once again this season. Morales leads Wagner in points (18.5 PPG), rebounds (7.8 RPG), assists (3.7 APG), and steals (1.9 APG) while also hitting 51% of his field goals and nearly 37% of his threes. Raekwon Rogers has been solid on the boards too, but this team has really missed Elijah Ford as a secondary scorer.

That could pave the way for Long Island to win the conference tournament despite finishing the regular season 15-13. Ty Flowers and Eral Penn are two of the top five players in the conference per Ken Pomeroy, and they play at a high tempo that can catch their opponents off guard.

Northeast Tournament Format

Nine of the ten teams in the NEC will take part in this year’s conference tournament. Merrimack is ineligible for two more years after transitioning from Division II, so there will be a play-in game between the No. 8 seed Fairleigh Dickinson and No. 9 seed Central Connecticut State for the right to play regular season conference champion Bryant.

Every game of the NEC Tournament is held on campus at the site of the lower seeds. The quarterfinals will take place on March 2 at 7 p.m. ET, and the teams will be reseeded before the semifinals start on March 5. The NEC Championship Game will take place on March 8 with the winner grabbing one of the first spots in the NCAA Tournament.

Most Wins All-Time in Northeast Tournament

The NEC has undergone a lot of change over the years, and it's really all thanks to the Metro Atlantic. This conference first pilfered Marist, Rider and Loyola Maryland, then when a couple teams left for other conferences, it came back and grabbed Monmouth and Quinnipiac.

Robert Morris became the most recent team to leave the conference. The Colonials left to join the Horizon League after they won the 2020 tournament, but they have not had much success in their new home.

Fairleigh Dickinson has six total Northeast Conference titles with wins in every decade since the tournament debuted in 1982. FDU, LIU Brooklyn, and Mount St. Mary’s have the second most titles in NEC Tournament history with six apiece.

St. Francis (PA) had a rough last half of the decade in this tournament. The Red Flash made it to the Northeast Conference Championship Game in 2017, 2019, and 2020, but they couldn’t win any of those three games to make just their second trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Still, St. Francis (PA) has one more NCAA Tournament appearance than St. Francis (NY). The Terriers have been to the conference championship game three times too, and they came up short in 2001, 2003, and 2015.

Northeast Tournament Championship Games

NCAA Basketball Conferences

• America East
• American Athletic
• Atlantic 10
• Atlantic Coast
• Atlantic Sun
• Big 12
• Big East
• Big Sky
• Big South
• Big Ten
• Big West
• Colonial Athletic Association
• Conference USA
• Horizon League
• Ivy League
• Metro Atlantic Athletic
• Mid-American
• Mid-Eastern Athletic
• Missouri Valley
• Mountain West
• Northeast
• Ohio Valley
• Pac-12
• Patriot League
• Southeastern
• Southern
• Southland
• Southwestern Athletic
• Summit League
• Sun Belt
• West Coast
• Western Athletic

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