2026 Men’s College Basketball Conference Tournament Final Predictions

Southland (5 p.m. ET, Wednesday, ESPN2)—McNeese Cowboys. Stephen F. Austin won the league. However, McNeese is the better team as far as the predictive metrics are concerned, and the Cowboys will have home-court advantage, where they virtually never lose in recent years.

Big Sky (11:30 p.m. ET, Wednesday, ESPN2)—Northern Colorado Bears. After starting out 11-1, No. 1 seed Portland State lost four of its final six regular season games. Meanwhile, after starting out 1-7 in league play, Northern Colorado won nine of its final 10. Ride the momentum.

MEAC (1 p.m. ET, Saturday, ESPN2)—Howard Bison. Howard is sitting around 200th on KenPom, which would be bad news in most conferences. In the MEAC, though, that makes this No. 1 seed the heavy favorite. Getting a bye straight to the semifinals doesn’t hurt, either.

SWAC (7:30 p.m. ET, Saturday, ESPNU)—Bethune Cookman Wildcats. My previous pick here was Jackson State, but the Tigers’ phenomenal lead guard, Daeshun Ruffin suffered a lower leg injury in the regular season finale and his availability for this tournament is unknown at this time. So let’s pivot to picking BCU, which won the league by a three-game margin.

Conference USA (8:30 p.m. ET, Saturday, CBS Sports)—Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. Another pivot from our early picks, as Liberty’s ship has been taking on water for weeks, dropping three of its final five games and struggling in the other two. At this point, a little chaos could be in order. And we’ll now take the Hilltoppers, who went on the road and drilled Liberty by 21 a few weeks ago.

Big West (10 p.m. ET, Saturday, ESPN2)—UC Irvine Anteaters. UCI is nowhere near as good as it was last season, but it still has an incredibly stingy defense anchored by shot-blocking big man Kyle Evans. Should be able to win a pair of low-scoring affairs to secure this bid.

Western Athletic (midnight ET, Saturday, ESPN2)—Cal Baptist Lancers. Utah Valley sued the league to renew its eligibility for this tournament, but that doesn’t mean UVU will win it. CBU and Dominique Daniels Jr. will be a problem.

Ivy League (noon ET, Sunday, ESPN2)—Cornell Big Red. Yale really should win this four-team tournament, but it’ll be No. 4 seed Cornell with home-court advantage in Ithaca, where the Big Red knocked off Yale less than two weeks ago while winning eight of its final 11 games.

American (3:15 p.m. ET, Sunday, ESPN)—South Florida Bulls. It still doesn’t feel right that the AAC has no realistic hope for multiple bids. But if No. 1 seed South Florida wins this thing, it will be the No. 12 seed that nobody wants to draw. The Bulls haven’t lost since January, and all three of their losses since Christmas were decided either by one point or in double overtime.