(fake) Tournament excitement!

Not long ago, on the old site (I think), I postulated that the time was coming for a new conference in the upper Midwest. I thought that the emergence of 4 fairly capable teams in the Dakotas,as well as the relative size of a few other schools in the northern Plains, made it possible for a regional conference to emerge in the area. Of course, part of this was simply the odd fact that North Dakota was in the Big Sky, while the other three schools were n the Summit. North Dakota has plans too move into the Summit in two years, but frankly, I think a more local conference is still in the best interest for all teams in consideration.
First, the lynchpin. I've long advocated for the move of a Minnesota school to Division 1, if only for basketball. After St. Cloud, UMD and Minnesota State have all balked at making the move despite their conference rivals in the Dakotas and at Omaha making the transition, it has become clear for me that it would have to be a smaller school taking the bold move of entering the world of Division 1 basketball. At 10,500 students, the next largest institution is St. Thomas, which is comfortably larger than places like Wake Forest, in the ACC.
So we will add St. Thomas and North Dakota to the Summit, and work at making it more geographically sound, and getting the membership at a tight 12 members. The first thing to do is swap out the two schools in Indiana, IUPUI and IUPFW, trading them into the Horizon League and acquiring Green Bay and Milwaukee. Oral Roberts is the furthest away, in Oklahoma. They can move to the more regionally appropriate Southland conference, which they have tried to join before, and would again if there isn't a better northern option for the school. There are two Iowa schools that fit in with what we are trying to do, in that they are not major conference members, but are local, generally basketball focused schools. Northern Iowa and Drake would be good additions to our new Upper Midwest conference.
That's 9 schools accounted for. Omaha is an obvious choice to include in this conference, bringing us to 10. The easy choice is then to keep Western Illinois and Denver and make no additional changes. That said, I am trying to make the best choices for all teams across college basketball. I look at Denver and realize that there aren't many other schools out there. There is Colorado, which is the Pac 12, and Air Force and Colorado State in the Mountain West. Denver isn't big enough for either conference. The other school is Northern Colorado, in the Big Sky. Like North Dakota, they are far removed from the other Big Sky teams, and having a travel buddy in Denver would be a boon for the small school. Western Illinois has a glut of options, and would likely welcome a move to the Ohio Valley Conference.
To Recap, the new Upper Midwest Conference would be, alphabetically:
Denver
Drake
Green Bay
Milwaukee
North Dakota
North Dakota State
Northern Colorado
Northern Iowa
Omaha
Saint Thomas
South Dakota
South Dakota State
Sounds good, right? I like it. Let's get to the fun part that recently crossed my mind. This conference would need an automatic bid, so which school would earn that bid in 2017? First, I looked at the regular season RPIs of the teams in our new conference, to determine how they "finish" in the regular season, before being seeded in the conference tournament. I took the average number and assigned that to St. Thomas.
The finish:
North Dakota State
South Dakota
Omaha
Green Bay
Northern Iowa
North Dakota
South Dakota State
Saint Thomas
Denver
Northern Colorado
Milwaukee
Drake
I think there would be a logical expectation that the teams from outside the original Summit League would be strongest, but instead, it was three Summit League teams that finished at the top of the heap. The tournament would be:
Saint Thomas v Denver, winner v North Dakota State
Northern Iowa v Drake, winner v Green Bay
South Dakota State v Northern Colorado, winner v Omaha
North Dakota v Milwaukee, winner v South Dakota
The next step, as is usually the case, was to simulate the tournament. To do so, I used a random method for Saint Thomas, and used WhatifSports for all other games. In the first round, Denver knocked off St. Thomas, Drake upset Northern Iowa 83-69, South Dakota State beat Northern Colorado 72-61 and Milwaukee, just like in the Horizon this year, pulled an upset, but this time they beat North Dakota 83-70.
The second round had fewer surprises. North Dakota State topped Denver 67-56, Green Bay walloped Drake 74-58, and South Dakota crushed Milwaukee to end their run, 65-45. The only upset, and the tightest game of the entire tournament, involved South Dakota State topping Omaha by 2, 81-79, to mirror the Summit League title game.
The semifinals didn't go as planned, with both games registering as mild upsets. Green Bay topped North Dakota State 73-67 and South Dakota State beat their in-state rival by 10, 76-66. It was the Phoenix that ultimately earned the berth in the Big Dance of my dreams, with a 84-79 win against the Jackrabbits of South Dakota State.
This year, North Dakota and SDSU actually did end up with tournament berths, a 15 and 16 seed respectively. With smaller conferences, the Committee leans especially hard on RPI, Green Bay was higher than both of the schools that made it this year, so at the very least, they would be a 15, I would imagine, perhaps even a 14.
Here's hoping we can have a local conference sometime soon. The first step will be a Minnesota school finally having the courage to make the jump up to D1.