In Buffalo, opposing power forwards Doug McDermott (Creighton) and Jacob Parker (Stephen F. Austin) both led their teams in scoring as the 3-seed Big East barely survived a challenge from the 30-seed Southland 70-68. Despite the low rating for the conference, Stephen F. Austin ranks as the 86th best team in the country at www.kenpom.com behind the trio of Parker, Jabari Peters and Thomas Walkup. The Big East will travel to New York to play the 14-seed MAC, which beat the Big West 74-66 behind Eastern Michigan center Glenn Bryant allowing his counterpart Christian Standhardinger of Hawaii only four points.

In the mock tournament, all 32 conferences were seeded based on their ratings at www.kenpom.com, and then sent to their likely 2014 tournament sites. The top 10 players to date from each conference were pitted against their counterpart using the Value Add Predictor  to determine how many points each player would score against his counterpart, with the winning team advancing. All players can be looked up at www.valueaddbasketball.com. The following are the box scores for both games: 

table.tableizer-table { border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif font-size: 12px; } .tableizer-table td { padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc; } .tableizer-table th { background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold; }

All-Star (1st 5 starters) BE 70 Position All-Star (1st 5 starters) Slnd 68
Alex Barlow Butler 6 PG Jalan West Northwestern St. 9
D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera Georgetown 10 SG Jabari Peters Sam Houston St. 8
Darrun Hilliard Villanova 7 SF Nikola Gajic Stephen F. Austin 7
Doug McDermott Creighton 11 PF Jacob Parker Stephen F. Austin 13
Matt Stainbrook Xavier 9 C Shawn Glover Oral Roberts 5
Devin Brooks Creighton 4 PG-bu Johnathan Jordan Texas A&M Corpus Christi 3
D’Angelo Harrison St. John’s 6 SG-bu Obi Emegano Oral Roberts 5
Bryce Cotton Providence 6 SF-bu Thomas Walkup Stephen F. Austin 5
LaDontae Henton Providence 5 PF-bu Dantrell Thomas Nicholls St. 4
James Farr Xavier 6 C-bu Matt Derenbecker New Orleans 9

table.tableizer-table { border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif font-size: 12px; } .tableizer-table td { padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc; } .tableizer-table th { background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold; }

All-Star (1st 5 starters) MAC 74 Position All-Star (1st 5 starters) BW 66
Rian Pearson Toledo 12 PG Kyle Boswell UC Santa Barbara 11
Javon McCrea Buffalo 7 SG David Nwaba Cal Poly 7
Karrington Ward Eastern Michigan 11 SF Stephan Hicks Cal St. Northridge 9
Richaun Holmes Bowling Green 8 PF Alan Williams UC Santa Barbara 9
Glenn Bryant Eastern Michigan 9 C Christian Standhardinger Hawaii 4
Chris Fowler Central Michigan 5 PG-bu Michael Caffey Long Beach St. 4
Nick Kellogg Ohio 8 SG-bu Garrett Nevels Hawaii 7
Jon Smith Ohio 4 SF-bu Chris Eversley Cal Poly 3
Demetrius Treadwell Akron 4 PF-bu Dan Jennings Long Beach St. 3
Maurice Ndour Ohio 6 C-bu Josh Ritchart UC Davis 9