Official Championship Bracket
Final Point Rating System (PRS)
INDIANAPOLIS – The eight playoff qualifiers for the 2021 Great Midwest Athletic Conference Men's Basketball Championship tournament were officially unveiled on Sunday as the regular season came to a close.
The bracket includes four quarterfinal matchups at the higher seeds on Tuesday, March 2, while the final four including semifinals and championship final will be played Friday and Saturday at the highest remaining seed.
A number of scenarios could have unfolded as Walsh and Lake Erie battled it out in Painesville earlier in the afternoon to settle the Point Rating System (PRS) totals. The top eight seeds from the calculated formula comprised the conference tournament bracket.
The winner will receive an AQ into the NCAA Championship Atlantic Regional with the selection show for the reduced field of 48 to be conducted late next Sunday night.
The 2021 Great Midwest Men's Basketball All-Conference Team with individual award winners will be announced later on Thursday afternoon with no championship banquet being conducted this year.
Great Midwest regular season champion and No. 9 nationally ranked Hillsdale locked in the top overall seed and will host No. 8 seed Trevecca Nazarene with a 7 p.m. ET tip from Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena.
The Chargers roll into the playoffs with a 19-1 record and winners of 16 straight. Hillsdale was also the No. 1 seed in the 2020 tournament, but exited much earlier than the program would have preferred in the opening round. This will be the first conference tournament appearance for the Trojans (5-16, 5-14) since the 2016-17 campaign and also represents the first one for head coach Omar Mance.
In the same side of the bracket, it will be rivalry renewed between No. 4 seed Malone and No. 5 seed Walsh from Canton with a 6 p.m. start time slated. The Pioneers (14-6, 13-6) have edged out the Cavaliers (11-8, 11-8) in a pair of two-point finishes and everyone knows the cliché saying of how hard it is to beat a team, regardless of sport, three times in a single season. Walsh is still the defending back-to-back conference tournament champion until someone proves otherwise. The Cavaliers have completed tournament title runs as the No. 3 and No. 2 seeds.
Moving to other half of the bracket, No. 2 seed Findlay has an opening round draw against No. 7 Ohio Valley. The Oilers are nationally ranked and among three teams in the Atlantic Region rankings 'under consideration.' Findlay is looking to exorcise its unspoken conference playoff demons despite incredible success in the NCAA Championship Midwest Regional with at-large selections.
The Fighting Scots (4-14, 4-14) ended a four-year absence from the conference tournament after last qualifying back in 2016. OVU has a group of hungry, experienced veterans and closed out the regular season with win on the road at championship-qualifying TNU.
The final quarterfinal matchup is an intriguing one with No. 3 Kentucky Wesleyan (10-5, 9-5) playing host to No. 3 seed Cedarville (10-8, 10-8). These two teams had their regular season matchups washed out due to COVID protocol and it's very difficult to speculate what might go down on Tuesday night at the Owensboro Sportscenter. Still, these are two of the most successful programs in league history and despite suffering losses to enter the postseason, are eager for a fresh slate in the first round. This game will have a 7:45 pm CT (local time) start.