Monitoring the Mid-Majors - Introduction

While the Terps travel to Virginia to take on the Cavaliers in their final regular season game of this season on Saturday, there are many college teams taking the hardwood in conference tournaments this weekend.

Many of those tournaments are considered minor in comparison to the more-popularized conferences - the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten.

So what makes a mid-major team you ask? While it is not an official term, "mid-major" was first coined by the media and has taken off since then. The term does not usually refer to the conferences I mentioned above along with the Pacific 10 and Southeastern Conference.

That means were talking about the A-10s, Horizon Leagues and Missouri Valley Conferences. This year seems to be an abnormally as the ACC and Pac-10 are having perceived down years, which opens up the gates for the smaller schools to receive attention. So far this season, we've seen BYU and New Mexico ranked among the top 10 in the country, while teams like Northern Iowa, Richmond and UTEP. Just two weeks ago there was only one ACC school ranked in the top 25 for the first time in 30 years. But that's what makes college basketball great - almost any school can take down one of the premier ones.

So what should you watch this weekend while trying to fill out your brackets with at-large bids and possibilities for bubble teams? Here is a list of the tournaments to keep a watch on this weekend.

American East - March 6, 7, 13
Atlantic Sun - March 3-6
Big Sky - March 6, 9, 10
Big South - March 2, 4, 6
Colonial - March 5-8
Horizon League - March 2, 5, 6, 9
Metro Atlantic - March 5-8
Missouri Valley - March 4-7
Northeast - March 4, 7, 10
Ohio Valley - March 2, 5, 6
Patriot - March 3, 7, 12
Southern - March 5-8
Summit - March 6-9
Sun Belt - March 6-9
West Coast - March 5-8

Remember that the winner of each of these tournaments receive an automatic bid to the 65-team NCAA Tournament. Almost all of the teams that will need to win in order to get a bid as their resumes are not enough for an at-large. But there are a select few that would receive at-large bids. They include: Butler, Gonzaga, UTEP, Northern Iowa, Richmond, BYU and New Mexico. If you're rooting for a bubble team, you should familiarize yourselves with them aforementioned teams.