Are Conference Tournaments Getting Chalkier?

Image: Duquesne Athletics

The greatest stretch of the American sports calendar began on Monday, as the Horizon League play-in game tipped off the 2025-26 NCAA Men’s Basketball Postseason. In an era of drastic change throughout college athletics, conference tournaments remain fantastic showcases of basketball both at the high-major and mid-major levels. However, as power continues to drift upward throughout the sport, are conference tournaments at risk of becoming full of one-dog races? 

I took a look at conference tournament results across all 32 leagues over the past five seasons to see how success may have drifted towards the top.

My Methodology

Overall, this is a fairly casual glance at how different seeds perform in conference tournaments. For each conference (yes, including the Pac-12), I logged the winner of each year’s tournament by seed from 2021 to 2025. While a short span, the 2020-21 season marks the beginning of a specific new era of college sports defined by conference realignment, NIL, and a growing chasm between the haves and have-nots.

For conferences that used divisions in their seeding, I logged the champion based on where their conference record sat overall within the league. For example, North Texas was the 3rd seed out of the West Division in the 2021 C-USA Tournament. I logged them as the 5th overall seed. I then calculated the average seed number that won a conference over that five-year period, the average seed number that won all conferences in a given year, and the average number of all seeds that won any conference tournament over the five-year period.

I also calculated how many different programs won a given conference title in the observed period of time. For example, Duke won the ACC tournament twice in this period as both the 4th seed and the 1st seed. Is there more parity in that conference because multiple seeds have won the tournament, or are the same teams dialing it up come tourney-time every year?

Finally, I also calculated the percentage of conference tournament champions across Division I that were a top-2 seed. This was mainly to double check if any low-seeded teams were throwing off the average in a given year (*cough cough* NC State cough cough). 

Oh, one more thing. Since we are still a few months away from the rebirth of the Pac-12 and the ensuing debate on its major status within college sports, I will be referring to the pre-2025 iteration of the conference as a high major. It’s probably unnecessary to lay that out, but good sports science requires over-explanation!

My Findings

Unsurprisingly, conference tournaments since 2021 have generally favored teams seeded within the top 2. Across Division I, conference champions by average seed over the last five years are as follows:

2021: 2.9

2022: 2.3

2023: 2

2024: 2.9

2025: 1.9

5-year average: 2.4

5-year mean: 2.1

In general, the average tournament champion’s seed has drifted slowly from just within the top 3 to just within the top 2, with 2024 being the major outlier. NC State, who won the 2024 ACC Tournament as the 10-seed, were my primary suspects for this sudden dip, but a broader look at that year shows a general spike in upsets all-around. Out of 31 possible tournaments, 11 saw the 1-seed win it all, tied with 2021 as the lowest mark of this 5-year span.

When looking at individual conferences, the Patriot League and WCC were the chalkiest conferences, with an average champion seed of 1.4 over the last 5 years. Only two teams in each league lifted the trophy during this period as well. In the Patriot League, American prevented a Colgate 5-peat en route to the title, while Gonzaga hoisted their 4th title in 5 years last season over 2024 champs Saint Mary’s.

The two most “open” tournaments by this metric are the ACC and the MAAC, with average champion seeds of 5.2 and 4.6, respectively. Once again, NC State is a bit of an outlier here, but overall, last year’s Duke squad is the only 1-seed to win the ACC tourney over the past 5 seasons. The Blue Devils also won in 2023 as the 4-seed.

Outside of those four leagues, every other conference falls into the 1.5-4.0 range of average champion seeds. In the timeframe measured, no conference has seen the 1-seed win 5 years in a row.  

Some More Conference Tournament Quirks

• 4 of the 6 high-majors (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, PAC-12) had an average champion seed of over 2.0.

• The Sun Belt is the only conference without a 1-seed champion since 2021

• 7 conferences have had a different winner every year since 2021 (ASUN, Big East, C-USA, Horizon, NEC, SoCon, Sun Belt)

Conclusion

Will the 2020s be defined by the slow death of conference parity? By my metrics, maybe. In reality, it’s way too early to say. 

By extrapolating the rate of increase for 1-seed champs from 2021 to 2025, and assuming that there will be 32 D-I conferences from the 2026-27 season until the end of time, we can expect all 32 conference tournaments to be won by their respective 1-seed in the year 2036. 

Of course, years like 2024 are bound to happen again, and considering things like further conference realignment and shifting tournament formats, top-seed success could nosedive just as quickly as it's taken off. Is one extreme better than the other? Again, I really can't say. As fun as NC State's run was in 2024, Drake's upset over Indiana State in the 2024 MVC Championship led to one of the most controversial NCAA Tournament snubs in recent memory. As long as these tournaments guarantee exciting basketball and quality bids to the big dance, the little numbers next to each school's name won't keep me up at night.

Raw Conference Data 

Conference	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	Average	Unique Program Ws
ACC	4	7	4	10	1	5.2	4
America East	4	1	1	1	1	1.6	3
American	2	1	2	4	1	2	3
ASUN	1	3	1	2	1	1.6	5
Atlantic 10	1	6	1	6	1	3	4
Big 12	3	1	2	2	1	1.8	4
Big East	8	2	1	1	1	2.6	5
Big Sky	2	1	2	5	2	2.4	3
Big South	1	1	1	5	1	1.8	4
Big Ten	2	5	1	2	3	2.6	4
Big West	1	2	2	4	1	2	4
C-USA	5	2	1	3	1	2.4	5
CAA	6	5	2	1	2	3.2	4
Horizon	1	4	4	1	1	2.2	5
Ivy	N/A	2	2	2	1	1.75	2
MAAC	9	2	1	5	6	4.6	3
MAC	5	4	2	2	1	2.8	3
MEAC	2	1	1	4	1	1.8	2
Mountain West	1	1	1	6	2	2.2	4
MVC	1	4	2	2	1	2	2
NEC	4	1	1	6	3	3	5
OVC	2	1	5	3	2	2.6	4
Pac-12	5	1	2	4	N/A	3	3
Patriot	2	1	1	1	2	1.4	2
SEC	1	2	1	4	2	2	4
Southern	1	1	1	1	6	2	5
Southland	2	4	1	1	1	1.8	3
Summit	4	1	1	1	1	1.6	3
Sun Belt	7	3	2	2	3	3.4	5
SWAC	3	2	8	1	5	3.8	4
WAC	1	1	5	1	2	2	2
WCC	1	1	2	1	2	1.4	2