Big Sky tournament looks wide open

RENO, Nevada – No, the Sky isn’t falling, but it’s not very buoyant these days.

This week’s Big Sky Conference tournament promises to be a wide-open affair, partly because no team has managed to distance itself from the pack.

In fact, the opposite happened last weekend, when front-runners North Dakota and Eastern Washington both dropped key games in the chase for the regular-season title.

The Eagles laid the biggest egg in a 15-point loss at Northern Arizona, which ranks 336th out of 351 teams in the Rating Percentage Index.

NAU packed the paint to stop Jacob Wiley, giving Eastern wide-open shots from the outside, but the Eagles couldn’t connect.

“This has made us hungry,” said Hayford, whose club has practiced in Phoenix since Saturday. The Eagles will fly into Reno on Tuesday.

However, it probably cost Eastern (21-10 overall) a seeding spot, should it win the conference tournament which begins Tuesday at the Reno Events Center.

Going into the tournament, second-seeded Eastern is the top RPI team in the conference at 146. That might be good enough for a 15 seed, but most bracketologists have the Big Sky champ as a 16 seed, possibly playing in the First Four in Dayton, Ohio.

Among the other top teams, North Dakota is 177th in RPI, Weber State is 197th and Idaho is 216th.

“It’s wide-open,” said EWU coach Jim Hayford, who cited some of those same numbers. “I think every game is coming down to the wire, and a lot of it is going to be matchups.”

These are tough times for many mid-majors, especially in the Big Sky. Going into tournament week, the conference ranks only 28th out 32 conferences.

That much hasn’t changed – the Sky hasn’t ranked above 24th since 2010 – however, it’s been nine years since a Big Sky champ has been relegated to a 16 seed.

With a few exceptions, the conference has struggled recently, both in nonconference games and in the tournament.

EWU fans could blame Montana, which fielded a pair of 13-seeded teams earlier this decade. However, the Grizzlies 2012 team fell to No. 4 Wisconsin by 24 points. A year later, the Griz were massacred 81-34 by Syracuse in the biggest loss ever by a 13 seed.

A year later, 14th-seeded Weber State gave a good accounting against Arizona, falling 68-59; and in 2015 the 13th-seeded Eagles lost by a respectable 84-74 count to Georgetown.

Of course, every year is its own, but big nonconference wins – like Eastern’s stunner over Indiana two years ago – have been nonexistent this year.

The league’s marquee win this year was North Dakota beating CSU-Bakersfield (84th in RPI) in December. EWU’s best win is over San Francisco (96th in RPI).

As recently as 2010, the league ranked 18th in RPI. The reward was a 14 seed for Montana, which barely lost to third-seeded New Mexico, 62-57.