The Time SMU Won a Conference They Weren't In
A Short History of Midseason Conference Tournaments
Unless you’re at least twice my age,1 you’re almost exclusively familiar with conference tournaments as a postseason, early March affair. As I briefly detailed on Monday, modern conference tournaments largely sprung up in the decade following the NCAA’s 1975 ruling that more than one team from each conference could be selected to the NCAA Tournament. Before then, there were relatively few conference tournaments, and those that existed usually served not to send a team to the Field of 68, but to decide bragging rights for the year to come. Most of these were still held after the regular season, but – with nothing greater than themselves to play for – two conferences2 asked, “why wait?” The result: midseason conference tournaments!
If you follow college basketball closely,3 you’re aware that the Southland Conference held a midseason conference tournament this season. This is unlikely to become a regular occurrence, as the conference threw it together on a whim under extenuating circumstances.4 It was pretty sad for them, but for us fans it resulted in – as far as I can tell – the first midseason conference tournament since December 1978. That was the last time the Big Eight held their annual holiday tournament,5 which dated back to December 1946.
Of course, the Big Eight wasn’t always the Big Eight; they had just seven members before Oklahoma State joined in 1958 and just six members before Colorado joined in 1947, and because conferences used to actually care about the number in their name being correct, they were known as the Big Seven and Big Six in these respective periods.6 But the conference had always had an eight-team bracket in mind for the holiday tournament, so they invited one non-member team to each tournament while they were the Big Seven and two non-member teams to the inaugural tournament, during which they were still the Big Six.
The two non-member teams invited to this inaugural edition of the Big Six Holiday Tournament were Arkansas and SMU, both from the Southwest Conference. Arkansas defeated Nebraska in the quarterfinals before losing to Kansas and Kansas State to finish fourth. SMU, on the other hand, defeated Missouri in the quarterfinals, Kansas State in the semifinals, and Kansas in the title game to win the whole thing. It’s the only time a non-member team won this tournament and – to my knowledge – the only time any conference tournament has ever been won by a team from outside the conference.
A total of 12 non-member teams7 were invited to this tournament over 11 years; given these numbers, from a pure statistical standpoint, it’s a little surprising a non-member team only won once.8 But 1947 SMU stands alone. They’re the Southwest Conference member who were also the Big Six Conference champion.9 And we’ll likely never see anything like it again.
I’m 24.
The Big Eight and the Ohio Valley
If you subscribe to this newsletter, I’m left to assume you do.
Five members of the Southland Conference (Abilene Christian, Central Arkansas, Lamar, Sam Houston, and Stephen F. Austin) unexpectedly left over the summer for other leagues (Central Arkansas to the ASUN; the other four to the WAC). Down to eight members, the Southland needed to schedule more games against Division I opponents that didn’t count toward each team’s conference record, so they put together this random-draw tournament and included a consolation bracket so each team played three games.
This tournament also included a consolation bracket.
I’m aware these were unofficial names; don’t @ me.
Using the calendar years the tournaments were played: SMU (finished 1st) and Arkansas (4th) in 1946, Oklahoma State (2nd) in 1947 (before they joined the conference), Harvard (8th) in 1948, Michigan (5th) in 1949, Minnesota (2nd) in 1950, Stanford (5th) in 1951, Yale (4th) in 1952, Washington (8th) in 1953, California (6th) in 1954, Cornell (8th) in 1955, Michigan State (3rd) in 1956, and Princeton (8th) in 1957
Assuming every team has equal odds of winning the tournament (incorrect, but bear with me), you would expect 1.625 non-member champions in this scenario and you would expect to crown at least one non-member champion 82.7% of the time. Alternatively, you could invite half the Ivy League and watch them win one game in 12 tries.
But not the Southwest Conference champion, of course (Texas)