To say it’s been a tough year for Philadelphia area basketball is an understatement.

The Sixers have shifted to a full tank and only four of the Big 5, which is now six teams, remain alive to grab an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

To be honest, the best shot of a “local” team reaching the Big Dance is either Princeton in the Ivy League, or if Delaware reels off two more wins in the CAA tournament as a No. 12 seed. Shoutout the Fightin’ Blue Hens, but they’ll probably get waxed by Towson (-6.5 is a lock by the way) on Monday.

But after all, this is March, and Temple was one win away from completing a miraculous run last year, so let’s explore the odds anyway.

 


Atlantic 10

St. Joe’s (+800), La Salle (+30000)

The last time either St. Joe’s or La Salle reached the A-10 tournament title game was 2016.

Only one of them can make the quarterfinals this year because the Hawks are the No. 6 seed and if the 14th-seeded Explorers beat No. 11 seed UMass, they play St. Joe’s in the second round.

I don’t see that matchup happening again. La Salle used all of its energy to win on Saturday in Fran Dunphy’s send-off. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Explorers check out of their hotel in Washington, D.C. after one night.

If you believe there’s any ounce of magic there with Dunphy retiring, well, the Explorers would have to win five games in five days. They only won five games in the A-10 regular season.

St. Joe’s had a five-game winning streak ended by La Salle on Saturday. The Hawks went 11-7 in A-10 play, but they went 1-4 against the top four seeds.

The promising bit though? The Hawks blew out Loyola Chicago back in January and lost games to Loyola, Dayton and George Mason by five points or less. They only lost by nine to top seed VCU.

The Hawks have a chance if they can close out against Dayton, and then George Mason, but I’d maybe look more into the Hawks covering the spread in those games than a long-shot futures bets to win four games in four days.

 

American Athletic Conference

Temple (+4000)

Temple reached the AAC tournament final as an 11 seed last season.

The Owls come into this year’s event as the No. 7 and off a really solid home win over North Texas on Sunday.

At minimum, the Owls have a little bit of momentum going into Fort Worth on a three-game winning streak, but they’ll have to beat North Texas again in the quarterfinals to even ignite the thought of a Cinderella run.

An aside: Fort Worth might be the worst conference tournament site. The AAC has been there for years, and look, I get it has three Texas teams (Rice, UTSA, North Texas) in the league, but we can’t find a more central site, or at least one that draws a bigger crowd?

But isn’t that Temple’s life in the AAC in a nutshell anyway? That is all.

 

Big East

Villanova (+1500)

I think we’re all operating under the assumption that Kyle Neptune is either coaching for his job, or the Nova players will be playing for him to go out with some nice memories.

The good news: The ‘Cats will probably beat the ever-living crap out of Seton Hall on Wednesday at MSG.

The bad news: UConn awaits in the quarters and only God knows what Danny Hurley is saying to the Huskies to try and reverse an underperforming season.

But the key there is just that. UConn has been wildly inconsistent and is vulnerable, so maybe, just maybe the ‘Cats can make it to the semifinals.

Nova doesn’t have to play St. John’s until the final, if it gets there, and the ‘Cats did go 6-3 in their final nine games.

And this is the same Big East tournament where Georgetown won as an 8 seed in 2021 and kept Patrick Ewing employed, so never say never!

Kinkead: I predict, unfortunately, that none of our teams make the tournament, and that they are instead home like us playing online slot games like Cash Eruption.