Mac b-ball

​MAC details tournament plans and options

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the Mid-American Conference (MAC) announced bracket, seeding and automatic qualifier policies for the upcoming MAC Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament (March 10-13) at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Conference membership has approved the following policies (Click Read More to continue. . . ) 

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Automatic Qualifier

• The Automatic Qualifier for the Conference will be awarded to the team that wins the Conference tournament championship.
• If unable to crown a tournament champion, the AQ will go to the regular season champion as determined by Conference regular season record.  In case of a tie between two or more teams, the approved tiebreaker will be used.
• If the regular season champion is unable to accept the AQ due to COVID-related issues, the AQ will then go to the second-place team.  If the second-place team is unable to participate, the AQ will then go to the third-place team and so on until the AQ is filled.

 
Conference Tournament Bracket & Seeding

• The Men’s Conference tournament bracket will be announced on March 5th.  The Women’s Conference tournament bracket will be announced on March 6th.  
• Teams will be seeded according to Conference regular season record, utilizing the approved tiebreaker to settle ties.
• Prior to the announcement of the tournament bracket, if a team is forced to opt-out due to COVID-related issues, the next seeded team (#9) will be added to the tournament field, and seeds adjusted according to which team had to opt-out.
• Once the tournament bracket is released, teams participating in the tournament are final. 
• After the bracket is released, should a team be unable to move forward to the Conference tournament and notifies the conference office no later than 48 hours prior to the first game of the tournament (Monday, March 8th at 11am for Women’s Teams / Tuesday, March 9th at 11am for Men’s Teams) that team will be removed from the bracket and remaining teams will be re-seeded to ensure that any byes are allocated to the top seed(s).  E.G., if the Women’s #5 seed opts out prior to 11am on March 8th, #6 moves to #5, #7 moves to #6, and #8 moves to #7, the #1 seed receives a quarterfinal bye.​
• After the 48-hour deadline has passed, if a team in the tournament bracket is unable to compete, their opponent will advance to the next round via the no-contest rule.  No re-seeding will occur.

 
NOTE: Teams finishing within the Top 4 of the regular season standings MUST continue testing if eliminated from the Conference tournament to ensure eligible participation in the NCAA Tournament should teams ahead of them be unable to participate.