As Champ Week brings 31 men’s conference tournaments into focus, an ESPN panel found common ground on most of the bracket board — but not all of it.
According to ESPN’s roundup of tournament winners, the group reached unanimous agreement on 21 of the 31 conference tournaments. That level of alignment suggests clear favorites in a majority of leagues as teams enter the postseason phase with automatic NCAA tournament bids on the line.
However, the Big 12 stood out as one of the tournaments where unanimity was not reached. While the panel’s overall exercise centered on selecting winners across every league, the lack of consensus in the Big 12 underscored how difficult it can be to separate contenders in a conference known for depth and high-level competition.
Champ Week’s stakes
Champ Week determines conference champions and, in most cases, delivers an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament. With 31 tournaments running across Division I, the week can reshape the national picture quickly — both through expected outcomes in leagues with clear frontrunners and through volatility in conferences where the margin between teams is thin.
In ESPN’s panel exercise, the broad agreement across 21 tournaments contrasted with the uncertainty in others, highlighted by the Big 12’s lack of a unanimous pick.