2017 Big Sky Conference men's basketball tournament

The 2017 Big Sky Conference men's basketball tournament was the 42nd edition of the postseason tournament for the Big Sky Conference, held March 7–11 at the Reno Events Center in Reno, Nevada.

In the final, regular season champion North Dakota defeated third-seed Weber State in overtime to earn the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. It was North Dakota's first NCAA tournament as a Division I team, after multiple appearances in the Division II tourney.

On October 8, 2016, Northern Colorado self-imposed a post-season ban amid an ongoing NCAA investigation into program violations, and did not participate.

Seeds Only 11 of the 12 teams in the conference participated in the tournament due to Northern Colorado's self-imposed ban. Teams were seeded by conference record, with a tiebreaker system used to seed teams with identical conference records. The top five teams received a first round bye. SeedSchoolConference Tiebreaker 1Tiebreaker 21North Dakota14–42Eastern Washington13–53Weber State12–60–2 vs UND1–1 vs EWU4Idaho12–60–1 vs UND0–2 vs EWU5 Montana11–71–0 vs UND6 Montana State11–70–1 vs UND7 Sacramento State9–98 Portland State7–119 Northern Arizona6–1210 Idaho State3–151–0 vs SUU11 Southern Utah3-150–1 vs ISU

Schedule SessionGameTime*MatchupScoreTelevisionAttendance First Round – Tuesday, March 7112:35 PMNo. 8 Portland State vs. No. 9 Northern Arizona80–67WatchBig Sky1,50725:35 PMNo. 7 Sacramento State vs. No. 10 Idaho State91–7638:05 PMNo. 6 Montana State vs. No. 11 Southern Utah109–1053OT Quarterfinals – Thursday, March 92412:05 PM No. 1 North Dakota vs. No. 8 Portland State95–72WatchBig Sky1,76252:35 PMNo. 4 Idaho vs. No. 5 Montana81–77365:35 PMNo. 2 Eastern Washington vs. No. 7 Sacramento State89–701,90378:05 PMNo. 3 Weber State vs. No. 11 Southern Utah90–70 Semifinals – Friday, March 10485:35 PMNo. 1 North Dakota vs. No. 4 Idaho69–64WatchBig Sky2,00398:05 PMNo. 2 Eastern Washington vs. No. 3 Weber State80–72 Championship Game – Saturday, March 115105:30 PMNo. 1 North Dakota vs. No. 3 Weber State93–89OTESPNU2,025 *Game times in PST. Rankings denote tournament seeding

Bracket

* denotes overtime period

NCAA tournament The Fighting Hawks received the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament for the very first time; no other Big Sky members were invited to the tournament or North Dakota was seeded fifteenth in the West regional and lost 100–82 to Arizona in the first round It was the eleventh consecutive year that the Big Sky representative lost in the first round.

References

External links