Get to Know a College Basketball Mid-Major

You know all about the Power 5 conferences in college basketball. You hear about those more than any other, and those groups often dominate the March Madness conversation. There are 26 other conferences out there, however, and our goal is to get you up to speed on the teams, players and fights in the standings to know before the conference tournaments, Selection Sunday and the official start of March Madness.

It’s time for you to get to know the mid-majors. All of them.

American

"That tournament championship might be the lone way into the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, as well. In 2025’s tourney, the American (then the AAC) received just its automatic bid for the conference championship winner, Memphis, and no at-large bid. In 2024 and in 2023, the American (then the AAC) did receive both its automatic bid (UAB and Memphis, respectively) as well as an at-large bid in each season, so it’s not impossible that two teams make it ... it will take a strong end-of-season showing, as well as a quality run in the American tournament, for an at-large bid to be granted to the conference this season." READ MORE.

America East

"The last two years the men’s and women’s tournaments have been sponsored by sandwich shop Jersey Mike’s, so the official name of last year’s women’s tourney, for instance, was the 2025 Jersey Mike’s America East Women’s Basketball Playoffs." READ MORE.

Atlantic 10

"All 14 of the schools in the A-10 participate in the conference tournament, with the top four seeds receiving a double-bye into the quarterfinals, teams 5-10 getting a first-round bye and the bottom four essentially in a play-in first round. Winning the tournament, and the automatic bid, is of the utmost importance as is the case with every mid-major, but the Atlantic 10 has had multiple at-large bids at times over the past three years, across the men’s and women’s leagues." READ MORE.

Atlantic Sun

"The Atlantic Sun formed in 1978, and was originally known as the Trans America Athletic Conference — it also used to encompass a larger geographic range of the country than it does now, when it is more centrally located in the southeast and mid-Atlantic. In 2001, it was renamed to better reflect its current geography. It might need another update at some point, however, as the conference is dropping from its current 12 teams to just seven for the 2026-2027 academic year." READ MORE.

Big Sky

"There are 10 basketball schools in the Big Sky conference, a distinction that has to be made because a couple of affiliate member schools are there for football, specifically, and another for golf. In the fight for Starch Madness, though, we are just talking about 10 schools. And yes, Big Sky will regularly refer to its conference championship tournament as Starch Madness. As the old saying goes, when in Idaho." READ MORE.

Big South

"This is a mid-major that historically gets just the automatic bid in both the men’s and women’s versions of March Madness, and things won’t be any different in 2025-2026. That’s not to say that just which teams will win the auto bids is set in stone — there is some competition there — but there are also clear favorites." READ MORE

Big West

"The Big West name works in a couple of different ways. For one, most of it is located in California, which is about as big and west as you can get — for the purposes of this wordplay, Alaska is more like the big northwest. Hawaii is there, too, and while that isn’t big, it’s more west than the rest. While there have been plenty of other non-California schools in the Big West over the years and decades, in the present, it’s all California besides Hawaii. And next year, it will be all California besides Utah Valley, but that’s a 2026-2027 discussion." READ MORE.

Coastal Athletic Association

"This isn’t a competitive conference on a national level, as no one is even approaching bubble territory and there will be, just like the last three years, an automatic bid to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and no at-large ones." READ MORE.

Conference USA

"As far as conferences go, Conference USA is relatively new, in that this season marks its entry into its fourth decade. It’s in a state of flux at present, as it had 10 members in 2024-2025, shot up to 12 members for this academic season, and will drop to 11 and then 10 teams in the next two as it loses schools to Mountain West and then the Sun Belt. Those are tomorrow's problems, though! In 2026, Conference USA is a dozen strong, and any analysis of it should center around that." READ MORE.

Horizon

"All 11 of the Horizon League’s teams qualify for the men’s and women’s conference basketball tournaments, which is simple enough, but the complication is in the seeding once the tourneys are already going. The Horizon uses a reseeding format that resets the bracket after every round, assuring that the highest remaining seed is always facing the lowest remaining seed, which is how you end up with future scheduled games that don’t say "No. 5 vs. No. 4" but instead "Fifth-best 1st-round winner vs. Fourth-best 1st-round winner"." READ MORE.

Ivy League

"The Ivy League was the last Division I conference to introduce a championship tournament; prior to 2017, the regular season champion of the Ivy was also granted the automatic bid to March Madness, and a tiebreaking playoff game was added if necessary. Since then, though, there have been six four-team tournaments at the end of the regular season, with Yale winning four of the men’s tourneys while Princeton has dominated the women’s with five victories." READ MORE.

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference

"Four of the original six charter members remain — Fairfield, Iona, Saint Peter’s and Manhattan — and two new schools were introduced for the 2024-2025 season, in Sacred Heart University and Merrimack, with plenty of others leaving and joining in between. Its teams are fighting to get into a conference tournament where just the top 10 programs make it, leaving three out in the northeastern cold. In addition, the first six teams in the standings receive a bye to the quarterfinals, leaving the other four to play their way into the round, with the top seed facing the winner of 8 vs. 9 and the second seed getting whichever comes out of 7 vs. 10." READ MORE.

Mid-American Conference

"The format of the MAC tournament has changed a few times over the years. At first, seven teams made it into the three-round tourney, with the top seed getting a bye. In 2000, the Mid-American Conference changed things up so that every team qualified, and stayed basically that way until 2020, when qualification required being a top-eight team in the conference. With 12 teams in the conference now, that means four of them won’t be eligible for the conference tourney, on both the men’s and women’s sides." READ MORE.

Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference

"The conference’s automatic bid, awarded to the MEAC tournament champion, will be the only way for one of these teams from either men’s or women’s basketball to participate in March Madness. Howard has won the men’s auto bid in two of the last three seasons, with Norfolk State grabbing it in 2025, while Norfolk State has come away with the lone MEAC bid in each of the last three seasons for the women’s side." READ MORE.

Missouri Valley Conference

"The "Valley" has been around for a long time — it’s the fourth-oldest collegiate conference in the nation, having formed way back in 1907, and the Big Ten is the lone Division I conference even older than it is. Back then it was known as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association, and a number of its members eventually split to form what would be known, down the line, as the Big 8 — the predecessor to the Big 12. There’s history in the Valley, as the oldest mid-major there is, and parent, as it were, to an existing power conference." READ MORE.

Mountain West Conference

"A rarity among mid-majors, Mountain West regularly picks up a number of at-large bids in addition to its automatic bid on the men’s side: from 2023 through 2025, the MW had 4, 6 and 4 teams in March Madness. The women’s side is a much different story, as it has been automatic bid and that’s it over the same stretch — a trend that’s going to continue into 2026." READ MORE.

NEC

"Formerly the Northeast Conference until this season — and before that, the ECAC Metro Conference — the NEC formed in 1981. While the membership has fluctuated quite a bit, especially in recent years, the NEC currently has 10 members, but not all of them are eligible for March Madness thanks to transitions from Division II. This has created the need for alternative options for the automatic bid, should the NEC conference tournament finals feature ineligible teams. To further complicate matters — though, this is a 2026-2027 situation — last year’s tournament winner, St. Francis, is currently transitioning to Division III but participating in D-I for the last time, and New Haven isn’t even eligible for the NEC tourney since it hasn’t been three years since it arrived from D-II." READ MORE.

Ohio Valley Conference

"The Ohio Valley Conference is in a weird spot, but at least the 2025-2026 season marks the final year of that being the case. The problem is that two of its teams — Southern Indiana and Lindenwood — are formerly Division II schools, and are in the final of four years of transitioning into Division I. Neither is eligible for March Madness until the 2026-2027 season, per NCAA rules, which means that if either were to actually win the OVC conference tournament, the automatic bid would go to the runner-up in that championship game." READ MORE.

Patriot League

"It is not a conference known for its basketball, however, which partially has to do with some of the teams it’s lost along the way and that some of the more significant basketball schools it has had as associate members — like Villanova — were not there for basketball in the first place." READ MORE.

Southern Conference

"Fun Southern Conference fact: it was the first conference to implement the 3-point line and shot in college basketball, all the way back in 1980. And another fun Southern Conference fact: there are 365 men’s college basketball teams in Division I, and just 363 women’s programs. The missing two are both thanks to SoCon: The Citadel and VMI do not sponsor women’s basketball, and both only began to admit women students in the 1990s." READ MORE.

Southland Conference

"While there are 12 schools, the Southland only allows the top eight teams to participate in the conference tournament. The bottom four teams face off in a first round, then the winners of those games take on the third- and fourth-ranked teams in the quarterfinals while the top two wait the winners of that round in the semifinals. It’s a difficult road for any of the Southland teams to not finish in those top two spots in the regular season, and since the conference traditionally sends just its automatic bid winner to March Madness, that regular-season record and seeding is that much more important if any Southland teams want to keep playing beyond the conference tourney." READ MORE.

Southwestern Athletic Conference

"The SWAC has been around for over a century — it formed in 1920, when six HBCUs in Texas became its charter members. While there were near-constant exits and entrances by member schools over the years, SWAC membership has mostly stabilized this century, with one member joining in 1999 and another two in 2021, and no others joining or leaving. There are now 12 members, and while it’s less southwestern than it was a century ago when the entire conference was Texas-based, there are still two members there, as well as two each in Louisiana, Alabama and Florida, one other in Arkansas and three in Mississippi." READ MORE.

Sun Belt Conference

"The Sun Belt is a 14-member conference, and you can probably guess from the name where most of its teams reside: as southwest as Texas, and only as northeast as the Virginias, across the southeastern states in an unbroken band. It has held Division I status since 1976, and starting with the 2022-2023 basketball season the conference tournament has included all 14 of its schools." READ MORE.

Summit League

""The Summit" is a midwestern-centered conference with nine teams, formed in 1982 — right around when the NCAA became the sponsor of women’s college basketball. None of the original conference members remain, however, so the present-day Summit, 32 schools later, is vastly different than it was at its inception. And will be different again a year from now, when Denver heads to the West Coast Conference for the 2026-2027 season, leaving the Summit with eight members." READ MORE.

Western Athletic Conference

"The Western Athletic Conference — or WAC — is one of the smaller ones out there, as there are just seven teams within it clustered within three states: one in California, and then two each in Texas and Utah. This is also the last year of its existence in its current form." READ MORE.

West Coast Conference

"The West Coast Conference faces upheaval next season when the reformed Pac-12 stocks itself with new members, but in 2025-2026  it’s still the home of Gonzaga. The men’s basketball team has been the conference champion and recipient of the WCC’s automatic bid to March Madness 22 times since 1995, has finished as regular-season champion 26 times since 1994 and has appeared in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament 27 times since ‘95." READ MORE.