Posted at 10:30 AM EST. Odds subject to change.

Pinnacle +133 BET365 +130 Sportsinteraction  +130  888Sport +130

Conference USA Tournament

Propst Arena, Huntsville, AL

UTEP +130 over Western Kentucky

Streaming: CBS Sports Network

8:30 PM EST. The winners of Conference USA will punch their tickets to March Madness tonight, as the #3-seeded Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky (WKU) will face the #5-seeded Miners of Texas-El Paso (UTEP) for all the marbles. As you can probably decipher from the lack of the top two seeds in the C-USA final, this conference tournament has been a wild affair that saw #1 Sam Houston bounced by the Miners, 65-63, yesterday afternoon after UTEP took out Liberty (66-57) in Thursday’s quarterfinal.

As for how #3 WKU got here, the Hilltoppers disposed of #6 New Mexico State by 20 (89-86) on Thursday before waffling #7 Middle Tennessee by 31 (85-54). The Toppers benefited greatly because of Mid-Tenn’s upset of #2 Louisiana Tech in the quarterfinals, which allowed them to have a much easier path to this C-USA final. Perhaps WKU will be served well by a couple of glorified practices before playing an all-or-nothing game for a shot at the NCAA Tournament, but feasting on cupcakes has been known to cause more harm than good.

While the Hilltoppers could not predict how the C-USA Tournament cookie would crumble, the “easier” path they took to the final is in line with their regular-season mantra in which they played the 271 (of 362) ranked non-conference schedule in the nation to pad their 21 wins. The Hilltoppers didn’t sniff a Power Six opponent this year and when they tested themselves against other known mid-majors in Wichita State or UNC Asheville, the ‘Toppers lost both of those games by 10 points.

As for their wins, WKU racked up wins over Kentucky Wesleyan (non-Div I), Kentucky State (non-Div I), Bowling Green (242), Campbellsville (non-Div I), Eastern Kentucky (211), Buffalo (347), Austin Peay (225), California Baptist (201), Abilene Christian (220), and Jacksonville State (198). In beating Mid-Tenn (282) and New Mexico State (290), WKU notched two more weak wins, but UTEP is superior to both of those schools and ranks more than 100 spots (176) ahead of both of them. Keep the points, we’re betting the Miners to cut the nets down in Huntsville tonight. UTEP outright.

Sherwood

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------