Western Michigan coach Steve Hawkins feels the pinch. It's the mid-major pinch of reality that says unless the Broncos win the Mid-American Conference Tournament, there is little point in them watching the Selection Sunday show March 14.

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That's life in the MAC, which hasn't put multiple teams into the NCAA Tournament since 1999, though MAC teams have won seven Tournament games since then.

Never mind that Western Michigan would be the second-best team in the Big Ten or that the Broncos are 4-0 against opponents from the top 10 conferences, including wins at Arizona State and against Southern California at home.

Will it even matter in March that the Broncos started the season 12-2, playing just five home games in the first two months of the season?

Probably not, unless Western Michigan wins the MAC Tournament.

The Broncos lost on the road to conference opponent Kent State Wednesday. The same Kent State of the 2002 Elite Eight. The Kent State that has won three straight MAC division titles and is 11-3. The Kent State that will fight Western Michigan the rest of the season for the thin slice of attention afforded to mid-major powers.

"You can play well over a long period of time and try to get noticed," said Hawkins, who took over in Kalamazoo, Mich., this season for Rob McCullum, now at South Florida. "You hope you can get some votes in the (national) poll. But you lose at Kent State, and you don't just fall down one rung on the ladder. You drop a lot. It will be interesting to see what takes place in the polls."

It will be unfortunate if Western Michigan drops out of the Top 25 picture, after receiving votes the last three weeks. Winning on the road in the MAC is no less challenging than doing so in the Big Ten or the Big 12, yet those teams are forgiven more quickly and more substantially for a league loss than mid-majors.

The Broncos will spend the rest of the season proving themselves all over again. If they slip at Ball State, Toledo, Bowling Green or in the MAC Tournament, they will pay for it.

Should Western Michigan fail to receive an automatic or at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, college basketball fans will miss seeing one of the best guards they don't know exists. Junior Ben Reed was the 2002 MAC Freshman of the Year but endured a disappointing sophomore season after knee surgery. He's playing more like himself this season, averaging 18.9 points and shooting 57.1 percent from 3-point range with 70 attempts.

But Reed and the Broncos will get their due only if Western Michigan can survive the mid-major pinch.

Post-midseason evaluations

The season is one week past the halfway point, and the picture of contenders is becoming clearer and smaller. Here's what to look for in the next six weeks.

One-player race: Saint Joseph's point guard Jameer Nelson seems destined to be the player of the year. He is more important to his team than any other player in college basketball.

If he can keep it going, Saint Joseph's might be on its way to an unbeaten regular season. Nelson is so far above Atlantic 10 competition that any team stopping him is unforeseeable.

If Nelson should encounter an unlikely slump, Connecticut's Emeka Okafor and Texas Tech's Andre Emmett are next in line.

The harsh reality: Soon, the coaches of two major conferences are going to have to admit, or accept, what the rest of us already know: The Big Ten and Pacific 10 just don't have it from top to bottom this season, and it's going to be reflected on Selection Sunday.

Mid-major conferences should not get too excited, however. The Atlantic Coast Conference and Southeastern Conference teams will claim most of the spots vacated by the underperforming leagues.

On the NIT bubble: That would be Missouri, by far the biggest disappointment of the season. It's unfathomable that a team with Missouri's talent is 7-7 halfway through the season. Missouri is just overrated.

Planting seeds: Three early favorites to grab the top spots in the NCAA Tournament are Duke (15-1), Stanford (15-0) and Saint Joseph's (16-0). The fourth could go to the eventual Conference USA winner, whether it's Louisville or Cincinnati, or to Connecticut if the Huskies control the Big East.

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