The 2021 Mid-American Conference men's basketball tournament was the postseason men's basketball tournament for the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region (North America), Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Its members co ...

(MAC). Due to the ongoing

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, the entire tournament was held at

Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse Rocket Arena is a multi-purpose arena in Cleveland, Ohio. The building is the home of the Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Cleveland Monsters of the American Hockey League (AHL). It also serves as a sec ...

, in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

, from March 11–13, 2021. For the 2021 tournament, only the top eight teams qualified. The winner of the tournament received the MAC's automatic bid to the 2021 NCAA tournament.

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

defeated Buffalo in the final.

Jason Preston Jason Preston (born August 10, 1999) is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association (NBA), on a two-way contract for the Salt Lake City Stars of the NBA G League. He played c ...

of Ohio was named the tournament MVP. In the NCAA tournament Ohio defeated No. 4-seeded

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

in the First Round before falling to No. 5-seeded Creighton in the Second Round.

Seeds

8 out of the 12 MAC teams qualified for the tournament. Teams were seeded by record within the conference, with a tiebreaker system to seed teams with identical conference records.

Schedule

Bracket

* denotes overtime period

All-Tournament Team

Tournament MVP –

, ''Ohio''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:MAC men's basketball tournament

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

2020–21 Mid-American Conference men's basketball season Basketball competitions in Cleveland March 2021 sports events in the United States 2021 in sports in Ohio College basketball tournaments in Ohio 2021 in Cleveland