Colin Nickerson of the Fairfield Stags just missed a three pointer to win the game Monday night and potentially send the Saints into the at-large conversation.

If Nickerson made that three pointer Monday night, would the Saints be able to stir tournament talk today or would they have been bound to the NIT?

Gathering around the world’s top bracketologists and their opinions reflected the industry’s agreement on the Saints chances had that shot fell through Monday night.

David Mihm of Bracketography said the Saints would have been in the discussion for an at-large but didn’t think their conference’s strength helped their chances.

“I think there’d have been a very slim chance for Siena to make the field, probably less than 20%,” Mihm said. “The MAAC didn’t have the same level of teams at the top that other quality mid-major leagues like the CAA and CUSA had this season.”

The MAAC currently ranks 15th of 33 conferences in Ken Pomeroy’s conference rankings.

Eric Prisbell from his Washington Post “The 65″ blog, said the margin of error is extremely small for mid-majors like Siena and slip up meant a tough verdict despite their recent dominance.

“This is life for mid-majors, a tough life where the margin for error is very small. But everyone knows the deal: if you’re a mid major you try like hell to play a few top teams in nonconference play and hopefully beat at least one. Siena did not,” Prisbell said. “Then you have to dominate your conference. Siena did that. Then you try to get a boost from the BracketBuster game. Siena could not accomplish that. They were unable to secure a signature victory, the Niagara loss really hurt, and Siena therefore had to win [Monday].”

Rivals.com’s Mike Huguenin said Siena would have had a chance at an at-large but would have likely not made the field despite the fact that teams did not want to play the Saints.

“Siena is a team that can do some damage in the NCAA tourney – hey, just look at the past two seasons – but the Saints wouldn’t have the resume needed to get into the field. We did a three-part series in the offseason focusing on how three schools did their scheduling for this season – Tennessee, Siena and Morehead State.” Huguenin said, “Siena was the only one that had an enormous amount of trouble filling out its schedule, and that scheduling trouble could’ve kept them out of the NCAA tourney.”

Chris Kulenych of Bracketology 101 said that even with a weak bubble, the Saints resume did not stack up against the likely bubble contenders.

“Even with such a weak bubble this year, it would have been extremely difficult to come up with a case for the Saints getting an at-large,” Kulenych said. “They have no Top 50 wins, got pounded in their BracketBuster game and their strength of schedule is almost twice as high as it was last year (125 vs. 66).”

Sports Illustrated Andy Glockner said if the Saints snapped their 37-game home win streak on Monday night it would mean no chance at breaking into the field.

“I don’t think Siena was getting in as an at-large,” Glockner said. “Losing at home in the final after whiffing on every big non-league chance rarely means good things for a mid-major champ.”

Meanwhile Bracketography’s David Mihm finds it interesting that now the Saints are rooting for upsets now that they won instead of rooting for conference favorites if they were a bubble team.

“It’s somewhat ironic that had the Saints not gotten the automatic bid, they’d be rooting against any upset…but now that they’ve got it, their seed will be improved if the Bubble shrinks and at-large teams get bounced,” Mihm said. “Upset winners in leagues like the WAC and Pac-10 would definitely be seeded below the Saints.”

Ryan Restivo covers the Saints for SienaSaintsBlog and can be found writing about college basketball on RushTheCourt.