SHEPHERDSTOWN — There seems to be an elite quartet of teams and a troubled group of struggling teams in the ranks of the PSAC men’s basketball teams.

East Stroudsburg, Millersville, Lock Haven and West Chester have long ago distanced themselves from the rest of the East Division pack.

In fact, none of those four teams has lost a single game to Kutztown, Bloomsburg, Shippensburg, Mansfield or Shepherd.

Shepherd is 0-8 against the league’s four leaders. It has finished its schedule against them and has just three more games left on its shrinking list of regular season games. Shippensburg is 0-6, Kutztown is also 0-6 while Bloomsburg is 0-5 and Mansfield is likewise 0-5.

The league lets six teams qualify in both the East Division and West Division for its postseason conference tournament that leads to the NCAA Division II national tournament.

The conference tournament begins on March 4 and crowns the champion on March 10.

East Stroudsburg, Millersville, Lock Haven and West Chester have already clinched berths in the league tournament.

Shepherd with a 7-12 conference record and Mansfield with its 5-14 record (through Feb. 19) are currently in fifth and sixth place in the East Division.

Shepherd is 10-14 overall with only three games left in the regular season. The Rams will need to defeat Bloomsburg, Shippensburg (on the road) and Kutztown to have a realistic opportunity to somehow pull off a winning season for the first time since the 2017-2018 campaign.

Through Feb. 19, the overall records show Kutztown at 4-21, Bloomsburg at 5-19, Shippensburg at 8-17 and Mansfield at 7-17.

In the West Division, Gannon (17-2 conference record), California (15-3), Indiana (13-5) and Slippery Rock (10-8) have clinched spots in the conference tournament. In fifth and sixth places are Mercyhurst (9-9) and Seton Hill (8-10), neither of which has clinched a place in the conference tournament.

Indiana has dominated the tournament for the past few years. The Crimson Hawks won tournaments in 2023, 2022, 2020 and 2019.

There was no tournament held in 2021 because of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The last team to win it besides Indiana came back in 2018, when East Stroudsburg prevailed.

Shepherd closes out its regular season on March 2, when it will see struggling Kutztown in the Butcher Center.