Thursday, March 04, 2004
Will PIGs Fly in the Patriot League?
According to Joe Lunardi, ESPN's resident Bracketologist, if Lehigh made the NCAA tournament today, they'd be in the play in game.
The play in game is an evil source of profit for the big conferences. It shoves two teams that will only make the tournament every so often off to the side, leaving one team out of the bracket all together, making their season seem a waste. All so that a team like Maryland, which has a LOSING RECORD in their conference, can make some more $$.
But all is not lost. The Patriot League champ may not be in the PIG. There's a few scenarios that could happen here:
1) The current conference leaders in the smaller divisions like the MCC, Southland, Big South, NEC or SWAC will not all win their divisions. In one of these divisons, a team with a losing or not very good winning record could emerge. That team would automatically go into the play-in game, bumping the PL seed to a 16 (depending on the PL team).
2) All those conference leaders could end up winning, but even then, if Lafayette or AU emerges from the PL tournament, they'll be a 16 seed.
The RPI numbers for the Patriot League look like this:
142 Lafayette
165 American
211 Lehigh
216 Holy Cross
226 Bucknell
250 Colgate
If Navy or Army wins the tournament, they will actually be placed in the D3 bracket.
Here's the RPI of our competitors, so to speak:
264 Coppin State
171 SE Louisiana
163 Valparaiso
193 Liberty
148 E. Washington
Now, in most of those conferences, the teams' RPIs will get worse, since they have to play lousy teams to get to the tournament in the first place. The same is true of the winner of the PL tournament. If AU wins, their RPI will probably decrease, since they played Army for a third time this season.
In sum, we shouldn't give up hope yet. For the good of the league, root against the above non-PL teams to tank in their conference tournaments, and we could be okay.
That said, even if a PL team is in the play in game, we might get our first ever NCAA tournament win--sorta. Never say I'm not optimistic.
@ 3:31 PM
According to Joe Lunardi, ESPN's resident Bracketologist, if Lehigh made the NCAA tournament today, they'd be in the play in game.
The play in game is an evil source of profit for the big conferences. It shoves two teams that will only make the tournament every so often off to the side, leaving one team out of the bracket all together, making their season seem a waste. All so that a team like Maryland, which has a LOSING RECORD in their conference, can make some more $$.
But all is not lost. The Patriot League champ may not be in the PIG. There's a few scenarios that could happen here:
1) The current conference leaders in the smaller divisions like the MCC, Southland, Big South, NEC or SWAC will not all win their divisions. In one of these divisons, a team with a losing or not very good winning record could emerge. That team would automatically go into the play-in game, bumping the PL seed to a 16 (depending on the PL team).
2) All those conference leaders could end up winning, but even then, if Lafayette or AU emerges from the PL tournament, they'll be a 16 seed.
The RPI numbers for the Patriot League look like this:
142 Lafayette
165 American
211 Lehigh
216 Holy Cross
226 Bucknell
250 Colgate
If Navy or Army wins the tournament, they will actually be placed in the D3 bracket.
Here's the RPI of our competitors, so to speak:
264 Coppin State
171 SE Louisiana
163 Valparaiso
193 Liberty
148 E. Washington
Now, in most of those conferences, the teams' RPIs will get worse, since they have to play lousy teams to get to the tournament in the first place. The same is true of the winner of the PL tournament. If AU wins, their RPI will probably decrease, since they played Army for a third time this season.
In sum, we shouldn't give up hope yet. For the good of the league, root against the above non-PL teams to tank in their conference tournaments, and we could be okay.
That said, even if a PL team is in the play in game, we might get our first ever NCAA tournament win--sorta. Never say I'm not optimistic.
@ 3:31 PM
