McCaffrey’s Musings:
By: Tim McCaffrey
REGIONAL RANKING REACTIONS
Positivity! The Musings was a perfect 10-for-10 in agreement with the men’s basketball RAC! We’ll start there and tell you where teams should be, come the next regional ranking.
ELITE 8 MBB
1) Bentley (21-5) LOCK: Falcons will be dancing, but STILL are not a lock to host the regional. Next game is at Saint Anselm Wednesday at 7 pm. Hosting wouldn’t be out of the equation with a loss, but the math would be close. The team could also fall to the three line if the dominoes carom wrong. Solution: Just Win!
2) Saint Anselm (20-7) LOCK: The Hawks could host with an NE10 Tourney triumph but could drop to four if the group loses to Bentley and New Haven wins the tournament. Again, all results depend on other results, so there are a lot of moving pieces.
3) Southern New Hampshire (20-7) LOCK: The Penmen have been landlocked on the three-line. SNHU could host, but a win in its next game against New Haven in the NE10 Tourney semis is a must. Manchester on Wednesday at 7 pm is what we like to call: ‘the place to be.’
4) New Haven (19-9) LOCK: The Chargers will be in the field no worse than four and potentially up a notch with a couple more wins this week.
5) Pace (20-10) LOCK: Despite falling in the NE10 quarters at Saint Anselm, the Setters are a lock, and should be in the four-five game against an opponent above!
6) Saint Thomas Aquinas (24-4): To my calculations, the Spartans should be a lock with one more win or a Dominican loss before the CACC finals.
7) Dominican (20-7): A split this week and Orangeburg, NY’s Division II team is sticking in the field. The squad could STILL be in the top eight with a loss in the first-round CACC tournament game at Chestnut Hill (Tuesday at 6 pm). Dominican has played its way to a position in which it should be rooting very hard for STAC. If Daemen wins the ECC and Dominican loses at CHC, you are left deciding if Southern Connecticut or Dominican deserve the last slot.
8) Southern Connecticut (18-12): I’m not in love with the Owls on the eight, but in a three-way cluster with Daemen and Franklin Pierce, they have the edge.
1st Team Out: Daemen (18-7): The Wildcats cannot get an at-large, because they would need to be able to withstand STAC winning the ECC tournament, and the CACC winner gets a spot as well! The group can, however, win the ECCs and isolate STAC in the field, making the CACC a one-bid league.
Next Team out: Franklin Pierce: (17-12): The Ravens have the same number of wins against the top 10 as the Wildcats and needed seven more games. Coupled with a home loss to Daemen and this is where the squad should settle. Interestingly, if Daemen is out of the equation, Pierce would get the eight, and this is where nuance and digging deep into the details pays off. If Daemen wins the ECC, the deck is shuffled.
Women’s Hoop Rapid Reactions:
As we switch to the women, or as I like to call it: the ‘Whose Line is it Anyway’ where the points don’t matter. For the life of me, I want to tell you the women’s committee nailed it and figured it out, but I just can’t. I have crunched and crunched the numbers, and based on the data up until last week, I could not find any way to put Assumption on the one-line. Other prognosticators were just as baffled at how the committee concluded what it did.
Just so we’re all 100% clear on the data from last week: Jefferson won both record categories: Performance Indicator and Common Opponents, and wins versus the Top 10. RPI and SOS were on the Greyhounds' side, but that should not have been enough to put them in pole position.
That being said, Assumption collected two wins versus SCSU this week and that is important because it flips the Common Opponents category. The Hounds also possess two more crucial Top 10 wins, which also make that category cloudy enough to NOW give Assumption the edge. The regional will either be in Worcester or Philadelphia.
ELITE 8 WBB
1) Assumption (24-4): LOCK: The Greyhounds, by my calculations, need to win out to host, but Jefferson would also need to capture the CACC to reclaim the top spot. Next Game: Thursday vs. SNHU at 7pm. The team can fall no lower than two-seed.
2) Jefferson (25-3): LOCK: Could drop if the Rams lose in the first round of CACCs versus Caldwell (Wednesday at 5:30pm). No reason to think they should, as Jefferson won by a combined 67 points in two February meetings, one of those a CACC game and the other a non-league affair.
3) Le Moyne (21-6): LOCK: If the Penmen get two more wins and catch the Dolphins in record columns, the Green and Gold will drop a line.
4) Southern New Hampshire: (20-6) LOCK: Top RPI in the region, but doesn't need to win to get in! Should not fall to the five, even though the team was swept by Bentley.
5) Bentley (19-9) LOCK: The Falcons have one loss in their last eight games, and it was to Pace. Le Moyne has two losses in its last 18 games, both to Pace. It is about matchups, and Pace already pocketed a win in Waltham. Weren’t we here a few years ago? Bentley went into the final week as the five and ended up nine. I seem to remember the world shutting down. Seems like ages ago. Only lock team ever to be out of the field. Same Committee Chair, by the way.
6) Saint Thomas Aquinas (20-7): Like the men’s team, the Lady Spartans are also one win away from lock status. While some teams appear allergic to the field, STAC has strung together enough wins.
7) Southern Connecticut (17-11): The committee and I disagree on SCSU and Holy Family. While the Tigers have a better record, when you look deeper, the Owls deserve this line. So. Conn has the better SOS by a mile and a significantly better RPI, while also having the common opponents advantage (8-3 vs. 7-5). Holy Family has the PI, which, remember, is just an extension of records and wins. Basically, if you accumulate wins, you will always have three categories. For all of SCSU’s losses, eight of them came to teams that are regionally ranked. Holy Family has lost to four teams not over .500. The Tigers' best win was at home against Bentley. Southern equaled that feat. The bodies of work are not equal and the Owls deserve this spot.
8) Holy Family (19-9): The Tigers have secured the tenuous final line! Winning Tuesday at 6pm versus Felician in the Campus Center may not be crucial to staying in the field, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt! New Haven could have an argument, but the Chargers' loss to Franklin Pierce at home was crippling. I don’t see Daemen getting an at-large, but again this committee does some peculiar things.
1st Team Out: Daemen (18-4): With the implosion of several other teams, out of the rubble came Daemen to potentially, somehow, give the ECC two bids. A committee member last season told me how important it was to play a full slate of games and that was a large reason certain teams were seeded lower. Well with that logic, Daemen will struggle to overcome Holy Family in the rankings. If somehow the Wildcats are eighth, the committee is telling coaches to go play the worst schedule in America and, as long as you win most, you’ll get in. It would be a horrible precedent to set and one that has been steadfastly avoided on the men’s side.
As usual, we’ll have a Regional Ranking Recap on Thursday and set up where each team should be in the field. Until then… Be Kind!
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This was written by Tim McCaffrey, to write to him, try t.p.mccaffrey@gmail.com, he returns every e-mail!