I was chatting on the phone with my dad last weekend about AU basketball. We talk about the Patriot League a lot, and he tries to stay abreast of what's going on in the standings. He saw the standings on Saturday and said to me, "Isn't it kind of odd that 6 of 8 teams are below .500 in the Patriot League?" I replied, "Not really. There's a lot of parity in the Patriot League. Everyone's bad."
I know, I know, I'm being cheeky and a touch melodramatic. (Easy on the keyboards, Bison fans (and bison137), I'm well aware that Bucknell has a top 100 RPI right now). But the fact remains (as it has all season) that outside of Bucknell (I'll tell you why I do include them despite their recent loss and don't include AU in a minute), the Patriot League has a ton of parity in this unelite 8.
For reference, let's take a look at the standings at the halfway mark.
Bucknell 6-1
American 5-2
Lehigh 3-4
Army 3-4
Lafayette 3-4
Navy 3-4
Holy Cross 3-4
Colgate 2-5
Now, why did I include Bucknell above despite their recent 20-point loss to Army? Well, it was their only loss, and everyone gets one freebie. But Darryl Shazier was also sick, and he's a big part of their offense. And Army got double-digit production out of five different players. We'll let it slide.
Now, why didn't I include AU at the top of the PL? While we are second, and a pretty respectable 5-2, I still don't think we're in the same class as Bucknell right now. Before their loss to Army, Bucknell was beating up on their PL opponents. Four of six PL wins by Bucknell were double digit victories. AU's biggest margin of victory in its 5 wins? 9 points. Over lowly Colgate. AU's two losses? Double digit blowouts, one of them against Bucknell in Bender.
Back to the Patriot League as a whole though, right now the League is ranked 25th of 33 by RealTimeRPI. KenPom is a little more forgiving, handing the PL the 23rd spot, but both of those would be substantially lower were it not for Bucknell (and to a lesser extent here, AU, leading the way). If something surprising should happen and AU or Bucknell not represent the Patriot League in the NCAA Tourney, don't be surprised to see the PL get handed a 16 seed. I think we can probably avoid a play-in game, but Bucknell is basically the only team with quality tournament level wins in the whole PL right now.
So what does the rest of the PL season hold for AU in particular? Well, KenPom expects us to lose three more times this season: at Lehigh and Bucknell and home against Army. RealTimeRPI expects us to lose all three of those games and also our final regular season game against Lafayette. Meanwhile, both of these sources expect Bucknell to win out.
There will be no easy games for AU from here on out and with how easily AU could be another of the 3-4 teams right now, we'll all have to cross our fingers that the Parity League doesn't draw AU down into its lose-on-any-given-night ways.
How do you think AU will finish out? Leave it in the comments. I think how we come out against Lehigh on Sunday will really be important to set the stage for the rest of the season.
Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!
I have a question, is this year the year the expand the tourni, how does that play out in where PL get placed?
ReplyDeleteBut I also suspsect HC and Navy to make run towards the end of league play, I just hope it doesn't come at our cost.
I'm also envious of Bucknell's scheduling. It's great that we had four BCS opponents this year, but frankly those all ended as expected. We held our own for a bit, got worn down, and lost. Bucknell, however, had fewer BCS opponents but a stronger OOC schedule overall. If we similarly scheduled more A-10 and CAA opponents, we'd have a better chance of pulling off upsets (easier to beat Richmond than Pitt on any given night). I mean, when we're not playing top-25 opponents, we're playing UMES and St. Francis (PA). I think Howard should stick around because I like keeping it local, but other than that, it's all pretty bad, especially when we know our conference schedule won't do much for us RPI-wise. I know this is a rant that would be more appropriate much earlier in the season (or before it, actually), and I'm not trying to express any dissatisfaction with being in the PL, I do think it's a good fit for us. However since this is something Bucknell's doing, it seemed to fit.
ReplyDeleteTAU06: The expansion shouldn't affect the PL placement. If we're 23-25 in the conference rankings the PL winner should be a solid 14 or 15 seed and won't have to take part in any of the play-in games.
ReplyDeleteJK: I disagree. I liked this year's schedule. It has a good mix of cupcakes (we needed some early Ws to build confidence after last season), some good tests against like teams (on the road against Florida Atlantic, the Cable Car games against Fordham and Delaware at a neutral site) and four games against clearly better teams. If you aspire to make the NCAAs you have to get used to playing those kinds of teams (and we didn't embarass ourselves at Pitt).
The one long-term quibble is that I'd like to have one or two non-conference games yearly against decent opposition. I know we're not getting any top 40 teams in Bender, but I would love to see us make a deal with one of the Philly schools, for example (LaSalle, maybe?) to do a home and home series. I don't know that we get a lot out of playing, say, Brown right before the start of PL play. And, of course, I'd love to see some sort of real local tournament. Obviously there's no incentive for Maryland, G-town or Mason to play us year to year, but perhaps if each of those teams rotated every three years in a round-robin with us, GW and Howard?
BTW, we finish 10-4 in conference, second place. Losses @ Bucknell, @ Army.
The ranking of the league is basically irrelevant for NCAA seeding purposes. If anyone other than BU or AU were to win the PL, they would be in one of the play-in-games without any doubt whatsoever. Doesn't matter if the PL is ranked #23 or #25 (or even #15).
ReplyDeleteFYI, we start a series with St. Joe's of the A-10 next year, and they come to Bender to start the series.
ReplyDeleteBucknell has the best big man to play in the PL since Adonal Foyle. The rest of the team is playing as a close knit group.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely a strange year in the PL with most teams giving Jekyll and Hyde performance.
also remember that as a result of our 2 consecutive NCAA appearances, AU now commands a guarantee of sometimes $80k when we play at a place like PItt and WVa. AU on the schedule of a BCS school is an attractive guarantee game for those schools. a few years ago we only could get $ 40k. So i say keep scheduling those profitable guarantee games. I think this past year's schedule was excellent. Local games in the Balto. and DC area plus top guarantee games. Remember the useless games against Elon, Radford, and UNC Greensboro. Too tough a bus trip !
ReplyDeletethis Lehigh game is huge. Win and we solidify a two game lead on the field and a strong bet for a 2 seed and possible two home games in the playoffs. Lose and we are back in the pack and looking at 5-4 after a possible loss at Bucknell- a very tough place to play when they were not as strong as they are now.
Muscala has a chance to be the league's best big man since Foyle, but he's not there yet. He may pass McNaughton at some point for that honor - especially if he gains more weight/strength - but he has not caught him yet.
ReplyDeleteAgree on the guarantee games. They pay the bills for everyone and we need to keep scheduling them. There's no point in having a non-conference schedule that produces a 200-level or worse RPI. That does nothing for us. If we aspire to be a true mid-major we have to play good teams. (Remember, your RPI usually goes up when you play top 100 and above schools, regardless of whether you win or lose.) And every once in a while, like at Florida State many years ago and Maryland in '07, we win one of them.
ReplyDeleteBoots & NJJ - Oh, I never once meant to imply that we should drop the guarantee games! They get AU on TV, they finance a good part of the program, and the chance for the occasional upset is too good to pass up. I was advocating replacing a few of the total cupcakes with some slightly tougher competition, that's all. Also, I'd definitely count DePaul '09 in the "big upset" category, even if it wasn't as flashy as Florida State or Maryland.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - If the St. Joe's rumor is true, that's FANTASTIC, they're a real quality opponent and I would definitely look forward to seeing them in Bender (and rarely do I look forward to seeing a non-AU team in Bender).
On the topi of the A10 coming to Bender, I long for the day GW comes back, because I'll say it again, I love local games (for whatever reason they decided traveling to Holy Cross and artificially creating a rivalry with Mason were good ideas in recent years. Go figure.)
how about next years visit to Villanova?- expect it !
ReplyDeleteIn principal, the best OOC schedule is one-third of your games against tougher competition, one-third equal, and one third weaker.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how this season's schedule stands up to that equation.
However, I will say that a team is not in sole control of its schedule. It takes two to tango, so you have to find schools willing to play you without playing all your games away.