Monday, February 26, 2018

Patriot League conference tournament

This is part 3 of a 32-part series.

Standings:
Bucknell 16-2
Colgate 12-6
Navy 11-7
Lehigh 11-7
Boston 10-8
Holy Cross 8-10
Lafayette 7-11
Loyola(MD) 6-12
Army 6-12
American 3-15

Format:
Higher seed hosts each game here.  February 27, March 1, March 4, March 7 for the four rounds.  It's a travel slog.

Matchups:
1) Bucknell vs. 8/9) Loyola(MD)/Army
4) Lehigh vs. 5) Boston
3) Navy vs. 6) Holy Cross
2) Colgate vs. 7/10) Lafayette/American

The stakes:
Bucknell was a chic mid major pick going into the year, and they scheduled like it.  Went 6-7 vs a tough non-con with tons of road games at relevant teams.  Unfortunately, such teams included VCU, Richmond, Maryland, and others which all did worse than expected, so they lost the games AND didn't get the seed help they were looking for.  In addition, the PL slipped to RPI 28, killing Bucknell's seed even more.  The lesson:  if they get in, they'll be probably on the 14 line, and very dangerous.

Everyone else would be destined for the 16 line, if not Dayton, as the rest of this league was frankly pretty bad.  For those keeping score, Colgate, Navy and Lehigh are your CIT-eligible teams, although none of them are particularly worthy of postseason play.

2 comments:

HenryMuto said...

I think Bucknell wins this and I am rooting for Bucknell to win this. This is a team with their top 9 players back from last year and I think if they end up a 14 or 15 seed can hang with some of the 2/3 seed teams and have a shot of an upset pending matchup.

HenryMuto said...
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