CUSA conference tournament preview

This is part 26 of a 32-part series.

Standings:
Old Dominion 13-5
Southern Miss 11-7
Marshall 11-7
Western Kentucky 11-7
UTSA 11-7
FIU 10-8
UAB 10-8
Louisiana Tech 9-9
North Texas 8-10
Florida Atlantic 8-10
Rice 8-10
Middle Tennessee 8-10
Charlotte 5-13
UTEP 3-15

Format:
Oh God, I have to type out this whole mess.  Ok here we go.

Remember the special format CUSA changed to?  After 14 games, the teams were divided into three groups (5, 5, and 4), and played 4 more conference games within each group.  They did this in order to try and create as many resume-enhancing games as possible.

So, when teams were grouped, they were locked in for seeding as well.  Meaning the top 5 teams (ODU, WKU, SMU, UTSA, UAB) became the top 5 seeds, no matter what any team in the second group did.  Therefore, UAB is the 5 seed despite what you see in the standings.

And in any event, it all became irrelevant because ODU ran away with the season title making the group games irrelevant.  And they lost a couple times, seeing their NET plummet and the entire conference taking a hit.

Wait, it even gets more confusing.  Only 12 teams go, so the bottom two teams in the bottom group don't go.  Neutral site host at Frisco, Texas.  But wait, there's another twist.  In the first round and quarterfinals, two games are played at the same time....with the courts separated by a curtain.

What the fuck

Matchups:
1) Old Dominion vs. 8/9) Louisiana Tech/Florida Atlantic
4) UTSA vs. 5/12) UAB/Middle Tennessee
3) Southern Miss vs. 6/11) Marshall/Rice
2) Western Kentucky vs. 7/10) FIU/North Texas

The stakes:
Old Dominion gave away some seed equity at the end.  On the surface, their resume looks great:  won at Syracuse and home to VCU!  Two signature wins!  And 7 losses in Q3.  Aha.  There's the catch.  Maybe, maybe, juuuust maybe they had an outside chance, but lost to UAB and Southern Miss in the last week, killing them off.

What also hurts is that they never got a game in conference play that qualified for Q2 status.  This whole system was designed to create quality games, and ODU never got one.  Southern Miss had a NET of 91...but ODU got them at home in the original schedule, and it was a home game based on the created format for the reschedule.  WKU had a NET of 119...but same thing happened to them.  Instead of getting a Q2 game on the road, ODU got stuck with a Q3 game at home.  They did play UAB (NET 139, 4 away from Q2) and UTSA (NET 140, 5 away from Q2) twice on the road.  Outch.  Even a roadie at FAU only missed by 17 spots.

So the schedule ended up being one of the all-time backfires.  Even worse, in Q3 games in total, ODU went just 9-7.  What a way to waste those Syracuse and VCU wins.  Still though, I suppose those wins will lock them in on the 13 line.

To be fair, let's look at the other 4 teams in the top group.  Each ended up with at least 4 Q2 games on the schedule.  4!  And ODU got 0.  Wow.  That is almost impossible to do.  ODU had one of the most unlucky breaks in the history of conference scheduling.

Let's briefly touch on the other teams...since they all got Q2 chances, all their resumes are more or less okay (i.e., should be able to reach the 13 line).  WKU in particular, won over Wisky, Arky, St Mary's...but lost 7 Q3 games (which probably takes them off the 12 line).  All in all, I'd say the scheduling gambit actually worked, because it should pull the conference off the 14 line.  But it was an all-time backfire for ODU specifically.