Sometimes the opening round of conference tournaments brings rematches of lopsided regular season contests. Like the undefeated UMW women playing Gallaudet, whom they’ve beaten by an average of 50.5 points. Or the Wooster men, fresh off the OWU loss, hosting Kenyon.
Not likely to be cliffhangers.
But sometimes familiarity breeds interesting results, even in early rounds. With that in mind, here are a few Tuesday tilts to watch:
– One Falls Swoop: When does No. 12 in the nation hosting a team who lost to Macalester become an interesting game? When it’s the WIAC!
UW-Stout opens the conference tournament with a visit from UW-River falls (6-18). Last time they met in Menomonie, it was almost a double-digit victory…for the Falcons. Can UWRF do it again? Listen and find out (8 PM EST).
– The Graduate: Sometimes I go to the basketball court where I’m attending grad school and I get dominated by the undergrads. Then I sulk home and take solace in knowing I could’ve beaten them when I was their age. Of course, they would’ve only been 11 then but that’s not the point.
Graduate school students need to band together when their own kind are carrying the older, wiser but not necessarily richer banner into battle. So tonight, Danielle Holbrook (pictured), I salute you. You are the Otterbein Cardinals’ leading scorer going into tonight’s rubber match against John Carroll. And you have inspired me to take that 6-foot-3 undergrad to the rack for a serious facial the next time I hoop it up.
– Memory Loss: Forget going into the conference tournament with momentum. The Ramapo Roadrunners have lost 5 of 6. Forget about the last meeting with NJCU in Jersey City. Ramapo lost by 20. And forget about last year’s tournament appearance. Because if the Roadrunners don’t run the table, they are going nowhere.
But you think it won’t be a battle when Ramapo and NJCU square off tonight? Forget about it…
But don’t forget to add your own thoughts below. There’s plenty to talk about with lots of tournaments tipping off.
Although it doesn’t involve a conference tournament, Cal Lutheran’s women can clinch the SCIAC automatic bid with a win or a Claremont-Mudd-Scripps loss tonight.
Makes you wonder how legitimate conference tournaments are when you have 8 teams going in the same tourney…I think a tournament is better than no tournament, but does Wooster really need to play Kenyon again? I think the CCIW (new tourney this year) and the Centennial have it right…limit the tourney to the top 4 or 5 teams and go from there.
Now, of course, some will argue tournaments are bad…it does hurt regional records, etc.
I have completely the opposite take, Lil Pat. I think that no tournament is better than a tournament, but that if you have to have a tournament it ought to be an eight-team tournament. At least this is true where CCIW men’s basketball is concerned.
This is a season in which, had the CCIW continued its no-tourney policy, two teams would currently be in great shape for Pool C berths behind Augustana (North Central and Illinois Wesleyan). However, because of the four-team tourney, one or both of them is going to take a hit in regional W-L percentage and QOWI that will likely prove fatal to that team’s Pool C chances. If it had been set up as an eight-team tourney, however, those two teams would each have the chance to lessen the damage to their regional W-L percentage by going 2-1. And since the CCIW does so well in non-conference play, the league’s #5, #6, and #7 teams are all in the plus-.333-but-minus-.500 QOWI category — meaning that first-round home wins over them would each be worth 10 QOWI points and wouldn’t be likely to inflict any QOWI damage to the winner.
Better no tournament than a tournament, but if the CCIW men have to have a tournament at all … to paraphrase George Orwell, four teams bad, eight teams good.
And some leagues are more equal than others.
– Pacific Boxer