MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[txg]

The title game will be in Northfield unless both the Johnnies and the Pipers win.  The Oles will have to play way, way better offensively to have a chance.  Connor Martin had 7 turnovers.  (Though he did a great job defending Williams in the second half.)

[SagatagSam]

Second regional rankings came out on Tuesday (as most of us we preparing for the blizzard):

Region 9       
1   UW-Oshkosh   20-5   20-5
2   UW-La Crosse   19-6   19-6
3   Carleton   22-3   22-3
4   St. Mary's (Minn.)   16-9   16-9
5   UW-Eau Claire   16-9   16-9
6   UW-Whitewater   18-7   18-7
7   Bethany Lutheran   20-4   21-4

Are we thinking Carleton is pretty comfortably an at-large bid if they stub their toe in the conference tournament?
My guess is that St. Mary's hopes of an at-large were dashed with the loss to Hamline.

[txg]

The consensus seems to be that Carleton has no shot for a Pool C bid if they lose the tournament.  Strength of schedule is too low.

[carletonknights]

Very unfortunate. They played 5 non-conf games, won them all. I think too much weight is being put on SOS if a 22-3 regular season MIAC champ has zero shot of getting a pool C.

[Greek Tragedy]

I think if Carleton loses in the MIAC tournament and they don't get a bid, the MIAC bosses will look hard into revamping the conference schedule. They don't need to play 20 conference games. The league is killing any SOS. Going down to 16 (or even 18) conference games and boosting NC SOS is the only way.

[txg]

The MIAC has had 9 at-large berths in the last 10 tournaments.  So it is possible even with a 20-game conference schedule.

For Carleton it might come down to that away game with 2-24 Martin Luther.  If that was a .500 team instead, I think their SOS would be more like .515-.520.  That might have been enough to get them some consideration at least.

[SagatagSam]

The MIAC has had 9 at-large berths in the last 10 tournaments.  So it is possible even with a 20-game conference schedule.

For Carleton it might come down to that away game with 2-24 Martin Luther.  If that was a .500 team instead, I think their SOS would be more like .515-.520.  That might have been enough to get them some consideration at least.

The fly in the ointment is that St. Thomas was a member of the conference for about 9 of those 10 tournaments. Having a national power year-in and year-out makes a difference--as much as it pains my Cardinal and Blue soul to say that.

Imagine pulling SJU or Bethel out of the MIAC in football--would the conference still get an at-large bid to the football tournament?

[SagatagSam]

The only alternative to reducing the conference season is having the conference be strong from top to bottom. That's part of the secret sauce in football, I think. I remember a few years where the entire MIAC only lost one or two non-conference games (that's an .800 or .900 win percentage). Going 17-3 (or 16-4 like in 2022) as a conference against all non-conference competition matters.

Compare that with the MIAC's non-conference showing this year in basketball:

CAR 5-0
SJU 3-2
SMU 4-2
MAC 4-2
STO 5-1
HAM 5-1
GAC 0-5
CON 2-2
BU   2-3
CSS 1-4
AUG 2-2

Total 33-24 (.579)

Now, the problem with my point is that the solution is a bit like herding cats--there's no way you can snap your fingers and cause the MIAC to be stronger.

That leaves a scheduling change, which, while I don't really love it, may be the only solution. So that way a team like Carleton could go 7-0, or 9-0 outside of the conference and have some quality non-conference games.

[Pat Coleman]

The fly in the ointment is that St. Thomas was a member of the conference for about 9 of those 10 tournaments. Having a national power year-in and year-out makes a different--as much as it pains my Cardinal and Blue soul to say that.

Ding ding ding!

[Greek Tragedy]

I'm confused on the schedules. Why do some of the teams only have 19 conference games? Were there any cancellations? And why do you have some teams playing 6 NC games?

[Pat Coleman]

I'm confused on the schedules. Why do some of the teams only have 19 conference games? Were there any cancellations? And why do you have some teams playing 6 NC games?

Looks like just two schedules: Gustavus and St. Mary's. And that's because when they played last Saturday, St. Mary's failed to check the box that marked it as a conference game when uploading its box score, so that's been fixed.

[Greek Tragedy]

Ok, but sag still has St. Mary's, Macalester, St. Olaf and Hamline with 6 NCs. Maybe I'll go through their schedules of I have time. No big deal.

[carletonknights]

GAC 0-5

Oofda

[txg]

Ok, but sag still has St. Mary's, Macalester, St. Olaf and Hamline with 6 NCs. Maybe I'll go through their schedules of I have time. No big deal.

They had only 5.  The extra games were the playoff games from Tuesday.

[SagatagSam]

That's on me. I didn't think about the playoff games.