MBB: Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Darryl Nester]

... 
Earlham loses badly again.  Can the Quakers get a W this year or will they go winless?

It is worth noting that Earlham have had two close games recently -- losing by 4 at Bluffton on January 11, and then by 1 at Defiance on Wednesday.  In watching them play Bluffton, they looked to be very hungry for a win; if they are in the game (and that is a big "if"), they play with great intensity.  Any team who goes into a game against EC should not look past them, or they might find themselves with an unexpected loss.

[dc_has_been]

I was a bit surprised how close DC kept it against Hanover considering how badly they shot the ball.  I was really hoping they would have been at least in the mix for the conference tournament.  Hopefully they will put together a decent win streak that gets them up several spots. 
Hanover does a have a favorable schedule with four home games and two away.  Transy is one of those home games too which should help.  RHIT's does not look that bad either while Transy will have to pick up some tough road wins. 

[Darryl Nester]

... Any team who goes into a game against EC should not look past them, or they might find themselves with an unexpected loss.

Bluffton narrowly avoided being that team, as it took a career-high 27 points from Nick Lee and a last-second bucket by Nate Heckelman to give the Beavers a one-point win on the road.  The Quakers had a 12 point lead at halftime, and led by 16 with 11 minutes to go.

Other winners tonight: Transy over Franklin, RHIT over Manchester, and AU over DC.  Live stats from the Hanover/MSJ game are stuck at the beginning of the game; I assume that game (which started at 7:30) is over by now. MSJ's Web site has Hanover winning, 58-43.

[WAlum]

Updated Standings:

10-1    16-2   Transylvania
9-2    13-4   Hanover   
8-3    14-4   Rose-Hulman   
7-4    10-8     Franklin   
6-5    12-6   Bluffton
5-6    7-11   Manchester     
5-6    9-9    Anderson (Ind.)
3-8    7-11    Defiance   
2-9    6-12    Mt. St. Joseph   
0-11    0-18   Earlham

[WAlum]

Mount pulls the upset, beating R-H 56-50 and dropping them three games behind Transy.  Its a two-team race between Transy and Hanover for the title. (Transy at Hanover on Feb 15th)

Updated Standings:

11-1   17-2   Transylvania
10-2   14-4   Hanover   
8-4    14-5   Rose-Hulman   
7-5    10-9    Franklin   
7-5    13-6   Bluffton
6-6    10-9    Anderson (Ind.)
5-7    7-12   Manchester     
3-9    7-12    Defiance   
3-9    7-12    Mt. St. Joseph   
0-12   0-19   Earlham

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Bluffton beat Franklin to pull into a tie for 4th. Think it's about time to look at the conference tourney possibilities...

Transy and Rose look good to get the byes, still to decide where the tourney will be played though
Rose looks good to make the tourney as they have a 3 game edge with 6 to play
Bluffton and Franklin are 2 games clear
Anderson holds the final spot and just 1 game up on Manchester with a meeting @ Manchester remaining
Manchester on the outside looking in but still in the hunt
Defiance and Mount both are 3 games out and not looking good
Earlham... not much you can say

Franklin has 5 of their remaining 6 on the road and the lone home game is Rose... still could be a lot of shuffling in the next few weeks

[BUBeaverFan]

Beavers have 4 of 6 at home to finish season with home games against MSJ, Anderson, Manchester, then at Hanover and Defiance and then finish home against Transy.  A 3-3 finish would probably be good enough to get them in the conference tourney.

[hotdawg]

Transy and Rose look good to get the byes, still to decide where the tourney will be played though

How does Rose look good to get a bye? They have lost 4 and Hanover has lost 2, Am I missing something... there are no divisons splitting up the conference or something is there?

I like Hanover to get a bye, and possibly host the tourney. They are the best team in the league IMO, and Case is the best player in the league.

[Darryl Nester]

Transy and Rose look good to get the byes, still to decide where the tourney will be played though

How does Rose look good to get a bye? They have lost 4 and Hanover has lost 2, Am I missing something... there are no divisons splitting up the conference or something is there?

I like Hanover to get a bye, and possibly host the tourney. They are the best team in the league IMO, and Case is the best player in the league.

It appears that FCGrizzliesGrad said Rose when he meant to say Hanover, given that in the next sentence he said (emphasis added):

Transy and Rose look good to get the byes, still to decide where the tourney will be played though
Rose looks good to make the tourney as they have a 3 game edge with 6 to play

For what it is worth, several years ago I wrote a computer program to run through all the possible season-ending scenarios and determine the seedings based on all the possible outcomes.  I need to update that program to take into account a change to the tiebreaker that I became aware of the end of  last season), and I also need to wait until after Wednesday's games for the number of scenarios to become feasible*, but just for fun I ran it last night using the old tiebreaker rules, and assuming that EC loses the rest of their games. That run showed TU and HC as guaranteed in, with RHIT in for about 90-95% of all scenarios, Franklin and Bluffton in for about 80% of all scenarios, and lower percents for the remaining teams (0 for EC, since I had them losing out).

If I get the tiebreaker stuff worked out, I will post those results on Thursday or Friday.

*With 30 games remaining, there are 2³⁰ = over 1 billion possible scenarios, which would take over half a day to run, based on the time it took to run the reduced scenario with only 24 games.

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Apparently my Franklin brain just refused to acknowledge Hanover and stuck Rose in there instead Either that or Hanover is on double secret probation and has secretly been declared ineligible for a bye

[zander]

Should be a good game tonight beween Hanover and Franklin--Franklin has had some impressive wins this year and has shown they can compete. Time for Hanover to begin to give a total team effort for the complete game and see just how good they are- Go Panthers!

[BUBeaverFan]

Bluffton squeezes by MSJ in OT  74-64  (Beavers 25-27 at half then tied at 58-58 at end of regulation)

[zander]

Hanover played great basketball scoring 72 pts to beat Franklin and only having 4 turnovers. Keep it going, Panthers!

[Darryl Nester]

I did not have a chance to implement the new tiebreaker rules, so these numbers should be taken as rough,* but based on last night's games, and the assumption that Earlham will lose on the road Hanover and RHIT** (but has a chance in their home games vs MSJ, DC, and MC), the table below shows where the teams end up, as a percent of all possible scenarios for the remaining 23 games.

*The new tiebreaker rules only apply to certain situations; I am not sure how often they arise, but they almost certainly arose from time to time among all possible scenarios.

**Sorry to have to make that assumption, Quaker fans, but the program took 21 minutes to run that way, and would have taken 4 times as long without it.


Team      #1      #2      #3      #4      #5      #6            Tournament?
TU       69.03%  30.16%   0.78%   0.03%    --      --             Yes
HC       30.84%  62.16%   6.04%   0.96%   0.00%    --             Yes
RHIT      0.11%   5.23%  48.59%  30.40%  12.06%   3.49%         99.87%
BU        0.02%   2.43%  31.81%  35.24%  17.94%   8.38%         95.82%
AU         --     0.02%   6.73%  15.66%  27.29%  35.90%         85.61%
FC         --      --     5.95%  15.25%  34.42%  29.07%         84.69%
MC         --      --     0.11%   2.36%   7.48%  18.09%         28.04%
DC         --      --     0.00%   0.10%   0.73%   3.98%          4.81%
MSJ        --      --      --      --     0.08%   1.08%          1.16%

[dc_has_been]

Great job like always Darryl!  Regardless of all the tiebreaker rules, I've always enjoyed that layout you've done!