MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[y_jack_lok]

^^^ I'm not sure if doing all this -- especially as many times as you've done it -- is the path to dementia or the way to keep you from dementia. For your sake I hope its the latter. 

[hopefan]

^^^ I'm not sure if doing all this -- especially as many times as you've done it -- is the path to dementia or the way to keep you from dementia. For your sake I hope its the latter. 

I like 5000 piece jigsaw puzzles too....

[hopefan]

ok, so SLIAC stands for ST. LOUIS Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

SLIAC.org gives us Conference standings and Conference Tourney results dating back to the 1990-91 season.

From 1990 to 1999 the tourney was an 8 team tourney.   In each of those years, either Webster or Fontbonne, the two St. Louis SLIAC schools, finished in the top four of the regular season standings, earning a 1-4 seed in the 8 team tourney.

From 2000 to 2004, there was no post season tourney (WHY?)... In each of those years though, either Fontbonne or Webster finished in the top four of the regular season standings.

From 2005 to current 2016, the tournament has been a four team tournament... through 2015, each year of the four team conference tourney has seen either Webster or Fontbonne finish in the top four of the standings and appear in the tourney.

Barring an incredible finish of Webster beating IWU*** and Greenville and Spalding losing at home, this will be the FIRST time in 27 years that neither Webster nor Fontbonne will finish in the top 4 of the SLIAC standings... and consequently the first time in 12 years that neither will appear in the 4 team tourney..

Hopefully that will inspire both programs to do what it needs to do to return to the top 4 level....  From what I see, Webster-Fontbonne rivalry is as good as it gets in the SLIAC... it makes for the best possible ending to a season....

[hopefan]

A feel good piece of trivia... as noted the current format 4 team SLIAC conference tourney began in 2005, meaning through 2015, there have been 11 touneys played that way...

Greenville has qualified to play in only one of those tournaments, the 2012 tourney, where they were dispatched by Webster in a double digit loss... so good, cool, neat, whatever, for them to adopt the system, start out 1-4 and have 'expert' hopefan suggest they should drop it, to then go 11-1, and likely host the SLIAC tourney.... Who wouldda thought!!!   Hooray for Coach Barber...
I think so much of each of the 4 coaches who will likely be in the tourney... Coach Barber, Coach Creal (Mac), Coach Mitchell (Westmin), and Coach Gray (Spalding)... but it's going to be tough not to 'secretly' be rooting for GC....

[hopefan]

It'a a big game for everyone today... no team goes in to the final game of the season not caring about the result.. some will play for pride (Prin and Fontbonne), some will play for a miracle finish to be escalated to the tourney (Webster, Eureka, Blackburn) , one will play for a win or lose tourney spot (Spalding), one will play for a hoped for national tourney bid (Iowa Wesleyan), 2 will play for 1st place and the tourney host role (Greenville, Mac), and one will play to stay locked into its 2-3 tourney positioning (Westminster).

To all teams, good luck... it's been a SLIAC season that really couldn't have been any better for this fan....

[BunchTime]

Some interesting stats, hopefan.  Also, I think at stake today is Coach Bunch finishing outside the top 4 for the first time in his tenure at Webster.

[hopefan]

Some interesting stats, hopefan.  Also, I think at stake today is Coach Bunch finishing outside the top 4 for the first time in his tenure at Webster.

And Buncher, not sure if you'll agree with me or not, but Coach Bunch is likely putting some of the burden of this season's poor finish on his own shoulders... Webster, to me, clearly had top 4 talent.. this was not a team coming in inexperienced, decimated by graduation or injury... somehow this team could not play to a reasonable level of expectation on a consistent basis.. the critiques you wrote in the last several weeks were right on... Virtually the same team is back next year, and that's a long way away, but certainly new goals need to be set to get the best out of this group....

[hopefan]

Prin beats Westmin. No idea who is in now

[y_jack_lok]

Prin beats Westmin. No idea who is in now

In direct competition with the other 10-8 teams Webster is 2-0 vs Eureka, 0-2 vs Spalding, split with Westmin, Against the top two -- split with Mac, 2-0 vs GC. Does that help?

[WUPHF]

Prin beats Westmin. No idea who is in now

You have got to be kidding.

[ecreddevils]

Prin beats Westmin. No idea who is in now

You have got to be kidding.

Any idea on tiebreakers at this point?  Nothing official from the conference. 

[hopefan]

Just got home ... had some conversations .. in agreement

1 Mac   hosts
2 Greenville
3 Westmin
4 Spalding

I'll explain later tonight or tomorrow morning

[hopefan]

ECred, you would have been proud of your boys... they played super..Big games from many, but I thought Parker Gibson was the difference maker...

[hopefan]

So here is how the tiebreaker situation works

Mac and GC tied at 12-6
WU, WC, EC, and SU  tied at 10-8

MAC and GC
   Mac and GC split their 2 games
   going to how they performed against the next best record, which are the 4 teams tied at 10-8, Mac was 4-4, they split with each team... Greenville was 3-5, They lost to Webster twice, split with each of the others
   So Mac is 1 and hosts, Greenville is 2

WU, WC, EC, and SU
the 4 teams at 10-8, how did they do vs each other
WC  4-2;  WU 3-3;  EC 2-4; SU 3-3    WC is 3rd, EC is eliminated

SU and WU are left... SU beat WU twice    SU is 4th


   

[BunchTime]

Amazes me that a fan -- albeit a super fan -- of this conference can figure it out before the actual conference can.  It's been almost 6 hours since the games ended and the conference cant't figure it out and officially announce the tournament teams.  How is that difficult.  I guess they were never expecting this scenario.