East Region Playoff Discussion

[lewdogg11]

I did not check it, so I am trusting the stat, but wow that stat about Framingham playing outside the NEFC twice in 12 years is absurd!

Yeah, and it was Norwich in an ECAC game in 2010.  Not exactly a world beater.

So basically only postseason games. Their OOC games are basically in conference. I doubt that changes when they split. How boring.

That is terrible...and should have immediately disqualified them from consideration this year.

So basically, in the past 12 years, this game coming up is their first game against a team NOT from the NEFC or the ECFC?  I never want to hear the NEFC fans complain again...

Couple of thoughts on this note:

1) something we often ignore is that the NEFC is basically two conferences (which will be official next year). However you feel about the competition level, there is at least SOME logic to playing your OOC games against "peer" institutions that are nearby.  Is it really all that different from the LL having a lot of crossover games against the E8, or the MAC and NJAC playing a lot of noncoference games against one another?

2) if the NEFC schools collectively decided "enough is enough, from now on we are ALL going to start scheduling other teams for our OOC games" - where are all of those games against quality opponents going to come from? Do you think the LL, E8, and NJAC scos are going to line up and start giving away THEIR relatively sparse number of OOC games to fill out the noncoference schedules of NEFC teams? Think Hobart and SJF fans would get excited about a game against MIT or Endicott?

Yes, I give Salve a ton of credit and would love to see the NEFC schools at least TRY to schedule the occasional noncoference game against their other East brethren. But let's not pretend that there are dozens of ready and willing opponents that would happily volunteer to play those games (because it would take a lot more than one or two teams - with 16 NEFC teams, getting all of them ONE quality OOC opponent per year would require the majority of 2-3 conferences to agree to play one of those teams).

dlip hears ya but he just doesn't concurr. Listen, East Region teams as a whole (outside of the NEFC/ECFC) kick the **** out of each other annually. Many schedule some decent OOC competition to better their program, attract recruits, and to gain more respect nationally. While this may pay off regarding D3.com rankings it hardly seems to pay off all that much when it comes to getting bids pool C bids. What the NCAA has shown us time and again is that record counts big time. SOOOOO much so that ****ing Bridgewater gets in over many teams across the nation who would ****ing stomp them. So to respond to what you said earlier dlip believes at this point, many teams in the NJAC, LL, E8, and MAC will line up to play games against teams in the ECFC and NEFC that they should beat to just better their record. This could be especially true if coaches think in terms of defeating in region ranked teams towards the end of the year. A win this year against a team like Framingham would benefit many bubble teams like Lycoming, Rowan, and many others who if you took away a loss and replaced it with an OOC in region ranked team win, would look good to the NCAA when selecting pool C teams.

More than anything, a win for a 1 or 2 loss team against a Framingham, Bridgewater, Salve, Endicott, etc, would be a HUGE SOS boost.  It would tell the committee if Bridgewater is any good if they were to win, and if they lose it puts them in their correct place.  If the E8, LL, NJAC team got the win, how nice would a win over an 8-2 Bridgewater look on the SOS?   NEFC can still get their 1 team bid, but the Pool C has to earn it.  It doesn't have to be Mt. Union, but it could just be Union.

[bman]

dlip hears ya but he just doesn't concurr. Listen, East Region teams as a whole (outside of the NEFC/ECFC) kick the **** out of each other annually. Many schedule some decent OOC competition to better their program, attract recruits, and to gain more respect nationally. While this may pay off regarding D3.com rankings it hardly seems to pay off all that much when it comes to getting bids pool C bids. What the NCAA has shown us time and again is that record counts big time. SOOOOO much so that ****ing Bridgewater gets in over many teams across the nation who would ****ing stomp them. So to respond to what you said earlier dlip believes at this point, many teams in the NJAC, LL, E8, and MAC will line up to play games against teams in the ECFC and NEFC that they should beat to just better their record. This could be especially true if coaches think in terms of defeating in region ranked teams towards the end of the year. A win this year against a team like Framingham would benefit many bubble teams like Lycoming, Rowan, and many others who if you took away a loss and replaced it with an OOC in region ranked team win, would look good to the NCAA when selecting pool C teams.
[/quote]

+K dlip
I agree that it's a relative easy win playing the NEFC, but at the point these get scheduled, how do you know if one of these teams is going to be regionally ranked?...If teams in the NJAC and MAC (at least ...including Wesley), need a game against a "cupcake" opponent, there are plenty to be had closer to home...
In many cases it's better to schedule a local team with a mediocre SOS, since it would benefit more than travelling far to get a (likely) weaker SOS number....

[dlippiel]

You know Yanks dlip agrees 100%. He too is one on sportsmanship and can admit he was a bit annoyed at Widener's 90 point win but probably overreacted. dlip hopes that the Pride, Cortland, and Wesley ****ing destroy all three NEFC/ECFC teams to make a statement. Now does dlip feel the NCAA will take notice? No, especially that bo bo commitee chair. Yet for anything to change it needs to be noticed and even more obvious. Dlip feels that the auto-bid should be there but maybe with some stimulations. For instance pressure on these conferences to play OOC games against conferences outside of New England. If not maybe one bid to an ECFC champion vs NEFC champion or MASCAC champion. Whatever...the **** won't change.

*Don't get dlip wrong, he is not anti-ECFC/NEFC/MASCAC, he just feels it not right that now 3 at large bids will be taken up by what has proven to be inferior competition. To earn the bids these conferences should be forced to actually earn them by playing others not just for existing.

[bman]

I did not check it, so I am trusting the stat, but wow that stat about Framingham playing outside the NEFC twice in 12 years is absurd!

Yeah, and it was Norwich in an ECAC game in 2010.  Not exactly a world beater.

So basically only postseason games. Their OOC games are basically in conference. I doubt that changes when they split. How boring.

That is terrible...and should have immediately disqualified them from consideration this year.

So basically, in the past 12 years, this game coming up is their first game against a team NOT from the NEFC or the ECFC?  I never want to hear the NEFC fans complain again...

Couple of thoughts on this note:

1) something we often ignore is that the NEFC is basically two conferences (which will be official next year). However you feel about the competition level, there is at least SOME logic to playing your OOC games against "peer" institutions that are nearby.  Is it really all that different from the LL having a lot of crossover games against the E8, or the MAC and NJAC playing a lot of noncoference games against one another?

2) if the NEFC schools collectively decided "enough is enough, from now on we are ALL going to start scheduling other teams for our OOC games" - where are all of those games against quality opponents going to come from? Do you think the LL, E8, and NJAC scos are going to line up and start giving away THEIR relatively sparse number of OOC games to fill out the noncoference schedules of NEFC teams? Think Hobart and SJF fans would get excited about a game against MIT or Endicott?

Yes, I give Salve a ton of credit and would love to see the NEFC schools at least TRY to schedule the occasional noncoference game against their other East brethren. But let's not pretend that there are dozens of ready and willing opponents that would happily volunteer to play those games (because it would take a lot more than one or two teams - with 16 NEFC teams, getting all of them ONE quality OOC opponent per year would require the majority of 2-3 conferences to agree to play one of those teams).

dlip hears ya but he just doesn't concurr. Listen, East Region teams as a whole (outside of the NEFC/ECFC) kick the **** out of each other annually. Many schedule some decent OOC competition to better their program, attract recruits, and to gain more respect nationally. While this may pay off regarding D3.com rankings it hardly seems to pay off all that much when it comes to getting bids pool C bids. What the NCAA has shown us time and again is that record counts big time. SOOOOO much so that ****ing Bridgewater gets in over many teams across the nation who would ****ing stomp them. So to respond to what you said earlier dlip believes at this point, many teams in the NJAC, LL, E8, and MAC will line up to play games against teams in the ECFC and NEFC that they should beat to just better their record. This could be especially true if coaches think in terms of defeating in region ranked teams towards the end of the year. A win this year against a team like Framingham would benefit many bubble teams like Lycoming, Rowan, and many others who if you took away a loss and replaced it with an OOC in region ranked team win, would look good to the NCAA when selecting pool C teams.

More than anything, a win for a 1 or 2 loss team against a Framingham, Bridgewater, Salve, Endicott, etc, would be a HUGE SOS boost.  It would tell the committee if Bridgewater is any good if they were to win, and if they lose it puts them in their correct place.  If the E8, LL, NJAC team got the win, how nice would a win over an 8-2 Bridgewater look on the SOS?   NEFC can still get their 1 team bid, but the Pool C has to earn it.  It doesn't have to be Mt. Union, but it could just be Union.

But Lewdogg, I think thats the point...it's not just the SOS, the SOOS factors in...so, while a win against the 8-2 team doesn't hurt, getting the SOOS numbers for the rest of the NEFC which are horrific, would hurt. 

To an extent, that hurts the MAC every year, given that there are very few OOC games, its hard to get your numbers to a level that does't hurt at playoff time...

[dlippiel]

A very valid point bman but remember there is more to this than just SOS. You wouldn't know you were defeating and in region ranked team obviously but, looking at what the NCAA's regional rankings usually look like they include a 0 or 1 loss NEFC/ECFC team (and now an MASCAC team) by scheduling an Endicott, Salve, Framingham, Norwich, Maritime you set yourself up for a potential in regiin ranked win because it is much easier for one of those teams to become an east region ranked team. If they are not going to be good then you do the east region a favor by defeating them and showing the inferiority of most teams from those conferences. It's a win win, unless tou lose.

[Bombers798891]

dlip hears ya but he just doesn't concurr. Listen, East Region teams as a whole (outside of the NEFC/ECFC) kick the **** out of each other annually. Many schedule some decent OOC competition to better their program, attract recruits, and to gain more respect nationally. While this may pay off regarding D3.com rankings it hardly seems to pay off all that much when it comes to getting bids pool C bids. What the NCAA has shown us time and again is that record counts big time. SOOOOO much so that ****ing Bridgewater gets in over many teams across the nation who would ****ing stomp them. So to respond to what you said earlier dlip believes at this point, many teams in the NJAC, LL, E8, and MAC will line up to play games against teams in the ECFC and NEFC that they should beat to just better their record. This could be especially true if coaches think in terms of defeating in region ranked teams towards the end of the year. A win this year against a team like Framingham would benefit many bubble teams like Lycoming, Rowan, and many others who if you took away a loss and replaced it with an OOC in region ranked team win, would look good to the NCAA when selecting pool C teams.

I get tired of hearing this excuse for East Region teams. Yes, they schedule decent/good teams OOC, and have tough conference games, but it's not like we're in the SEC. I think our teams are just inconsistent. Buffalo State was all over the map this year. A team good enough to beat UW-W on the road (even in a down year) and Cortland State should be able to beat anyone in the E8 save maybe Salisbury. Instead they drop three conference games.

Or look at Union. Is Utica, Ithaca, and Salve that challenging of an OOC slate? Should they have won all three of those games? No, but there was no reason why they couldn't have won at least two—especially the Ithaca game, which they just handed to the Bombers (for the second year in a row, no less). Ithaca/Cortland fans always say "Throw out the records" as if it's impossible that one of the teams could ever be better and demonstrate that on the field.

Heck, not to pick on the Dutchmen, but they probably could have gone 9-1 in 2011 too. They allowed late scores to Utica and Salve, and spent the entire IC game turning the ball over—that game was much closer than the score indicated. I think the tough schedules are part of it, yes but we also have not seen week in-week out consistency from teams in the NJAC/E8/LL required to go 8-2/9-1

[fulbakdad]

Ok, on the probablity of getting blasted just once again......

My son is a Sophmore at a MWC school now.  He was recruited by many East teams because he was an All New England player at a NEPSAC school.  So we hear from many of the teams being mentioned in this thread.  Ithaca, Springfield, and Salve were his top three besides the school in Chicago he ended up at.

The Salve Coach, Chesney, was very proud that he was going out of conferance and trying to establish themselves out of the NEFC norm.  He did that.  Now it's no fault of his that Union and Monclair decided to have off years.  He scheduled, or the school did, to play teams that had some history and were from more competitive conferances.  So last year, they go 1-1 against those teams and this year they beat both. 

So even mention that Salve is either moving up, or attempting to, and you get attacked.

Then teams that come from the same conference that end up winning move on and everyone yells at the division because they never play out of it.  There's no way anyone will ever gain your respect.

If Salve had won, and were moving on, you would all just be yelling they came from a weak conferance.

I'm not saying I agree that they will get 2 AQ's after the mix.  But until the NCAA fixes the problem, I just don't see what can be gained??

If this is supposed to be one division, which I don't think it is, than everyone has the same right to become champion to becomming champion.  I wish there would become a division 4 in addition to division 3.  There is just that big of a divide.

Just my thoughts.

Go ahead, blast away......

[Upstate]

FBDad, a NEFC team playing in the playoffs is playing its 2nd non NEFC team in 12 years...

That's pathetic and it deserves every bit of bashing it gets...

The NEFC teams lose by a combined 70+ points minimum...

[fulbakdad]

I don't disagree upstate. 

I'm not a supporter of those teams.  Just an observer. 

But don't hate the player, hate the game.

[AUPepBand]

Ok, here goes nothing...

LD's Picks of the Week(week week week week)

NCAA
Wesley - 67
Mt. Ida - 13
I think this one is gonna be ugly. 

Hobart - 35
Washington and Lee - 21
I think this score will look closer than the actual game.  I think Hobart is the superior team here.

Widener - 56
Bridgewater State - 17
Bottom line is Bridgewater State should not be playing in this game.  I think the score will show that.

Salisbury - 28
Rowan - 24
Probably the game of the week.  It could be a toss up, but I think Salisbury is better than they're getting credit for.

Cortland St. - 42
Framingham St. - 6
Framingham at least WON the NEFC and slayed the Salve dragon.  But I still think they are not ready for the big time.  This will be the 2nd non-NEFC team Framingham has played in 12 years.  Hopefully Cortland welcomes them properly.

ECAC
St. John Fisher - 45
Castleton St. - 6

Endicott - 35
Norwich - 17

Any pick on the AU-Springfield game, Dogg?

Is that game for real?  it's not on the schedule.

Pep has no idea why it's not listed, although, understandably, this site isn't gung ho about ECAC bowl games.

http://www.alfred.edu/pressreleases/viewrelease.cfm?ID=7821

Either way, Pep is making the 6-hour trip. 

[lewdogg11]

fullbakdad,

Are you THAT much of a selective reader?  I'm pretty sure everyone here will agree that we think Salve IS doing the right things, and that people were rooting a little for Salve for a majority of the year...right up until they lost to MIT.  Had they won that game, their OOC probably would have made them worthy of the Pool C bid, even with a loss last weekend.  Salve proved they belonged with their out of conference performances, but they sh!t the bed against an inferior MIT team and in the game that mattered the most.  Take Salve out of the equation and there shouldn't be another Pool C given this year.  Curry got it a few years back but they earned it.  Bridgewater has no right to a Pool C bid and Widener will prove this once again this weekend.  We live with the AQs, but the Pool C's hurt a lot.

[lewdogg11]

And just to make my last point clear, the entire NEFC does NOT get credit for Salve's OOC scheduling and therefore should not be rewarded as such.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

By the way, I wouldn't look to the MAC for those OOC games... remember, that conference is now ten teams deep meaning there is just ONE game for those teams to schedule outside of the conference. The fact they already have some serious travel inside the conference will keep some from making a long trip to start the season and the fact a conference has a weak SOS overall will keep them from wanting to hurt their own SOS (OWP and OOWP).

And while I know it wasn't said, the MAC didn't deserve an extra bid this year. Lycoming came the closest, but had two losses on the season including one to Brockport who was 6-4. Lycoming needed Del Val to win, but not get enough points to get a bid... because it would have been automatic. There were no other MACs getting in this season.

[gordonmann]

Pep has no idea why it's not listed, although, understandably, this site isn't gung ho about ECAC bowl games.

It's not listed because the schools involved in the games didn't enter it into the system. They have access to enter games, just like they do box scores, game releases, etc.

We spend a lot of time entering football games into the system when the schedules are released.  Now it's basketball's turn where there are hundreds of schools with men's and women's schedules to enter, so that's where we're focused.  I entered Alfred's schedule for hoops not too long ago.

I'll enter the Alfred game and whatever ECAC games are missing.

[Pat Coleman]

Why did we have to enter Alfred's basketball schedule? All of the Empire 8 basketball schedules should be entered by the E8/SIDs for the E8 stats site on Presto.

That's disappointing that the conference wouldn't make sure it or the schools had the necessary schedules posted.