MBB: University Athletic Association

[BoomerIL]

Rochester has taken themselves out of contention by being lousy at the free-throw line.  Their brutal!!!!

[Hugenerd]

I saw CMU beat NYU last night. It was close from the start, but Carnegie got the job done in crunch time to pick up the win.

What are the tiebreakers used in the UAA?

If a champion cannot be determined by won-loss percentage, co-champions shall be declared and the representative to NCAA post-season competition determined by the following criteria, applied to regularly-scheduled Association games:
1) Best record in head-to-head UAA competition between the co-champions;
2) Best record in head-to-head UAA competition between the co-champions and the subsequent finishers competing in the full schedule in descending order until a representative is determined;
3) Best record in UAA road games against teams competing in the full schedule;
4) If this process fails to determine a representative, the representative to NCAA post season competition shall be determined by a coin flip administered by the Executive Secretary.

[ILive4This]

Yeah my bad, just erase the emory/case part of my analysis, I knew something was weird with that. Replace CASE/EMORY with NYU, as I have already mentioned Brandeis in it. Rochester would be aided by winning out, and then Wash U and Chicago swept at home by DEIS/NYU and then would need NYU to beat Brandeis IN waltham.

[Pat Coleman]

While I very much enjoy the movie Blue Chips, staring Nick Nolte, Shaq and Penny Hardaway, I do not think I have ever heard CWRU referred to as Western before.

I think they were wearing throwback Jerseys tonight that had "Western Reserve" on the front. That may be why.

But WRU was always known as Reserve.  Hence the R in the center circle.

This is also why most of us cringe when we hear "Case Western."

You're the only one I ever heard from. And when we switched to Case Western Reserve, I got a hate e-mail from someone on the other side.

[NYBB]

see ya'all at the coles center at noon!

[Rhodes Scholar]

I saw CMU beat NYU last night. It was close from the start, but Carnegie got the job done in crunch time to pick up the win.

What are the tiebreakers used in the UAA?

If a champion cannot be determined by won-loss percentage, co-champions shall be declared and the representative to NCAA post-season competition determined by the following criteria, applied to regularly-scheduled Association games:
1) Best record in head-to-head UAA competition between the co-champions;
2) Best record in head-to-head UAA competition between the co-champions and the subsequent finishers competing in the full schedule in descending order until a representative is determined;
3) Best record in UAA road games against teams competing in the full schedule;
4) If this process fails to determine a representative, the representative to NCAA post season competition shall be determined by a coin flip administered by the Executive Secretary.

Thanks for the tiebreaker info. Looks like it may come into play this year.

[ADL70]

Pat

The sample size of commentary on this site from CWRU is rather small. 
Just at the time you made the switch the university was undergoing a branding campaign emphasizing "Case."  Perhaps the response you got was from someone wanting you to use "Case."  That president has since departed and that emphasis changed.  The federation occurred in 1967, so the youngest of us who attended Reserve will turn 60 this year.

From the university's identity page [the link doesn't sem to be working on my computer], Case Western Reserve University is preferred in formal usage for the first mention and Case thereafter.

[Pat Coleman]

It wasn't. It was deploring our use of Case.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

I could make a case for...

...never mind... not worth trying that hard for a joke!   

Now... I am curious... how many people are interested in the UAA having a conference tournament to determine the AQ?

The UAA is the only conference remaining that doesn't have a touranment. However, this season has certainly shown that a tournament may be one of the more exciting ways of ending a season in this conference. I had a few ideas, but not sure what anyone thought.

Idea #1 - Rotate the sites through the schools each year, so everyone gets the chance to host. Have all 8 teams qualify and place it at the final weekend of the season - a Friday, Saturday, Sunday tourney. You can either have the men's and women's at the same place, but I rather like the idea that the men's tournament is at one school, the women's tournament at a school somewhere else in the country.

Idea #2 - Same as above, but only the top 4 teams travel. This way you could also host both the men's and the women's tournament.

Idea #3 - Still the top 4, but the #1 seed is the host. I like this idea for the top 4 and awarding the #1 seed. However, the disadvantage is that it requires a lot of last minute planning - especially in a season like this year where that regular season champion may not be decided until the final game.

Idea #4 - This is, of course, the simple one. No Tournament!

Just curious!

[Marty Peretz]

Wash.U. survives a scare, wins in OT 78-71. Rochester falls in double OT to NYU. Deis narrowly defeats Carnegie. Chicago blows out Case. With 5 losses, Rochester is statistically eliminated, I believe. Wash.U. Deis on Friday could be the game of the year and determine the league champ.

[Ralph Turner]

From the perspective of the UAA, no tourney!

The UAA has the best of all worlds.  Each school can build its non-conference schedule with in-region games to its advantage.  The rules favor the UAA as much as any other conference.  The UAA schools represent all four of the Administrative Regions.  The sophisticated coach can create a schedule that takes advantage of the criteria.

I think that the UAA schools would add another (possibly disabling) loss to one of its Pool C candidates at least 2 years out of five that they had a tourney.  Let's see how many Pool C bids the UAA earns this year.  Then, recalculate the numbers with one more (tourney) loss to the Pool C teams.

[Hugenerd]

Wash.U. survives a scare, wins in OT 78-71. Rochester falls in double OT to NYU. Deis narrowly defeats Carnegie. Chicago blows out Case. With 5 losses, Rochester is statistically eliminated, I believe. Wash.U. Deis on Friday could be the game of the year and determine the league champ.

Dont forget about Chicago/Brandeis and Chicago/WashU.  Dont forget that Chicago is 8-3 also.  Currently, among the top 3, Brandeis has lost to both Chicago and WashU, while WashU beat Chicago in their first meeting.

In terms of the tiebreakers, here is my analysis of the last 3 games.  Chicago has to win the WashU game to have a chance (a loss would result in a season sweep) and Brandeis really has to win both at Washu and at Chicago (a loss against either team would result in a season sweep and kill them in the tiebreakers).  The Chicago/WashU weeekend road sweep is an extremely difficult accomplishment.  If I am not mistaken, it has only been done once on the men's side, when CMU did it to set up a "championship" game against UR in the 2004 season (which they lost). WashU has played poorly this weekend and barely won two games against the bottom two teams in the conference, so if they continue to play poorly, Brandeis has a better chance of pulling off the sweep. 

Chicago has a nice advantage in that each of its final 3 games are at home, WashU has 2 of 3 at home (play Chicago on the road) and Brandeis only has 1 of 3 at home (both WashU and Chicago on the road).

Scenarios (assuming NYU loses all 3 games, obviously this is not a given, since NYU has shown the can upset teams, but they play all 3 of these games on the road and if I dont make this assumption there are way too many possibilities to outline all of them, also note that this will make UR the most likely team to finish 4th in the conference):

Outright possibilities:
WashU wins both games (Chicago v. Brandeis result doesnt matter):  WashU wins conference.

WashU beats Brandeis and loses to Chicago, Brandeis beats Chicago:  WashU wins conference

Brandeis beats WashU, WashU beats Chicago, and Chicago beats Brandeis: WashU wins conferences.

Chicago beats WashU and Brandeis, WashU loses to Brandeis: Chicago wins conference

Brandeis beats WashU and Chicago, WashU loses to Chicago: Brandeis wins conference

Tiebreaker possibilities:
WashU beats Brandeis and loses to Chicago, Chicago beats Brandeis: Chicago and WashU tied at 11-3:  (in this case they will also tie for the 2nd tiebreaker):  Chicago wins conference on 3rd tiebreaker (WashU would have 3 road losses and Chicago would only have 2)

Brandeis beats WashU and Chicago, WashU beats Chicago: (WashU and Brandeis are tied at 11-3):  WashU wins on second tiebreaker due to season sweep of Chicago (and season split with Brandeis).

So of the 8 possibilities (note the WashU sweep counts as 2 because then the Chicago/Brandeis result doesnt matter), WashU wins on 5 scenarios, Chicago wins on 2 and Brandeis wins only on 1.  Note that this analysis only holds if NYU loses on the road in its final 3 games. 

So in terms of tiebreakers, Chicago holds the tiebreaker against WashU, and WashU holds the tiebreaker against Brandeis.  Therefore, Brandeis needs to sweep and Chicago to beat WashU to win the conference outright (the cant win in a tiebreak situation). 

[ADL70]

The distances between the schools would make it dificult for supporters to travel to tournament games.   

[ILive4This]

I for see an NYU victory at Chicago as a possible mix, however this is the most probable win in my opinion of the final three games for the violets, and even this is not all that likely.

[NYBB]

NYU v. U of R game report :

I was at the Coles Center today for the game and what a game it was.

It was close going to halftime, with U of R playing slightly better ball in the first.  Onyiruka (my bad for spelling) had a monster break away slam in the first and in my opinion, showed me that he might be one of the best bigs in D3.

In the 2nd half, it looked like U of R was going to pull away and win it.  They went up 13 and NYU just didn't have it but...Senior Charlie Parker showed a LOT OF GUTS and several big shots, including two HUGE game tying FT's to send the game into the first OT.

The first OT seemed like U of R's...they went up 7 and NYU was flat but once again, the Violets fought back and got a 3-pointer with 2.8 seconds left to send the game to 2 OT.  This period, NYU finally took control, with U of R missing practically all of their shot oppurtunities and NYU breaking the press with a full court pass/dunk.  It was a great game and NYU deserved the win!  Great joB!