ReturnOfTheWAC wrote: ↑Fri Jan 07, 2022 2:49 pm
Nosey Ned wrote: ↑Fri Jan 07, 2022 2:00 pm
ReturnOfTheWAC wrote: ↑Fri Jan 07, 2022 1:25 pm
OldWU wrote: ↑Fri Jan 07, 2022 12:31 pm
Fan -- That somebody with that "shallow understanding" is US Lacrosse and I agree with them that they can't rank a bunch of NESCAC schools that really haven't played in two years. John Carroll, IWU and Centre all won NCAA tournament games last year. Centre beat that traditional power, Denison, in a game that was no fluke. Centre lead the Big Red the entire game and was up 12-7 in the 4Q before Denison scored four in a row to make it close.
Im not sure we know enough about how you are rewarded for "Out of region" Wins vs "In Region Wins" I look at it more as OWU taking care of business in Region and essentially saying "we are not going to leave anything to speculation and are going to play teams finished ahead of us in last years Region 4 rankings". Beating the top Region 5 team from last year maybe gives them an argument(in my opinion a poor one) that they beat a top team. Maybe this is an unintended consequence of creating more regions(something I thought was a terrible idea).
I’m not sure I follow WAC …. OWU is in Region 4 and if I’m not mistaken, only playing 1 in Region OOC team, John Carrol. I’ll admit I don’t know who North Central is and too lazy to look up…. so maybe 2. Denison on the other hand is loaded with in Region 4 OOCs, Lynchburg, W&L, Baldwin Wallace, Grove City. They seem to fit the bill better of “taking care of business in Region” if that’s what your saying. Am I missing something?
If that is what you’re saying, great observation. I’ll admit I hadn’t looked at the OOC schedule through this lens - Covid has ruined my vision apparently and continue to forget we aren’t North South anymore.
Correct. JC finished above OWU last year. Nothing against JC but if I’m OWU I like my chances in that game . That leaves you with LBurg(I think LBurg would win going away), BW(Again I think OWU is better(not playing tho),and Denison(a team you will most likely play twice) Additionally OWU has to atleast like it’s chances of beating clearly the weakest Regiona(5) #1 ranked team(I have no idea with the added regions if all regional wins are created equal. Example a win vs Tufts #1 regionally ranked vs IWU #1 regionally ranked. It shouldn’t, but then again we saw last year with the brackets a team get beat nearly by 30 in the quarterfinals while other great programs sat at home. It will be interesting to see how the regional rankings affect the bracket
Still don’t see how scheduling just 1 in Region OOC game helps OWU “take care of business in Region”.
Regardless, I’m not sure all this really even matters to be honest since Denison’s and OWU’s reality, since the implementation of the NCAC AQ, has been win that Conference Championship game or sit out the NCAA Tournament. Prior to that AQ, there were a number of years both schools got invited. The exception of course is having an OOC record like OWU had in 2018 when they beat Salisbury in OT and played both RIT and Cabrini (a 1 goal loss) tough and earned a much deserved At Large bid. A great year as it saw Denison play OWU 3 times - all great games - and hats off to OWU for winning twice.
Incidentally, since Denison has owned the NCAC Tournament for the last 6 years, that’s the only NCAA Tournament OWU has played in since 2015. A pretty dry spell for such a storied program. And so IMHO, I still think a quality win regardless of Region will be a quality win so this OOC schedule for the Bishops, other than RIT of course, means quality win opportunities are scarce. It therefore kind of insures OWU will need to win the NCAC Championship game to go dancing. And so back to my original question, do we really think this is smart scheduling like Old had labeled it?