Butler, Siena, Old Dominion and Northern Iowa all held serve in their respective conference tournaments and WCC No. 2 seed and potential Cornell enemy St. Mary’s took home its league’s tourney title to provide the Big Red with no help in terms of seeding.
What we know for sure is that there are 14 conference tournament winners who will be seeded behind the Big Red automatically pushing Cornell up to 51st on the S-Curve. From there, the Big Red would need to win battles with at least three of RPI neighbors Kent State, Siena and St. Mary’s and the last at large teams to garner a 12 and would need to leapfrog seven of those teams to grab an 11.
Let’s start with the 14 conference tournaments (with current leaders in parentheses and winners in bold) that should remain irrelevant unless the Big Red falls during the league’s final weekend:
America East Conference (Vermont)
Atlantic Sun Conference (East Tennessee State)
Big South Conference (Winthrop)
Big Sky Conference (Weber State)
Big West Conference (UC Santa Barbara)
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (Morgan State)
Northeast Conference (Robert Morris)
Ohio Valley Conference (Murray State)
Patriot League (Lehigh)
Southern Conference (Wofford)
Southland Conference (Sam Houston State)
Southwestern Athletic Conference (Jackson State)
Sun Belt Conference (North Texas)
The Summit League (Oakland)
The following two conference tournaments have regular season leaders who would likely be close to Cornell on the S-Curve, making them potential enemies:
Mid-American Conference (Kent State)
Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (Siena)
That leaves 14 conference tournaments where the Big Red has allies that could bump it up the S-Curve. Any upset winners of these conferences not otherwise in at-large consideration would grab a bid and a seed below Cornell and take one away from an at-large team that possibly would have been seeded above the Big Red. The enemies in each conference are listed in parentheses for all conferences except those with more than four teams who potentially would fail to help Cornell by capturing the title.
Atlantic 10 Conference
Atlantic Coast Conference
Big 12 Conference
Big East Conference
Big Ten Conference
Colonial Athletic Association (Old Dominion)
Conference USA (UAB, UTEP, Memphis)
Horizon League (Butler)
Missouri Valley Conference (Northern Iowa)
Mountain West Conference (New Mexico, BYU, UNLV, San Diego State)
Pacific 10 Conference (California, Washington, Arizona State)
Southeastern Conference
West Coast Conference (St. Mary’s)
Western Athletic Conference (Utah State, New Mexico State)
UPCOMING GAMES (E=Enemy, e=Relatively Less of an Enemy)
March 10, 2010
None.
March 11, 2010
Kent State (E) vs. Ohio
Utah State (E) vs. Boise State
New Mexico State (E) vs. San Jose State
Memphis (E) vs. Houston
UAB (E) vs. Southern Mississippi
UTEP (E) vs. SMU/UCF
AUTO BID S-CURVE
61-65 (16s)
Vermont
Robert Morris
Winthrop
Lehigh
Jackson State
57-60 (15s)
Morgan State
UC-Santa Barbara
North Texas
East Tennessee State
53-56 (14s)
Weber State
Wofford
Oakland
Sam Houston State
52 (13s)
Murray State
45-51 (12/13s)
Kent State
Cornell
Siena
St. Mary’s
Utah State
At-Large (1)
At-Large (2)
