mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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10-22-16 12:48 PM - Post#211845
In response to bradley
A few notes - but generally agree with all said above:
1) I was highly disappointed with last year's committee, but not all committees do things the same way. My issue with last year's committee was that there were a bunch of qualified mids with different resumes. Some had great wins and bad losses, others had no great wins or bad losses while still others were road warriors, and others had strong NCSOS numbers, if not big OOC wins.
My issue was that in the past, the committee would have clear points of emphasis and we'd get a few mids in that fit those characteristics but would lose other qualified ones because they did something the committee didn't like. Last year, there were no clear points of emphasis - mids with all sorts of different strengths were either left out or drastically under seeded. It was a bloodbath during a time when the committee appeared to (in the years before) be getting more nuanced in how to judge mids.
2) There's no preseason RPI, BUT... preseason buzz can only help. We all have cognitive biases, and the more the media is making it seem like the Ivy belongs in a 2 bid discussion, the more likely the committee will see it that way too...
3) Harvard, Yale and Princeton are in this two-bid gambit together. We're not getting three bids, but the quality of the third team and the big wins (if any) it recorded OOC will absolutely influence the viability of a second bid. If Columbia had hung on at NW and hosting St. Joe's, it would have added some cachet to a league non-conference resume that started and ended with a fourth-place team beating a strong BYU team on a neutral floor and finishing second in that same MTE.
I have faith we can do this, folks. Each of the top three are more likely than not to notch at least one signature win and it's more likely than not that one of those three will notch multiple. Avoiding bad losses or a damning skid through a tricky Ivy slate will be vital, but we have a real chance to be in the conversation in February and March. I feel good about it. Let's see what happens!!!
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