Rooting guide

[Falco]

Do you all realize that vcu just helped mason?

Mason is now alone in second place 1 game ahead Dayton.

Dayton still has to play davidson on the road. If Davidson wins and Mason wins tomorrow, Mason has a 2 game lead over Dayton for second place.

I think you mean third, but I was torn watching the vcu game. I obviously want to win the league and love seeing vcu lose. But like you said, it gives mason a bigger cushion.

 

[GMUgemini]

I think you mean third, but I was torn watching the vcu game. I obviously want to win the league and love seeing vcu lose. But like you said, it gives mason a bigger cushion.

As long as we keep pace, we have a chance to take one from vcu (I'm not sure what the tiebreaker would look like if we split with vcu and are tied at the end of the season). Davidson is the team who needs to lose for us to win the conference.

 

[Petey Buckets]

As long as we keep pace, we have a chance to take one from vcu (I'm not sure what the tiebreaker would look like if we split with vcu and are tied at the end of the season). Davidson is the team who needs to lose for us to win the conference.

If I'm remembering correctly, after head to head it goes to record against top teams. If Davidson finishes first, we're both 0-1 against them. It would then move down probably to Dayton, where vcu would win because they're 2-0 against them and we're only 1-0. I'll have to check to make sure, but I spent a lot of time on tiebreakers during last year's 9-9 explosion and I'm pretty sure this is how it works.

Edit - confirmed. From the A10 website:

Two-Team Tie
1. Head-to-head competition.

2. Conference record of the tied teams based on winning percentage versus the highest
common opponent and proceeding down to the lowest common opponent, if necessary, until
one team gains an advantage.

a. All ties are broken in descending order.
b. When arriving at another pair of tied teams, use each team’s record against the tied teams
as a group. When comparing records against a group of teams, the higher winning
percentage will prevail. In case of tied percentages vs. the team or group of 1.000 or
.000, the following shall apply: 2-0 is better than 1-0; 0-1 is better than 0-2.

 

[MasonSAE4]

If I'm remembering correctly, after head to head it goes to record against top teams. If Davidson finishes first, we're both 0-1 against them. It would then move down probably to Dayton, where vcu would win because they're 2-0 against them and we're only 1-0. I'll have to check to make sure, but I spent a lot of time on tiebreakers during last year's 9-9 explosion and I'm pretty sure this is how it works.

Kind of a bummer if it's due to luck of the schedule. Not that I expect us to overtake vcu but still.

 

[GMUgemini]

Kind of a bummer if it's due to luck of the schedule. Not that I expect us to overtake vcu but still.

Well, we had a chance to take Davidson at home, but couldn't finish the job. We'd actually be sitting in first place with the tiebreaker over Davidson and a chance to own vcu if we had made two more buckets that entire game.

But this is where we are. I don't think there's much difference between 3 and 4, since we are most likely going to have to face vcu and Davidson on successive nights if we want to win the tournament. I'm not sure there is a huge difference between playing the winner of the 8/9 game and the winner of the 7/10 game. Right now that would be the winner of La Salle/URI or the winner of St. Bonaventure/Richmond.

 

[Jack Strop]

Well, we had a chance to take Davidson at home, but couldn't finish the job. We'd actually be sitting in first place with the tiebreaker over Davidson and a chance to own vcu if we had made two more buckets that entire game.

But this is where we are. I don't think there's much difference between 3 and 4, since we are most likely going to have to face vcu and Davidson on successive nights if we want to win the tournament. I'm not sure there is a huge difference between playing the winner of the 8/9 game and the winner of the 7/10 game. Right now that would be the winner of La Salle/URI or the winner of St. Bonaventure/Richmond.

Who says either Davidson, or vcyooo play past the quarter-finals? There is basketball yet to be played.

 

[GMUSig03]

Current standings:
1. Davidson 10 - 2 (owns tiebreaker over vcu)
2. vcu 10 - 2
3. George Mason 9 - 4
4. Dayton 8 - 4
5. Duquesne 8 - 5
6. Saint Louis - 8-5
6. St. Bonaventure 7 - 5
8. La Salle 6 - 6

Brutal, brutal loss to the Bonnies on Sunday, instead of keeping us 2 games ahead of Dayton (due to tiebreaker) in 3rd place, it put us only 1 more loss away from falling back into the pack of 5th-7th place teams. 1st place is virtual impossibility and 2nd place is looking very out of reach as well. So now our focus is on staying top 4 and hoping vcu does not win regular season.

Who/what to root for and what we got (green good, red bad):

Dayton +3.5 @ Davidson - Dayton's 5th loss

URI +8 @ vcu - F vcu (vcu's 3rd loss keeping our hopes of 2nd place alive)

La Salle @ SBU - SBU's 6th loss

SLU and Duquesne remain as the 2 teams we want to avoid in the quarters on Friday, but the way SBU just beat us down, they might as well join them. A10 bracket:
View attachment 713

 

[MasonSAE4]

Davidson getting run off their own court and Kellan Grady looks like absolute shit. Any scouts showing up to watch him must be instantly pivoting to Jon Axel Gudmundson.

 

[psyclone]

Davidson getting run off their own court and Kellan Grady looks like absolute shit. Any scouts showing up to watch him must be instantly pivoting to Jon Axel Gudmundson.

Take another look. Tie game with a minute left.

 

[psyclone]

Cunningham makes 1 of 2 foul shots with 2 seconds left. Grady's 3 hits the front rim at the buzzer. Dayton wins by 1.

 

[GMUYoda]

vcu crushes URI in a laugher

 

[Jack Strop]

LaSalle almost knocked off St. B tonight, but, with the game tied, a LaSalle player slipped on a drive in the paint and turned the ball over with 13 seconds remaining. Lofton hit an elbow jumper with 3 ticks left and that was that. A LaSalle win would have been a godsend for Mason. Woulda, coulda, shoulda...

I'm going with the team approach. You can't worry about what other teams do. Mason's destiny is in its own control. I still say, take care of business at home and at least spilt on the road and the top-4 finish is there. It's ON Green n' Gold!!

 

[GMUSig03]

Current standings:
1. vcu 11 - 2 (owns tiebreaker over vcu)
2. Davidson 10 - 3
3. George Mason 9 - 4
4. Dayton 9 - 4
5. Duquesne 8 - 5
5. Saint Louis - 8-5
5. St. Bonaventure 8 - 5

BEAT DUQUESNE!!!!!!

A10 bracket:
View attachment 713

 

[GMUYoda]

I guess it would be too much for us to root for URI to beat Davidson at tonight at home... game is at 9pm in ESPN2

 

[GMUgemini]

I guess it would be too much for us to root for URI to beat Davidson at tonight at home... game is at 9pm in ESPN2

A 9:00 pm start seem insanely late to anyone else?

 

[gmubrian]

Current standings:
1. vcu 11 - 2 (owns tiebreaker over vcu)

Is a team having the tiebreaker over itself the team equivalent to people talking to themselves?

 

[GMUSig03]

Current standings:
1. vcu 12- 2
2. Davidson 11 - 3 (owns tiebreaker over vcu)
3. Dayton 10 - 4 (we own tiebreaker)
4. Duquesne 9 - 5 (they own tiebreaker over us)
4. MASON 9 - 5
4. Saint Bonaventure - 9-5 (we split)
7. St. Louis 8 - 6

Dayton @ Umass - Dayton's 5th loss, I view this as the most crucial game since we have tiebreaker over them.

SLU @ vcu - never vcu... but SLU picking up a 7th loss won't hurt, unlikely we pass vcu at this point and we still have to play @ SLU, so odds are they will have tiebreaker over us.

Richmond @ MASON

Davidson @ LaSalle - Davidson's at large chances are gone and the way each team is playing, I'm not confident they can regain the lead over vcu, so let's hope for them to spiral and fall below us

Duquesne @ SBU - Great that one of them is guaranteed to lose, since we split with SBU and Duquesne has the tiebreaker over us, probably best that Duquesne loses. SBU won their first matchup at Duquesne 51-49, so could be an element of payback here.

Best case scenario, Duquesne and Dayton lose and we jump up into 3rd (we beat Dayton, SBU lost to them, so I believe 3 way tie would go us-Dayton-SBU, but could be wrong).

A10 bracket:
View attachment 713

Tiebreakers: http://www.atlantic10.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=31600&ATCLID=209901106

 

[Five Two]

Given our unbalanced schedule, I wonder if the A10 would consider leaving the 2nd to last Saturday of the schedule "open". Kind of like the Bracketbuster where we knew there would be a game, but not know against who until late. That way, they could pair up teams that would help their at large profile. Obviously, Davidson would play vcu since they were only scheduled to play once this year. In theory, that helps the winner earn another Quad 1 win.

Or how about this- hold a Saturday in Feb open and let the A10 and Mountain West pair up the best matchups instead of having those games in November. Utah St could use a game vs vcu or Davidson to help their profile this late in the season and vcu/Davidson would benefit as well. If the A10-MWC challenge games were set in the summer, Nevada would have played SLU. But use the old Bracketbuster scheduling model, we get a better game that could help out the at large contenders.

 

[gmubrian]

...that could help out the at large contenders.

What is an at large contender?

 

[GMUYoda]

So... do we care anymore? Or are we rooting for St. Louis to beat vcu tonight and UMass to beat Dayton?