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Sunday, February 26, 2006
Home court on the line
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Lehigh at Holy Cross, 1 p.m.: The schedule makers got this one right, saving the only meaningful game of the final weekend of the regular season for the final day. Too bad the TV package is not on a network people can actually get so that more people would be exposed to Patriot League basketball outside of Bucknell.

These two teams have not had the non-conference success the Bison have, but in league play they have come one, proving to be better than their non-league records and the lower RPIs that came with it.

It is a pretty simple equation heading into this game. The winner sleeps in its own beds, eats home cooking and plays the first two rounds on its home floor in front of its own crowd. The loser packs its bags for a weekend of buses, motels and restaurant food, a neutral court game against the most dangerous team in the bottom of the bracket, the sleeping dog that has been Colgate most of the season. Win that first round matchup and the reward is a possible rematch of this game, played on the winner of this game's floor.

The edge in Worcester goes to Holy Cross if Keith Simmons can play the minutes Ralph Willard needs from him. Earlier in the season in Bethlehem, Simmons came out of the game suffering from cramps. It was not a coincidence that Holy Cross, which held the lead most of that game, succumbing to the late game heroics of Jose Olivero.

By the way, in a post Friday, we speculated that Lehigh might not have been in this must-win situation had it played a better schedule. If Holy Cross wins, the tiebreaker for the No. 2 seed goes to the RPI, which favors HC. The Crusaders come into the game with an RPI of 126, Lehigh 150 (according to Ken Pomeroy's calculations). We speculated that had Lehigh subbed a Division I opponent for one of its two Division III foes, its RPI might be high enough to still claim the tiebreaker if they lost to Holy Cross.

Since we hardly are RPI experts, we turned to Pomeroy for his analysis. Here is what he had to say about Lehigh's situation:
They couldn't have scheduled patsies. Honestly, and I'm just guessing, I'd say they could have scheduled (and lost) road games against teams in the top 70 or so and moved ahead. They probably could have won home games against teams in the top 120 and made it. It is a fairly
complicated question. The sad reality is that it's better to play non-D1s than teams in the bottom 100 if the goal is to pad the RPI.
In other words, replacing Eastern or Muhlenberg with another Stony Brook, Sacred Heart or Ivy League team, would not have done the trick.
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Published at 9:39 AM by Hoop Time.
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