The Atlantic 10's Big Five; Plus Weird Big 12 Numbers

As I mentioned back in January, the Atlantic 10 is having a great year. Five teams have garnered predicted at-large bids in various bracket predictions: Xavier (of course), Temple, Charlotte, Duquesne and Dayton. As of Tuesday, the College Women's Hoops S-Factor was predicting 4 Atlantic 10 teams would make the tournament.

But then Charlotte lost on Wednesday night against LaSalle and Duquesne lost a home game against St. Joseph's. It was not an uncharacteristic loss for Duquesne, but for Charlotte, it was their first conference loss against a team outside of the big five in the A10.

But it also pushed both Duquesne and Charlotte out of the top 50 in RPI. This meant that Temple, a team that is still undefeated in the Atlantic 10 conference and is on a 13-game winning streak, lost two of their three top 50 wins, and so lost ground in the S-Factor rankings. But if Temple wins every game except for their regular season finale against Xavier, there is no chance they will not be rewarded with an at-large bid from the NCAA selection committee.

It's interesting to look at the big five's record against each other.

Xavier: 3-0 with Duquesne and Temple left
Temple: 2-0 with Dayton and Xavier left
Duquesne: 1-1 with Xavier and Charlotte left
Charlotte: 1-2 with Duquesne left
Dayton: 0-4 with Temple left

That big doughnut in the win column for Dayton against the other big five teams will surely weigh heavily on the minds of the selection committee.

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Weirdness in the S-Factor in the Big 12 conference. Iowa State lost to Texas Tech last night, and plummetted outside of the S-Factor's predicted at-large bids, while Texas Tech rose up 13 spots. Meanwhile, Kansas State got a routine win over Colorado and is now being shown at the cusp of the at-large bids.

But the S-Factor is more of a prediction of the tournament if the season ended right now, and it does not take into account the future schedule and predicted future wins. Texas Tech closes its regular season with 4 top 26 (RPI) games out of 5, while Iowa State will feast upon Big 12 north teams, and gets Texas at home. And conference record means a lot in the Big 12, the most difficult of all conferences from top to bottom. (Although probably not enough for Kansas State, who may be left to a WNIT bid if they go 9-7 in conference.)



Now in: Middle Tennessee State, USC, Arkansas, Texas Tech, Kansas State
Now out: UA Little Rock, Iowa State, Charlotte, Temple, Syracuse

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 9
Big Ten: 7
ACC: 6
Big 12: 6
SEC: 6
PAC-10: 3
Atlantic 10: 2
Colonial: 2

Xavier's Artificial Slide

I was looking at these numbers today, and I wondered what the deal was with Xavier? Xavier remains undefeated in the Atlantic 10 conference, and they had been slated by the College Women's Hoops S-Factor as a 3-seed last week (and for most of the season) and as a 2-seed two weeks ago. Their RPI remains high, no. 9 in the country. But Xavier plummeted to a 5-seed in the new calculation this morning.

The reason for this has nothing to do with Xavier's play. While it's true that the Musketeers struggled at Dayton on Saturday in an overtime victory over the Flyers, only wins and losses, not quality of play, are factored into the S-Factor.

The reason for Xavier's numeric slide is due to two teams that Xavier has beaten this season: Michigan and USC. Both teams had been just barely in the top 25 of RPI going into Thursday (the Wolverines at no. 21 and the Trojans at no. 25). Both teams lost games (Michigan to Penn State and USC to UCLA), and therefore both lost ground in the RPI rankings (Michigan is now no. 26, and USC is now no. 29). Which means Xavier, by no fault of their own, now has zero wins over top 25 teams. Thus, the drop in the rankings.


Now in: Liberty, James Madison, Harvard, Texas, Boston College
Now out: Radford, Old Dominion, Princeton, Texas Tech, Southern California

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 10
Big Ten: 7
ACC: 7
Big 12: 6
SEC: 5
PAC-10: 3
Atlantic 10: 2

Atlantic 10 Ruling; Mountain West Drooling

Of all the mid-major conferences (defined as conferences that are not the Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10, Atlantic Coast and Southeast Conference), two of the 26 (counting the Great West) rank higher than all others in terms of the number of at-large bids garnered over the past few years: the Atlantic 10 and the Mountain West. It seems like it's a rare year when the Atlantic 10 doesn't get three teams into the NCAA tournament, and the Mountain West is so full of parity that the annual conference tournament is often completely up for grabs.

But this year there is no question as to which conference is better. The Atlantic 10 is having a great year as a whole. As of right now, eight teams from the 14-team conference are ranked in the top 75 of RPI. Three Atlantic 10 teams are in Charlie Creme's field of 64, and two more are on the cusp. While the College Women's Hoops S-Factor only lists two, the S-Factor is unreasonably stingy to mid-major conferences at this point in the year. Xavier is being talked about as a 2 seed; Duquesne has been on everyone's list since they beat Ohio State; Temple, Charlotte and Dayton are all very close to being in the big dance; and St. Joseph's, St. Bonaventure, and Richmond have all been competitive in their biggest games.

The Mountain West, however, has been pretty weak as a conference whole. Many of the traditional powers are having off years. Both the Utes of Utah and the Lady Lobos of New Mexico lost a lot of games in a difficult non-conference schedule, but kept losing once the conference season began. San Diego State has achieved an 8-8 record so far with their best win coming against Dayton and a loss to the non-aligned Roadrunners of Cal State Bakersfield. BYU and Wyoming are the only two challengers to what is looking like a dominant run by TCU this year. Wyoming was crushed by TCU last week, and BYU travels to Fort Worth to play the Horned Frogs tonight. With only a single top-50-RPI win in the entire conference this season (that being TCU's victory over 50th ranked Oklahoma earlier this year), the Mountain West is looking like a one-bid conference this year.

Now in: Vanderbilt
Now out: Missouri State

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 9
ACC: 7
Big Ten: 7
Big 12: 6
SEC: 5
PAC-10: 4
Atlantic 10: 2

California Creamin'

With every victory now, the Connecticut Huskies set a new Division 1 record for most consecutive wins, and they got another one last night. The Huskies made it out of snowy Connecticut to travel to Stockton, California, where they creamed Pacific 85-42 for their ninetieth straight victory.

But more impressive was Stanford's victory over Xavier yesterday in the friendly confines of Maples Pavilion. It was a rematch of the elite eight matchup from last year which was won by Stanford by an amazing drive performed by Jeanette Pohlen in the final 4.4 seconds that ended in a layup at the buzzer. This game was supposed to be close, but Stanford creamed Xavier 89-52. The victory shot Stanford up 13 spots in the College Women's Hoops S-Factor to number 10 and a predicted 3-seed. I'd wager the ranking will be higher by season's end.

This sets up Connecticut vs. Stanford tomorrow, which will of course be a huge game.

Other events that happened in California yesterday:

• UCLA lost their first game of the season at home to LSU, which propels LSU into a predicted at-large bid according to the S-Factor.



• Texas A&M slammed a formerly-ascendant Drexel team 74-45 in San Diego behind an impressive performance from Danielle Adams and a double-double from Adaora Elonu.



• Texas beat Cincinnati 80-77 in San Diego with a 3-pointer by Chassidy Fussell with 1.3 seconds left. Texas lies just outside of the S-Factor at-large bids, a status that will change as the season progresses.

Now in: Duquesne, LSU
Now out: Saint Joseph's, Drexel

Conferences with multiple bids:
Big East: 9
ACC: 7
Big Ten: 7
Big 12: 6
SEC: 5
PAC-10: 4
Atlantic 10: 2