Sunday 9 March 2008
Brandon and the Wild Card
One more quick thought on the wild card selection: some may be lamenting the fact that Brandon is on the outside looking in despite losing only 2 Canada West league games all season long. As we now know, the selection committee has named Acadia as the wild card. The Bobcats had a tremendous season but there are legitimate reasons why Brandon's case is not as strong as one might think. First off, of Brandon's 22 league games, 17 were played against teams with .500 or below overall records, including 12 in their own division (all wins) against Regina (15-15), Winnipeg (12-18) and Manitoba (9-20). Brandon went 3-2 against plus .500 overall record teams in Canada West, winning at UBC, at Saskatchewan and at home against Calgary while losing at Victoria and at Alberta. In non-conference play, the Cats were only 5-4 with wins at home against Saskatchewan, Simon Fraser and Lakehead plus a win at Victoria and a neutral court win against RMC at Winnipeg. Brandon did not win a non-conference game against a top opponent, losing to Acadia, Brock, Alberta and Carleton (all 4 teams that qualified for Nationals). It can be argued that against tough teams (the definition of tough is up for debate but I guess it's my definition), Brandon went 3-6 with wins against UVic and UBC on the road and Calgary in the Bronze medal game at the Canada West Final Four. The Bobcats also benefited in my mind from a questionable rule that asks us to not count a loss because it occured in a Best-of-3 series, which is in my opinion ridiculous to consider, especially given that it was a post-season, playoff game played at Brandon against a team that they had already defeated 4 times previous with 2 weeks to prepare. Brandon was also 1-5 vs. teams in this year's Nationals including 2 losses to #8 seed Alberta, a team they had a chance to control their own destiny against in the Canada West semi-final but could not close the deal. As well, Brandon lost head-to-head against Acadia by 13 at the Winnipeg tournament. It is a shame that the entertaining Bobcats, with a body of work among the top 10-12 teams in Canada, will not be at the Nationals and the athleticism and teamwork of guys like 6'3" Dany Charlery, 6'5" Adam Hartman, 6'10" Yuri Whyms and 6'1" Yul Michel will not be on display; they would have made the tournament much more appealing frankly; however, given the circumstances and the facts above, Brandon's quest for a wild card simply did not measure up.
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6 comments:
Tough break for Brandon, but they did lose to a team that had already lost three post season games, and has a post season record of 3-4 overall.
Alberta did what they had to do to get in and Brandon, ultimately, did not.
Although they did win the bronze medal game, their fate was not in their hands and Acadia lost the game that Brandon feared they would lose, opening up the wild card possibility for the Axemen.
I actually pleased with how things turned out.
Two teams from the Atlantic, two from the West, three from Ontario and one from the Q...balanced national representation.
yeah balanced representation of the country but not a good representation of the best teams ....alberta gets lucky and wins one game to make it their we will c how good they are in their first round matchup....ubc was the third best team in the west and all of a sudden are ranked 2? There is no way they were the 2nd best team in the country this year but i guess thats what happens when you win in the playoffs.....brock and western in nationals is also kind of suspect...while both teams did well to win the games they needed to to get there, judging by their seasons there is no way they are top 8 in the country....this year more than any i think provides good evidence for a 16 team tourney that way a better representation of the best teams in the country can be seen
It's a tough break, but Mark lays out a strong case for Acadia... I kind of wondered about the Bobcats getting it since they did better in the polls and the RPI, but evidently the committee was much clearer-eyed about this than I was.
Seedings in the final 8 don't necessarily reflect season long national rankings.
The teams that make the tournament are seeded bounded by certain rules including not having teams from the same conference meeting in the opening round.
Certainly there are some highly ranked teams that are not here...Windsor, Brandon and Calgary all of which spent considerable time ranked in the top five are out of the picture.
But really, these teams have no one to blame but themselves.
Win and you're in...these teams failed to do that, losing playoff games at the worst possible time.
UBC went 6-0 in the playoffs, knocking off Calgary in the process.
So yeah they earned that #2 seed.
And seedings in tournament don't often jibe with national rankings anyway.
UBC may not be second best in the country but they might #2 among the teams that got to the tournament.
Only Acadia has a claim on the #2 seed but they lost that by losing their league final.
All the teams in the tournament got there by wining the games they needed to win to get in.
A 16 tournament is too big to work and besides playoff upsets are what make sports interesting.
it would be boring if the favourites win all the time, right?
I totally agree with the comments that the best teams in the country are not represented at the Final 8.
Brandon has given Carlton the best opposition in both match-ups (nationals last March and tournament in B.C.) It really is too bad that they are not going to be in Ottawa. I don't see any teams there this year that will give any kind of a game against Carlton. There has to be a better way of ensuring that the best teams are the teams going to Nationals.
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