2022 Summit League Tournament

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ST_Lawson
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Saw on twitter that with North Dakota's loss to St. Thomas today, they have locked in the last place spot and will not be in the conference tournament this year.

As of right now, WIU is #6, which would match us up with #3 North Dakota State in the first round of the tournament. Still 9 games to go in the conference though, so things could shuffle around a little bit. We're in a pretty good spot right now though, with our final two games against (currently #7) Denver and (currently #8 Omaha)...both game here in Macomb.

Our previous game against Denver, we won 84-80 in OT and previously against Omaha, we lost 78-84.
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So, we beat Omaha, but Denver beat St. Thomas, so no real movement on that front. Looks like the winner of our game tomorrow is the #6 seed (we'd have the same conference record, but they'd have both head-to-head wins, so I think that'd put them ahead of us. The loser is the #7 seed.

The standings right now are:
  1. South Dakota State
  2. North Dakota State
  3. Kansas City
  4. Oral Roberts
  5. South Dakota
  6. Western Illinois
  7. Denver
  8. Omaha
  9. St. Thomas
  10. North Dakota
SDSU has locked up the #1 spot at 17-0. NDSU, KS, and ORU are all 12-5 and will fall in the #2-#4 positions depending on how their games go. USD is 10-7 and locked into #5. #6 and #7 will be decided by our game against Denver. Omaha has the #8 spot nailed down. Meanwhile, St. Thomas is ineligible this year and UND has been eliminated.
Here's the conference tournament bracket: https://s3.amazonaws.com/thesummitleagu ... racket.pdf

If my math is correct, regardless of whether we're the #6 or #7 seed, we'll play one of: NDSU, KC, or ORU.
Against NDSU we went 1-1 this season, with the away team winning each time, with both games going to OT
Against KC we lost by 8 at home on a Monday, then lost by 9 at their place on the following Saturday (the first one was rescheduled after being postponed)
Against ORU we went 1-1, again with the away team winning each time. In Macomb, they won by 1, but in Tulsa, we won by 5.
So, I think we'd prefer NDSU or ORU, since we seem to be fairly evenly matched with either team. I'd probably prefer NDSU, because I feel like ORU's Abmas could drop a huge number of points on us, especially in the tournament (he just put up 34 in the OT loss against SDSU).

If the regular season ends with the same standings as what's listed on the Summit League site (conference record, then overall record as tiebreaker), then the tournament would be:

#1 SDSU vs #8 Omaha
#4 Oral Roberts vs #5 South Dakota

#2 North Dakota State vs #7 Denver
#3 Kansas City vs #6 Western Illinois

 
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sealhall74
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ST_Lawson wrote: Fri Feb 25, 2022 10:47 am So, we beat Omaha, but Denver beat St. Thomas, so no real movement on that front. Looks like the winner of our game tomorrow is the #6 seed (we'd have the same conference record, but they'd have both head-to-head wins, so I think that'd put them ahead of us. The loser is the #7 seed.

The standings right now are:
  1. South Dakota State
  2. North Dakota State
  3. Kansas City
  4. Oral Roberts
  5. South Dakota
  6. Western Illinois
  7. Denver
  8. Omaha
  9. St. Thomas
  10. North Dakota
SDSU has locked up the #1 spot at 17-0. NDSU, KS, and ORU are all 12-5 and will fall in the #2-#4 positions depending on how their games go. USD is 10-7 and locked into #5. #6 and #7 will be decided by our game against Denver. Omaha has the #8 spot nailed down. Meanwhile, St. Thomas is ineligible this year and UND has been eliminated.
Here's the conference tournament bracket: https://s3.amazonaws.com/thesummitleagu ... racket.pdf

If my math is correct, regardless of whether we're the #6 or #7 seed, we'll play one of: NDSU, KC, or ORU.
Against NDSU we went 1-1 this season, with the away team winning each time, with both games going to OT
Against KC we lost by 8 at home on a Monday, then lost by 9 at their place on the following Saturday (the first one was rescheduled after being postponed)
Against ORU we went 1-1, again with the away team winning each time. In Macomb, they won by 1, but in Tulsa, we won by 5.
So, I think we'd prefer NDSU or ORU, since we seem to be fairly evenly matched with either team. I'd probably prefer NDSU, because I feel like ORU's Abmas could drop a huge number of points on us, especially in the tournament (he just put up 34 in the OT loss against SDSU).

If the regular season ends with the same standings as what's listed on the Summit League site (conference record, then overall record as tiebreaker), then the tournament would be:

#1 SDSU vs #8 Omaha
#4 Oral Roberts vs #5 South Dakota

#2 North Dakota State vs #7 Denver
#3 Kansas City vs #6 Western Illinois

 






 
We beat Denver first meeting in OT IIRC.  Our win over ORU should be good enough to give us the tiebreaker over them.
ORU best opponent for us cause the Dakota folks would be showing us some serious love against that team or KC, especially if KC gives the Jacks a close game tomorrow.  KC is on a roll it seems.

Update: Actually it appears our win over NDSU is the key tiebreaker after the ORU loss last night.  Of course, I assume the Bison handle the Hawks with no problem.

Abmas will get his points.  It what the other guys do that matters more.
 
 
 
 
 
Last edited by sealhall74 on Fri Feb 25, 2022 11:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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ST_Lawson
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sealhall74 wrote: Fri Feb 25, 2022 11:26 am We beat Denver first meeting in OT IIRC.  Our win over ORU should be good enough to give us the tiebreaker over them.
ORU best opponent for us cause the Dakota folks would be showing us some serious love against that team or KC, especially if KC gives the Jacks a close game tomorrow.  KC is on a roll it seems.

Update: Actually it appears our win over NDSU is the key tiebreaker after the ORU loss last night.  Of course, I assume the Bison handle the Hawks with no problem.
 
 
You are correct. Too much staring at the schedule made my eyes go blurry. We did beat Denver in OT, so I think you're right that an even split favors us.
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ST_Lawson wrote: Fri Feb 25, 2022 11:44 am
sealhall74 wrote: Fri Feb 25, 2022 11:26 am We beat Denver first meeting in OT IIRC.  Our win over ORU should be good enough to give us the tiebreaker over them.
ORU best opponent for us cause the Dakota folks would be showing us some serious love against that team or KC, especially if KC gives the Jacks a close game tomorrow.  KC is on a roll it seems.

Update: Actually it appears our win over NDSU is the key tiebreaker after the ORU loss last night.  Of course, I assume the Bison handle the Hawks with no problem.
 


 
You are correct. Too much staring at the schedule made my eyes go blurry. We did beat Denver in OT, so I think you're right that an even split favors us.


 
KC would end up the 2 seed ahead of bison if they win against SDSU tomorrow.  SOOOO, if we lose against Denver and KC does beat SDSU, it appears that Denver would win the 6 seed tiebreaker because they knocked off KC once.  That would knock us down to 7 playing KC.  I dont like that matchup even though it does get you a Sunday off if you win.  Just win Baby!
 
 
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sealhall74
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Finally got the Neural Network predictor going.  It has been trained with a full complement of team statistics and conference game scores leading up to the tournament.  It has a 86% success rate of picking the winning team with an average score margin differential of around 8 points per game.  The "team1" in each prediction below is assumed to be the "visitor" team so I ran the prediction both ways for the neutral court tournament scenario.  The stats used are all team stats as shown on the NCAA site https://stats.ncaa.org/rankings

So how might we fare against the Golden Eagles on Saturday:

{
  Game: 'SLT 1st Round',
  team1: { team: 'Western Ill.', score: 60.873 },
  team2: { team: 'Oral Roberts', score: 65.38 }
}

{
  Game: 'SLT 1st Round',
  team1: { team: 'Oral Roberts', score: 62.871 },
  team2: { team: 'Western Ill.', score: 57.749 }
}

Looks like about a 5 point dog according to my Neural Net.  Massey has it at 7 points with likely score of 84-77.

I will try to post a complete bracket prediction later today.
 
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sealhall74
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So who is going besides me? Pep Band and cheer team I hope?
I am leaving early tomorrow to get there in time for Women's game.
My Neural Network prediction below see a potential upset in the NDSU-Denver game.
My gut feels a potential upset in our own game.  The path to the championship game is very much doable.
Let the intensity at the defensive end spill over to the other end, NOT the other way around.

Quarterfinal Matchups:

SDSU 110 / 80
Omaha 97 / 64

KC 71.5 / 83.1
USD 71.1 / 80.4

NDSU 99 / 73.9
Denver 95 / 74.4

ORU 62.9 / 65.4
WIU 57.7 / 60.9
 
 
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wiu712
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sealhall74 wrote: Fri Mar 04, 2022 12:06 pm So who is going besides me? Pep Band and cheer team I hope?


 
The Pep Band and Spirit Squads will be there !

The theme for this year's tournament is "Rewind To The 80's".  

Fans will help the League celebrate its 40th Anniversary. They will be treated to photo ops with a DeLorean that is similar to the one that appeared in the hit movie “Back To The Future”. The car will be located at the main entrance on Saturday and Sunday.
  • The Summit League cheer and dance squads will perform 80’s-themed dance routines during the quarterfinal games on Saturday and Sunday. Fans can vote for their favorite performance at www.thesummitleague.org/vote. The winning performance will receive a $1,000 donation to the spirit squad.
                Performances
                Denver – “Tricky” by RunDMC
                Kansas City – “Let’s Groove” by Earth, Wind & Fire
                North Dakota – “Cat People” by David Bowie
                North Dakota State – “Thriller” by Michael Jackson
                Omaha – “I Love Rock N Roll” by Joan Jett
                Oral Roberts – “Pretty Young Thing” by Michael Jackson
                South Dakota – “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince
                South Dakota State – “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston
                Western Illinois – “Eye Of The Tiger” by Survivor

 
 
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sealhall74
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Nate Wolters won 2 straight tournament MVP awards and is still balling it over in Europe.  Yes, one was during the year when we lost to the Jacks
in OT in the Championship game.  If you are going to raise a kid to be a basketball PG, make him a clone of Wolters.  Pure Poetry in Motion.  Check out that follow-thru.


 
 
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