The Wright Stuff....first post ... I waited until December

Rocky Swishterson · Thu Dec 03, 2015 9:26 am

This is already a better season than the last two.
Holy crap, a win against Wisconsin. I missed the game on TV because I was at a music concert and my phone is buzzing in my pocket the last half of the concert. Four messages from friends about the Wisconsin win. So I watched the replay that night and still had fear of losing the game near the end, even though I KNEW we had already won it.
The best thing is I get to give shit to all my U of Wisconsin friends up here in far northern Illinois (Waukegan).
I am so happy that we have recruited a pair of BIG guys like I have been harping about forever. Gilbeck looks solid for sure. People were telling me last year that Western can't get big guys. Bull!!!
I have tickets for the game in Chicago against Loyola. If they beat Iowa, I'll go to the Chicago State game too.
Keep it up, boys.
But what is a Silver Lake? And how do we sandwich a cupcake between two traditional basketball powers like Creighton and Iowa? The selection committee is going to frown on that win come NCAA Tournament Time. Just kidding, I said, hoping I'm not.

Thu Dec 03, 2015 10:23 am

Rocky Swishterson wrote:But what is a Silver Lake? And how do we sandwich a cupcake between two traditional basketball powers like Creighton and Iowa? The selection committee is going to frown on that win come NCAA Tournament Time. Just kidding, I said, hoping I'm not.

Well, considering we're in the Summit League, there's no "selection" being done. We'd have to pretty much roll through the season undefeated (including Wisconsin, Creighton, and Iowa) to even get an at-large look by the committee. The last time the Summit League (Mid-Con at that time) had an at-large in the tournament was '91, when UW-Green Bay got the auto-bid by winning the conference tournament, but the committee also selected a 25-6 (14-2 in-conference) Northern Illinois team who won the regular season title, coached by....Jim Molinari.
http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/con ... /1991.html

20+ regular season wins doesn't get you into the tournament anymore if you're not from one of the major conferences (see Oral Roberts in 2011/12...26-5 at the end of the regular season w/ wins over Xavier and Texas Tech...lost in the conference tournament to us, got an NIT invite...not bad, but not the "Big Dance")

We obviously want to do well in the regular season, but if we want to make the NCAA tournament, we need to win the conference tournament. And if we do that, it doesn't matter if we played some cupcake teams...we're in with the auto-bid.

Rocky Swishterson · Thu Dec 03, 2015 6:54 pm

Totally agree. That last bit about the selection committee was meant to be tongue in cheek. Since I made my living as a writer, I hate using lol. If people can't guess that I'm kidding, I'm obviously not being clear enough. My bad.
I like your posts, by the way.

Thu Dec 03, 2015 6:59 pm

Rocky Swishterson wrote:Totally agree. That last bit about the selection committee was meant to be tongue in cheek. Since I made my living as a writer, I hate using lol. If people can't guess that I'm kidding, I'm obviously not being clear enough. My bad.
I like your posts, by the way.

No problem. I though you might be kidding, but wasn't 100% clear, and figured I might as well mention it in case there were other people who are new or possibly don't know much about the history of our conference in the postseason.

And thanks

cubsflag · Fri Dec 04, 2015 9:58 am

i dont think the committee even looks at the d-2 games.they just have a list of d-1 wins and losses.a road win at wisconsin almost as big as it gets.top it off with another road big ten win at iowa and guess what?its only a matter of time when the summit gets an at large bid.and though the summit was supposed to be rebuilding except for sds,they have done really well this pre-season.but i do agree odds are not good.