MBB: Liberty League

[Bartman]

Ithaca has to beat Vassar to get in, Hobart couldn't lose to Bard even if they suited up the soccer team instead.

I almost always say good luck, but for the Bombers tonight, I'd rather say .....may the best team win.BTW, the Bard soccer team is very athletic, I'll take our chances with basketball team as planned.

[stlawus]

Final regular season standings:

1) RPI
2) Union
3) Vassar
4) SLU
5) Ithaca
6) Skidmore
7) Hobart
8) Clarkson
9) RIT
10) Bard

Tuesday: Vassar vs. Skidmore
               SLU vs. Ithaca
Last night SLU shoots 1-22 from 3.  Today shoots 14-20.  What goes up must come down I guess.  Ultimately it didn't matter with Skidmore losing, but SLU picked the right time to play their best and most complete game of the year.

*Ithaca finishes ahead of Skidmore

[stlawus]

* I edited my previous comment to reflect the final standings according to the website, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong. They have Ithaca as the 5 seed but Skidmore should have the tiebreaker by virtue of a win against RPI.

**All teams on their writeups and schedules are showing Skidmore at Vassar and Ithaca at SLU.  This can't be right.  Ithaca and Skidmore split, and the tie breaker is comparing results from the top down.  Skidmore has a win against RPI, Ithaca lost both to RPI.

[stlawus]

I've always believed that the 2nd tie breaker was common results against opponents starting from the top down.  If these seedings are locked in that means the second tie breaker is cumulative record against all opponents above in the standings.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

You can google "Liberty League MBB tiebreakers" and get a link to the minutes where tournament expansion was approved in 2012, along with the approved tiebreakers.  It does show, cumulative record against all teams above you is No. 2.

[stlawus]

You can google "Liberty League MBB tiebreakers" and get a link to the minutes where tournament expansion was approved in 2012, along with the approved tiebreakers.  It does show, cumulative record against all teams above you is No. 2.

I saw that, but tournament expansion didn't happen until 2017-2018, which according to those minutes should have been effective in 2012-2013 if I read it correctly so was not sure about the tie breakers being applicable.

[Bartman]

I now realize based on the tiebreaker, Hobart never had a chance to make the tournament this last weekend given that they had fewer wins above them in the standings than either Ithaca or Skidmore, so beating Vassar on Friday felt good, but meant nothing for the tournament. Oh well, that eight game losing streak was a killer. I do think they will be better next year as Bergeron , although a solid performer and captain, is our only starter we lose. Everyone needs to get better and be more consistent as I really thought this team was at least a LL playoff team. Good luck to everyone in the LL playoffs. Although RPI has the defense, I think Union should prevail with one of those last second shots in the final.

[stlawus]

All chalk tonight.  Skidmore put up a good fight but Vassar had just enough at the end.

Great crowd at Burkman tonight. SLU lost 2 games by 3 points each in the regular season against Ithaca and turned it into a wire to wire win.  Ithaca got it to within 4 at halftime and that was as close as they'd get the rest of the way.  Dudzinski was unguardable and 3 freshmen got valuable playoff experience while chipping in a combined 31 points. 

[stlawus]

Call it sour grapes I don't care, most home cooked officiating performance I saw all year just now.  Absolutely ridiculous that this is the standard for officiating. Would not surprise me at all if Downs makes a complaint to the officials board, it was that poor. I've made maybe one or 2 comments like this about officials in recent years, and that was generally about officials being bad for both teams, but not tonight.  Beyond absurd for any game, let alone a playoff game.

Ultimately SLU just could not win on the road this year.  Could not consistently defend or shoot. Rebounding took a major hit with Downs Jr's season ending injury. Dan Anderson gave a great effort showing why he was a division 1 athlete, but rest of the team just couldn't make a shot or get stops. He'll join the lax team hopefully immediately.

The RPI broadcast was absolutely atrocious. Just horrible constant commentary on Adam Dudzinski throughout the entire game about his "attitude" and saying how it looked like he "didn't care". That's a player that scored well over 1000 points in his 3 years at SLU and will have 2 first team all league awards to his name. He'd probably be 2nd all time on SLU's scoring list if he played all 4 of his years at SLU. Better off having no one commentate the game if you're going to make ignorant and idiotic comments like that. I've never had anything bad to say about RPI, but that was appalling and a terrible representation of the university.

I have a very bad taste in my mouth after this game, mostly due to feeling terrible for the SLU seniors having to end their season like this.  Feel free to judge me that is fine, but you can see that I've never reacted like this before.

[stlawus]

I guess you could say it's an upset, but major win for Vassar on Union's home court to advance to the championship. The shooting just wasn't there for Union with Garside going 1 for 7 from 3. In his last 4 games he shot 4 for 26 from the arc. Union did extremely well despite all their injuries this year, might have just run out of gas in the end.  Good news for them they bring just about everyone back.

[bk5]

I guess you could say it's an upset, but major win for Vassar on Union's home court to advance to the championship. The shooting just wasn't there for Union with Garside going 1 for 7 from 3. In his last 4 games he shot 4 for 26 from the arc. Union did extremely well despite all their injuries this year, might have just run out of gas in the end.  Good news for them they bring just about everyone back.

Not sure why we are calling Vassar beating Union an "upset" when they have beaten them 2 times earlier this year. People are acting like Vassar isn't injured aswell, there missing Avery Lee (who was averaging 20 in his 8 games played) aswell as senior leader Sacha Greenberg. A healthy Vassar is easily scarier then any other team at full capacity in the league.

[stlawus]

I guess you could say it's an upset, but major win for Vassar on Union's home court to advance to the championship. The shooting just wasn't there for Union with Garside going 1 for 7 from 3. In his last 4 games he shot 4 for 26 from the arc. Union did extremely well despite all their injuries this year, might have just run out of gas in the end.  Good news for them they bring just about everyone back.

Not sure why we are calling Vassar beating Union an "upset" when they have beaten them 2 times earlier this year. People are acting like Vassar isn't injured aswell, there missing Avery Lee (who was averaging 20 in his 8 games played) aswell as senior leader Sacha Greenberg. A healthy Vassar is easily scarier then any other team at full capacity in the league.

If you read what I wrote, I said "I guess you could say it's an upset", which obviously implies that it is not really an upset.  And nobody in here has said Vassar isn't injured, in fact you can find several comments from me talking about Lee being a key missing piece for them, as well as other comments saying the same thing. So I don't know who these "people" are that are acting like you said they are.