The Bonnies will be the seventh or eighth seed in Brooklyn. You care about this but Jay-Z doesn’t.
What should the Bonnies be hoping for on Saturday? Let’s try to sort things out.
The Bonnies will either be the seventh seed or the eighth seed in the Atlantic 10 tournament and face either La Salle or Saint Joseph’s. At least we know this much.
The Bonnies finish seventh if:
- They beat Fordham AND George Washington loses at UMass.
- They beat Fordham, George Washington beats UMass AND Davidson finishes as the outright league champion. (Davidson has to win at Duquesne and Dayton has to lose at La Salle for Davidson to win the title outright)
The Bonnie finish eighth if:
- They lose.
- They win, George Washington wins, AND Davidson and Dayton finish tied for first.
To me this is the most likely scenario:
The Bonnies win and GW loses on Saturday. SBU is slotted seventh and will face La Salle at 6:30 Thursday night in Brooklyn.
That is all and well, except for one thing: if the Bonnies defeat La Salle, Dayton is likely looming as SBU’s quarterfinal round opponent. That’s not good.
If the Bonnies end up in eighth, they will likely meet Saint Joseph’s at noon Thursday. A win in that game would mean a quarterfinal matchup against Davidson (the Wildcats earn the top seed by winning at Duquesne in the regular season finale). This is better.
Whether the Bonnies play St. Joe’s or La Salle, it will essentially be a pick ’em game in Vegas. The Bonnies topped the Hawks twice, but both games were battles to the end. La Salle won handily in Olean but the Explorers’ A-10 record shows they’re not as good as they played that night.
Dayton, of course, pounded SBU twice. The Bonnies nipped Davidson at the buzzer on the road. I don’t see the Bonnies beating Dayton on a neutral floor. I give them a chance against Davidson.
In other words, the seventh or eighth seed doesn’t really matter in the opening round. Where it does matter is in the quarters.
If Dayton happens to take the first seed, I’m all for finishing seventh. Otherwise, I’m just fine with eighth.
Convince me otherwise in the comments section below.
Our fearless leader, Mark Schmidt has never lost to the same team 3x in a year. Fact. So gimme’ LaSalle in the 6:30 tilt. I don’t want it, I need it.
How many times have they played a team three times in a season under Schmidt?
I’m with you. We had Davidson without Gibbs and that’s a big difference. Between Dayton and Davidson, personally I’d take the Wildcats. I think Dayton can beat you in a lot of difference ways (inside/outside/defense) while vs. Davidson you hope they have an off night and you know you can score vs. them. Either way, they’re a tough bunch to face. I’d much rather face VCU right now but that’s not going to happen given their seed.
I’d also prefer to take on Davidson, I think, but it’s almost splitting hairs between Davidson and Dayton. Davidson has been 8-0 since we snuck one out against them, who was without Gibbs. Dayton has gone 6-2 in that time span and has looked mostly human against opponents not in brown and white. Davidson on the other hand, has been a runaway train.