All Golden Ram fans were certainly pleased with Saturday's win over California and it improved West Chester's position for a postseason bid. But will it be enough? Let's consider how Saturday's results may affect last week's regional rankings, keeping in mind that seven teams from the region qualify for the postseason.
Slippery Rock defeated Kutztown in the PSAC championship game, so Slippery Rock will be #1 in the region and get a first round bye and Kutztown will be #2. Notre Dame
and IUP both won and should remain #3 and #4 respectively. Seeds #2-#4 will get home games this coming Saturday. Shepherd also won and will likely remain #5. All that is rather sound. But then things get squishy.
Former #6 West Virginia State lost so that moves them out of the playoff picture. The #7 Golden Rams and #8 Tiffin were both victorious. Assume Tiffin and West Chester move up to #6 and #7, although which team is which seed is irrelevant. Former #9 Urbana lost and fell to 7-4 on the season while former #10 Ohio Dominican won to go to 7-2 on the year. Let's assume that Ohio Dominican rises to #8.
Keep in mind that teams are ranked primarily on their Division II win/loss record and their strength of schedule. There are three 7-3 teams:
New Haven,
Charleston, and
West Virginia State. Some back of the napkin math shows that New Haven has the best strength of schedule among the three teams and would be #9. The earned access rule (quite a peculiar name) states that "if a conference's highest-ranked team is in the top nine of the final super regional rankings", that team shall gain access to the playoffs. Since New Haven is the only Northeast-10 conference school listed, they must be in the playoffs. The initial reaction may be that if West Chester is #6, then New Haven should replace #7 Tiffin. However, Tiffin is the only representative from the Great Midwest Athletic Conference, so Tiffin must also be in the playoffs. Which means West Chester would be left out of the postseason.
Even if the math were wrong and New Haven doesn't have the best schedule among the 7-3 teams, the NCAA would essentially be saying that the fifth best PSAC team is better than the best Northeast-10 team. And although last year isn't supposed to be a factor, one could simply look to last season to come to a different conclusion.
If, and at this point it is certainly a big "if", West Chester were to qualify for the playoffs, whom they play is also a question. There is an effort this year to reduce flights, which are granted to any team that must travel more than 600 miles to their opponent, in the first and second rounds. While it's unlikely that this will affect West Chester, it's still a possibility. Also, there is an effort to avoid repeating regular season match-ups in the first round, so a trip to nearby PSAC East foe Kutztown is improbable.
Not all the questions will be answered, but the outcome will be announced at 5:00 tomorrow during the NCAA selection show.
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