Road to March Madness: Northeast Conference

February 13, 2008 at 1:01 am · Filed under NCAA ·Tagged , , , ,

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As promised, the much-anticipated preview of the remainder of the Northeast Conference schedule and conference tournament appear after the jump.

Before I get into the actual prognostication part of all of this, I should preface the entry by noting that, for the better part of the college basketball season, I have been messing around with a formula that contains elements or interpretations of 23 team statistics in an effort to find a reliable forecasting tool for NCAA games — particularly, of course, those in March.While it’s way too complex to type out here, the basic idea of the metric is to evaluate offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency, game pace, free throw shooting, shot selection and rebounding in the context of a small grouping of teams. To this effect, I have been keeping tabs on the conferences which contain top 25 teams as well as the Northeast Conference — my “guinea pig” for the formula. (I would later test the formula on the field from last year’s NCAA tournament — I figured I was on the right track when its top four teams were North Carolina, Kansas, Memphis and Florida.)Having recently graduated from Monmouth University, I have considerable familiarity with NEC men’s basketball. I went to many of our home games prior to my graduation in May, and also followed the team closely through radio broadcasts as well as occasional television coverage. Additionally, I edited the school newspaper for two years, and last year had a considerable hand in the editing of our sports pages — of which basketball was the primary focus for much of the year.While I watch a fair amount of college basketball, it wasn’t until very recently that I had any use for it outside of the annual 65-team tournament. Accordingly, I have the greatest familiarity with the league that I had the closest proximity to. And so here we are, finally, ready to analyze the tournament hopes of the Northeast Conference teams.Let’s get this out of the way first: Monmouth has continued in 2007-08 to follow the path carved out during the embarrassing 2006-07 campaign in which the Hawks not only failed to repeat as league champions, but failed to reach even the conference tournament to defend their crown. This despite the retention of the majority of its 2005-06 championship team, though both of that team’s starting guards were lost to graduation. The argument can be made that the Hawks are the worst team in the conference this year, and having watched a few of their games this year, I’d be hard-pressed to disagree with that assessment.

However, according to the formula, Monmouth is the ninth best team in the conference, better than Fairleigh Dickinson and, by the narrowest of margins, St. Francis (PA). Still, only the top eight teams in the conference qualify for the tournament, so even though the formula presently has the Hawks appearing to underperform (at 2-10, Monmouth finds itself in tenth place in the NEC standings, beating out St. Francis [NY]), it is highly unlikely that they’ll have more March magic in them this year.

The hasty demise of one of the Northeast Conference’s perennial powerhouse programs is bad news for the Hawks, but at the same time creates opportunity for the other ten schools that compete in the league. Below, we take a look at the remaining games on the conference slate, project their outcomes and then take that data analysis one step further by projecting the league champion — a full month ahead of time.

First, an up-to-the-second look at the Northeast Conference standings:

  W L
Sacred Heart * 11 2
Robert Morris * 10 2
Wagner * 10 2
Quinnipiac 8 4
Central Conn. St. 8 5
Mount St. Mary’s 7 6
Long Island 4 8
Fairleigh Dickinson 3 9
St. Francis (PA) 3 9
Monmouth 2 10
St. Francis (NY) 2 11
As of 2/12/08    

As you may have guessed, the asterisk indicates that teams have already qualified for the conference tournament. Obviously, at this stage ten wins is good enough to get a team into the playoffs. On to the remaining schedule:

February 14, 2008:
St. Francis (PA) at St. Francis (NY)
PROJECTED WINNER: St. Francis (NY) by 2
Quinnipiac at Long Island
PROJECTED WINNER: Quinnipiac by 14
Sacred Heart at Wagner
PROJECTED WINNER: Sacred Heart by 1
Mount St. Mary’s at Fairleigh Dickinson
PROJECTED WINNER: Mount St. Mary’s by 23
Robert Morris at Central Connecticut State
PROJECTED WINNER: Robert Morris by 3

  W L
Sacred Heart * 12 2
Robert Morris * 11 2
Wagner * 10 3
Quinnipiac * 9 4
Mount St. Mary’s 8 6
Central Conn. St. 8 6
Long Island 4 9
Fairleigh Dickinson 3 10
St. Francis (PA) 3 10
St. Francis (NY) 3 11
Monmouth 2 10
As of 2/14/08    

February 16, 2008:
Robert Morris at St. Francis (NY)
PROJECTED WINNER: Robert Morris by 20
St. Francis (PA) at Sacred Heart
PROJECTED WINNER: Sacred Heart by 20
Central Connecticut State at Long Island
PROJECTED WINNER: CCSU by 14
Monmouth at Wagner
PROJECTED WINNER: Wagner by 19
Quinnipiac at Mount St. Mary’s
PROJECTED WINNER: Mount St. Mary’s by 1

February 18, 2008:
Monmouth at Fairleigh Dickinson
PROJECTED WINNER: Monmouth by 4

  W L
Sacred Heart * 13 2
Robert Morris * 12 2
Wagner * 11 3
Quinnipiac * 9 5
Mount St. Mary’s * 9 6
Central Conn. St. * 9 6
Long Island 4 10
Monmouth 3 11
Fairleigh Dickinson 3 11
St. Francis (PA) 3 11
St. Francis (NY) 3 12
As of 2/18/08    

February 21, 2008:
Central Connecticut State at Fairleigh Dickinson
PROJECTED WINNER: CCSU by 23
Mount St. Mary’s at Robert Morris
PROJECTED WINNER: Robert Morris by 4
Monmouth at Quinnipiac
PROJECTED WINNER: Quinnipiac by 19
Wagner at St. Francis (PA)
PROJECTED WINNER: Wagner by 19
St. Francis (NY) at Long Island
PROJECTED WINNER: Long Island by 3

  W L
Sacred Heart * 13 2
Robert Morris * 13 2
Wagner * 12 3
Quinnipiac * 10 5
Central Conn. St. * 10 6
Mount St. Mary’s * 9 7
Long Island 5 10
Monmouth 3 12
Fairleigh Dickinson 3 12
St. Francis (PA) 3 12
St. Francis (NY) 3 13
As of 2/21/08    

February 23, 2008:
Sacred Heart at Quinnipiac
PROJECTED WINNER: Sacred Heart by 1
Fairleigh Dickinson at St. Francis (NY)
PROJECTED WINNER: St. Francis (NY) by 6
Mount St. Mary’s at St. Francis (PA)
PROJECTED WINNER: Mount St. Mary’s by 19
Long Island at Monmouth
PROJECTED WINNER: Long Island by 5
Wagner at Robert Morris
PROJECTED WINNER: Robert Morris by 3

  W L
Sacred Heart * 14 2
Robert Morris * 14 2
Wagner * 12 4
Central Conn. St. * 10 6
Quinnipiac * 10 6
Mount St. Mary’s * 10 7
Long Island * 6 10
St. Francis (NY) 4 13
Monmouth 3 13
Fairleigh Dickinson 3 13
St. Francis (PA) 3 13
As of 2/23/08    

February 28, 2008:
Robert Morris at Sacred Heart
PROJECTED WINNER: Robert Morris by 3
Long Island at St. Francis (NY)
PROJECTED WINNER: Long Island by 3
Fairleigh Dickinson at Wagner
PROJECTED WINNER: Wagner by 23
St. Francis (PA) at Monmouth
PROJECTED WINNER: Monmouth by 1
Quinnipiac at Central Connecticut State
PROJECTED WINNER: Central Connecticut State by 1

  W L
Robert Morris * 15 2
Sacred Heart * 14 3
Wagner * 13 4
Central Conn. St. * 11 6
Quinnipiac * 10 7
Mount St. Mary’s * 10 7
Long Island * 7 10
Monmouth 4 13
St. Francis (NY) 4 14
Fairleigh Dickinson 3 14
St. Francis (PA) 3 14
As of 2/28/08    

March 1, 2008:
Robert Morris at Long Island
PROJECTED WINNER: Robert Morris by 18
Monmouth at Mount St. Mary’s
PROJECTED WINNER: Mount St. Mary’s by 19
Quinnipiac at Wagner
PROJECTED WINNER: Wagner by 1
St. Francis (PA) at Fairleigh Dickinson
PROJECTED WINNER: St. Francis (PA) by 4
Central Connecticut State at Sacred Heart
PROJECTED WINNER: Sacred Heart by 1

  W L
Robert Morris * 16 2
Sacred Heart * 15 3
Wagner * 14 4
Mount St. Mary’s * 11 7
Central Conn. St. * 11 7
Quinnipiac * 10 8
Long Island * 7 11
Monmouth * 4 14
St. Francis (NY) 4 14
St. Francis (PA) 4 14
Fairleigh Dickinson 3 15
As of 3/1/08    

So, as it turns out, Monmouth is projected to take the eighth and final seed in the conference tournament after all, with a 7-23 regular season record, no less. Robert Morris is also projected to take a 13-game winning streak into the conference tournament. One has to think that, while the Colonials are pretty damn good, they will stumble along the way. The team hasn’t exactly been the greatest model of consistency. Still, this metric loves them, and I have long thought them to be the most talented team in the Northeast Conference — only Monmouth’s aforementioned disappointing 2006-07 campaign kept them from being the league’s biggest disappointment last year, in my opinion. I have picked the Colonials to win the conference each of the last two years.

With the regular season scheduled “played out,” here is how the formula sees the tournament going:

QUARTERFINALS:
#1 Robert Morris over #8 Monmouth
#2 Sacred Heart over #7 Long Island
#3 Wagner over #6 Quinnipiac
#5 Central Connecticut State over #4 Mount St. Mary’s

SEMIFINALS:
#1 Robert Morris over #5 Central Connecticut State
#2 Sacred Heart over #3 Wagner

FINALS:
#1 Robert Morris over #2 Sacred Heart

And so, the formula projects that the Colonials will win 16 in a row and advance to the tournament. Again, I’m skeptical, but it’s not like numerical values can anticipate outside factors such as injuries, rested players or a simple off-night. Like I said, I expect them to slip up somewhere along the way, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see them dancing come mid-March.

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