You are correct, and I completely butchered that ... I had two uniquely separate thoughts that came out as keyboard vomit.TruePoint wrote:I feel like you're essentially saying that if they don't win tonight, they have to win the A10 tournament regardless, right? I know that you're not explicitly saying that, but that is kind of what it means. If they need a marquee win and their only two chances are tonight and in the A10 finals, and they don't win tonight, they basically have no shot at an at large bid. I'm not sure I disagree with you, just want to flush out the logic on that a bit - if they get to the A10 finals they'd definitely hope that URI had been upset and forego the shot at the marquee win, right? Wouldn't help them at that point.rjsuperfly66 wrote:If they don't win tonight, their only other chance at a marquee conference win will be in the A10T Final, assuming they play URI. If for some reason URI got upset, they would have to win the tournament.
If St. Bonaventure loses to URI 1 or 2x, that is a "great" loss -- It's not the type of loss that should cause you to lose ground in your pursuit of a birth, although other teams could obviously pass you with "good" or "great" wins.
But if St. Bonaventure gets the 2 or 3 seed without a URI win, I don't think that by itself is enough to get them in.
If they go to the A10T against VCU or Richmond (potential 4 or 5 seed respectively), while it's possible it would be a must-win regardless of opponent, I don't think that is a game they could afford to lose if they happened to find themselves on the plus side of the bubble pre-game.
That type of loss would likely drop them a few spots, and likely out of the tournament picture.
I don't see really anyway they will be comfortably in the tournament picture pre-A10T without winning out the rest of the regular season (which begins tonight).