Way back in December I simmed 10,000 NEC conference seasons as a prelude to what may happen using Ken Pomeroy’s data. In those simulations Robert Morris and Wagner dominated the top of the league. It looked after non-conference play that those two were going to run away with things and people who said that LIU Brooklyn and Central Connecticut were serious challengers were crazy. Well that’s why they play the games.
The simulations gave Jim Ferry’s team a 3.87% chance of winning the league title outright. That’s exactly what happened as the Blackbirds finished 16-2 and have home court advantage as long as they are in the NEC playoffs. It’s also interesting to note that no matter the outcome of last night’s LIU-Monmouth game someone was going to hit the extremes of their projections. It just so happens it’s Monmouth.
Yes, the Hawks were at the bottom of the league in those original projections. They didn’t win a single game in 60 of the simulations. Once though they won 10 league games. This season King Rice caught lightning in a bottle and won 10 games. The numbers at the beginning of the season said his team had a 0.001% chance of doing just that.
Other than the Blackbirds and Hawks everything played out close to expected except for St. Francis (NY). Robert Morris slipped to the 3 seed, Wagner took the 2 it was projected to get, but CCSU slipped up. In their place came the Terriers. While SFC did win 15 games in one of the simulations, it also finished seventh in the projected conference standings. Instead Glenn Braica has his team hosting a quarterfinal game – against a very dangerous Quinnipiac team.
I’ll release 10,000 sims for the NEC tournament later today. It’ll be interesting to see how those play out.
NYC Buckets Archive 