Monday, October 22, 2012

Ferrum's Mission: Just Win

With three games left, Ferrum (5-2- 3-1) has but one job...get 8 regular season wins. That means that they must win three more. They cannot concern themselves with how the other teams finish, they just have to win. Going into this past Saturday, there were 5 teams tied for the conference lead. At the end of the day, It was just CNU, Ferrum, and LaGrange.
North Carolina Wesleyan surprised Greensboro, and Maryville lost a close game to LaGrange. So the conference standings look like this:

SCHOOLCONFERENCEOVERALL
Ferrum3-15-2
Chris. Newport3-14-3
LaGrange3-13-4
Greensboro2-24-3
Maryville (Tenn.)2-23-4
Methodist1-32-5
N.C. Wesleyan1-32-5
Averett1-31-6


While the above standings show Ferrum in first place, this is solely based on the better overall record. The overall record has nothing to do with the conference championship. The conference race could end in a tie, and if that happens, the USA South tie breaker works like this:

a. Head-to-head competition.
b. Performance against higher-rated teams in Conference.
c. Common opponent records.
d. In the event of a three-way tie, the NCAA regional ranking following the final games will be used to break the tie between the three teams. This will determine the Conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
e. Coin toss.

The likelihood is that it will be determined in step a. If however there is still a tie, Ferrum's chances get worse. Regional rankings (step d.) will work against Ferrum as they played one game out of their region (Southern Virginia University).

A little help from those Battling Bishops would be nice, but regardless, Ferrum has to beat Greensboro....not as easy as it has been in the past. They are a much improved team, and have a very strong  passing game. Ferrum will still be the favorite in this game.

Go Panthers!

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