Spiders No. 19

As mentioned on today's broadcast, Creme currently has the Spiders on the outside looking in. We're actually the 6th team out as of Friday.

Notably, Fairfield, which beat the pants off of us, is the 2nd team out. They don't have the MAAC auto at the moment because they lost by 14 at home to Quinnipiac on Thursday, moving Quinnipiac to 13–0 and dropping Fairfield to 12–1. Fairfield is #57 in the NET while Quinnipiac is #76.

Rhody has the A-10 auto at a 10-seed, and of course Mason is also 10–0 in A-10 play but not in Creme's first 8 out.

 
The Spiders have been slowly drifting upward in the NET, reached 44 heading into the VCU game. I was concerned we might slip a little with how tough they played us and their weak NET, but we held steady.

Feels like we need at least a share of regular season title to be in a decent at-large position heading into the A-10 tourney, but with both URI and Mason up a game on us, it's a big ask. And they only play each other once, at Mason on 2/14, so they're not beating up on each other as much.

Just gotta take them one at a time and keep stacking wins.
 
The Spiders have been slowly drifting upward in the NET, reached 44 heading into the VCU game. I was concerned we might slip a little with how tough they played us and their weak NET, but we held steady.

Feels like we need at least a share of regular season title to be in a decent at-large position heading into the A-10 tourney, but with both URI and Mason up a game on us, it's a big ask. And they only play each other once, at Mason on 2/14, so they're not beating up on each other as much.

Just gotta take them one at a time and keep stacking wins.
Situations like this is where the unbalanced schedules cause issues. UR definitely has the harder schedule this year. But the team has been tested and knows what they are up against.
 
I have a feeling Roussell and the team wants this challenge. It’s not easy but that’s what great teams do. They rise up to the occasion and don’t make excuses. At the end of the day, destiny is in our hands and we can win at least a share of regular season title and probably secure an at large bid by winning the remainder of these regular season games. That’s also why Roussell wanted to schedule tough opponents in OOC. To prepare us for these situations. The difference between our men’s and women’s program right now is truly night and day.
 
Spiders do nothing and move up to 43 as Princeton moves back to 44. I have no idea if this matters or not, but only one non-P5/6 has a better NET than Richmond- North Dakota State at 41. A few days ago there were three of these teams with a better NET. Just need to keep winning…
 
Spiders also make a reappearance in ORV section of the coaches poll with 2 points.

spiders do nothing and move up to 43 as Princeton moves back to 44. I have no idea if this matters or not, but only one non-P5/6 has a better NET than Richmond- North Dakota State at 41. A few days ago there were three of these teams with a better NET. Just need to keep winning…

So the good news is that the schedule gives us enough that if we keep winning, we can keep moving forward (Net and polls) but any loss is going to pretty much kill us because the schedule isn't that good that a loss won't hurt.

Again, recognizing that its more than wins and losses in the Net, we need to win the A-10 regular season to have any shot at at-large and the record needs to be pretty gaudy. Win out and i think we will be very solid - - that would win the A-10 and the record would be 15-1 and the Net would almost certainly get into the thirties. As long as we don't totally shit the bed in the tournament, I'd think we'd be in very good shape. One loss and things get more interesting. Probably ok if that's say GMU on the road and our Net won't be terribly different and we'd probs still get A-10 reg season championship piece at least. We'd be sweating that one out hard for sure and not sure I like our chances. Our profile would look ok - - decent Net, no bad losses, challenged with OOC schedule, but also no marquee win, not so great against that OOC schedule. We'd be in the mix, but flawed enough that I'd be very afraid of all the Power 5 schools taking care of each other in the room and we are left out. Two losses and I think its A-10 tourney or bust. Just not enough meat on our profile to overcome that in my mind - especially if we aren't conf champs.
 
Honestly, even one loss the rest of the way in regular season could keep us out of share of A-10 title, especially if it's to GMU or Rhody. With GMU and Rhody only playing once, one of them won't take an L in that matchup.
 
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