A Look at the Women’s Basketball Standings (And a note on Tie Breakers)

by Aaron Hartman, contributor

We are nearing the end of the season, and while the men’s team has the regular season conference championship locked up, the Women’s team is not quite there yet.

The Lady Colonials could have essentially locked up the championship Monday night, but they fell to St. Francis Brooklyn 92-83 in overtime.

With two games remaining in the season, the RMU Women’s team holds a one game lead over second place Mount St. Mary’s. No other team can catch RMU in the standings. RMU currently has a record of 13-3, and The Mount has a record of 12-4.

The final games of the season are as follows:

March 1:

RMU at St. Francis (PA)

Mount at Wagner

March 3:

Mount at RMU.

RMU can win the conference outright by beating Mount St. Mary’s in the final game of the season. RMU can also win the conference if they beat St. Francis (PA) and the Mount loses to Wagner. The Mount can win the conference if they beat Wagner, RMU loses to St. Francis (PA), and beat RMU in the final game of the season.

There is a possibility that RMU and the Mount will be tied at the end of the season, so let’s take a look at the tiebreakers:

NEC Tiebreaker Procedure

Two-Way Tiebreaker:
In the event of a two-way tie in the standings, the following tiebreaker system shall be used – in order – until the tie is broken:

1. Winning percentage of each team in head-to-head competition.

2. Winning percentage of each team vs. the first-place team, or their composite winning percentage against any teams tying for first place.

3. Winning percentage of each team vs. the second-place team, or their composite winning percentage against any teams tying for second place.

4. This process continues with winning percentage vs. the third-place team, fourth-place team, etc., as necessary, until the tie is broken and seeding is complete.

5. If a tie still exists after exhausting steps 1-4, the most recent RPI rankings at the conclusion of the NEC regular season will be utilized to determine the higher seed. 

RMU has a record of 1-1 against these teams: St. Francis Brooklyn, Sacred Heart, and Wagner.

The Mount has a records of 1-1 against these teams: St. Francis Brooklyn, Sacred Heart, and St. Francis (PA).

Coincidentally, RMU plays St. Francis (PA) March 1, and Mount St. Mary’s plays Wagner March 1. To add to that, Wagner plays St. Francis (PA) on March 3.

St. Francis Brooklyn, St. Francis (PA), and Bryant are in the second spot in the standings with records of 9-7.

Wagner and Sacred Heart are in the third spot in the standings with records of 8-8.

If both RMU and the Mount win on March 1, but the Mount beats RMU in the final game, the conference championship will come down to the St. Francis (PA) vs. Wagner game. If St. Francis (PA) is victorious in that game, RMU will win the conference on a tie breaker criteria (having a stronger record against teams higher in the conference). If Wagner wins the final game, the Conference championship will go to criteria 5, and the team with the higher RPI ranking will win the conference.

If both RMU and the Mount lose on March 1, but the Mount beats RMU in the final game, the conference championship will be decided by criteria 5 of the tie breakers. This would be because RMU and the Mount would have identical records against all of the teams in the conference.

Currently, the Mount is ranked 156 and RMU is ranked 197, so it looks like the Mount would win that tie breaker.

So there you have it. That is all of the possibilities for the conference championship. As long as RMU beats the Mount in the last game of the year, they win the conference. It’s looking to be a very good game.