The PL Regular Season Race – Thoughts

[lfnadminKeymaster]

1. Don’t even think about catching Bucknell. That ship has sailed. Bison need to lose 2 of 3 to American (H), Holy Cross (H), and Navy (A). All lower-half teams. Ain’t happening.

2. This Saturday’s game is simply a must-win for Lehigh. Currently, they’re 1 game up on the Leopards. If Lafayette beats Lehigh again, it’s not only the first 3-game PL losing streak in the CJ era, it also ties Lehigh with Lafayette and gives the Leopards the tiebreaker with the season sweep. But if Lehigh wins, they’d only need 1 of their last 2 games to cement the 2 seed.

3. Should Lafayette lose they could be in a race for the 3,4,5 seeds with American and Army. That could be a real problem for them, especially since they close out the season vs. American. I think to a team they would much rather host Colgate than play each other.

[Bison137Participant]

 

Quote:   “1. Don’t even think about catching Bucknell. That ship has sailed. Bison need to lose 2 of 3 to American (H), Holy Cross (H), and Navy (A). All lower-half teams. Ain’t happening.”

 

Why would Bucknell have to lose two out of three games???    If BU loses to American – a team they barely beat at the buzzer last time –  then LU would hold the tiebreaker.

[lfnadminKeymaster]

Why would Bucknell have to lose two out of three games??? If BU loses to American – a team they barely beat at the buzzer last time – then LU would hold the tiebreaker.

Point taken. Actually Bucknell would have a loss to American and Lehigh has that loss to Colgate. It would come down to the records of American and Colgate. If they’re tied (and they very well could be), it goes to RPI, where Bucknell holds the advantage.

If Lehigh goes 3-0 in the late going – and games at Lafayette and home vs. Army will not be easy – even if Bucknell loses one game the chances of Lehigh winning the league outright have to be considered slim.

[Bison137Participant]

If American beats Bucknell, it’s very likely they would end up with a better record than Colgate.   That would get AU up to 6 wins, with games with Army, Navy, and Lafayette.    Just beat Navy and they’re up to 7 wins.     CU at the moment has 4 wins, with remaining games with LC, Army, Navy, and HC.   They would have to win 3 of those 4 games to catch American (assuming an AU win over Navy plus losses to Army and LC).     Thus I think it’s extremely likely AU ends up ahead of CU  if BU loses to AU.    And if AU is ahead of CU, then LU prevails in the tiebreaker.

If AU manages to lose to Navy tonight, however, that would give CU at least some chance of catching AU.

 

[lfnadminKeymaster]

If AU manages to lose to Navy tonight, however, that would give CU at least some chance of catching AU.

Navy 50, AU 44. Though Colgate got creamed by Army as well.

American 10-16 5-6
Colgate 10-18 4-7

If American upset Bucknell – seems unlikely as ever after their performance tonight – they’d have to lose one more than Colgate to tie them, and they’d beat Lehigh in that circumstance.

The only scenarios where Lehigh wins the regular-season championship is sweeping their last three games, including contests against the No. 3 and No. 4 teams, while Bucknell either 1) loses twice or 2) loses to American who then goes on to win the same amount of games or more than Colgate.

In other words, Lehigh needs to sweep, and needs help.

[Bison137Participant]

Quote:  “The only scenarios where Lehigh wins the regular-season championship is sweeping their last three games, including contests against the No. 3 and No. 4 teams, while Bucknell either 1) loses twice or 2) loses to American who then goes on to win the same amount of games or more than Colgate.”

– – – – –

Not exactly.    If American goes on to win the same number of games as Colgate for the year, then BU/LU games against those two would not break the tie – nor would BU and LU’s games against any other PL teams.    Thus it would then go to the RPI – where BU holds an insurmountable advantage.

So LU needs BU to lose to American and then have AU end up ahead of Colgate – which is still likely with AU still holding a one-game advantage plus the hypothetical win over Bucknell.

 

Edit:  Re-reading it,  I’m not sure when you say American “goes on to win the same amount of games as Colgate” if you are talking about future games or total PL games.

 

 

 

 

[lfnadminKeymaster]

You’re right 137, I meant league games. I do agree that it’s likely that AU finishes ahead of Colgate in the case that AU beats Bucknell.

Basically, from Lehigh’s perspective, if AU beats Bucknell, they’ll enter Sunday with a slim chance of winning the regular-season championship. If Bucknell wins, the slim chances get much slimmer, but it’s still critical they beat Lafayette in order to avoid the season sweep and a probable 3rd seed in the tourney if that happens.

[norcalfanParticipant]

Been away for a while, but tracking the scores. High school playoffs and PL ball overlapping. I am glad that we have experts like lfnadmin and Bison137 to explain. This league has tightened considerably. Navy beats AU? Laf almost loses? HC lost two close ones. Feel sorry for their next opponent. Army is rising to the top. In watching Army the past few years, they are dangerous. They have Toth out of Mitty. If you recall, I said to watch out for him and he went on a tear. Good luck to all the PL teams. This will be an interesting next couple of weeks.

[lfnadminKeymaster]

Here’s the other interesting thing. As long as Lehigh beats Navy next Wednesday, they’ll probably be at a minimum the 3 seed. Even if Army goes 3-0, if Lehigh goes 1-2 they will get the higher seed based on their record vs. Bucknell (1-1 vs. 0-2).

But Army swept Lafayette during the regular season. So if Lehigh wins this weekend, Lehigh will hold tiebreakers over both Lafayette (record vs. Army) and Army (record vs. Bucknell).

So if my calculations are correct, a win against the Spotted Ones will clinch no less than a 2 seed for the tournament. If American pulls off an upset, there’s even a very outside chance at finishing with the regular-season title. That assumes finishing 3-0 and getting help.

[LU65Participant]

Good dialog, guys. Entertaining.

Not that it has a great chance of this happening, but wonder if we (a) win-out and (b) BU goes 2-1 with the set back coming tomorrow at the hands of Holy Cross? Wouldn’t each team (LU and BU) end up 11-3 with the tie-breaker being how we did against the remainder of the field? And, then wouldn’t it come down to who (CU or HC) finished higher in the standings? If CU, wouln’t Lehigh would be crowned “Champion?”

[Bison137Participant]

 

 

First of all, if there is a tie, no-one is crowned “champion”.   They are co-champs, regardless of any tiebreakers – which are only used to determine seeds.

In your scenario, HC would have to finish ahead of CU for LU to prevail in the tiebreaker.    If head-to-head record doesn’t break the tie, then you look at each team’s record vs the 3rd place team, then the 4th place team, etc.    If CU is ahead of HC, then that would break the tie in favor of Bucknell – since BU has a better record vs CU.    Also, if CU and HC are tied, then BU also prevails in the tiebreaker due to a better RPI. 

Thus HC has to pick up two games on CU in the final three games for LU to prevail in this scenario.   IF HC were to beat BU – and that’s assumed in this scenario – it would be remotely possible.     HC hosts CU the final game, so a win there would pick up a game.    Then they’d have to also either win at Army and have CU lose to either Navy or LC.   OR if they lost at Army, then CU would have to lose to both Navy and LC.

[LU65Participant]

Got it! Had my HC’s and CU’s turned-around. Can’t blame an ‘ol alum for looking for a needle in a haystack. Should be an exciting finish to the year.

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