McFeely Blog: Bison Men need help securing second seed in Summit League Tournament – InForum

FARGO — If North Dakota State wants the second seed in the upcoming Summit League men’s basketball tournament, the Bisons need help.

Saturday’s 85-71 home loss to Kansas City not only ruined the senior day for three stalwarts of the NDSU program — Rocky Kreuser, Sam Griesel and Tyree Eady — it also took the Bison’s playoff standings in largely out of their hands. Had the Bisons beaten the Roos, a win this weekend at North Dakota would have given NDSU second place behind undefeated South Dakota State and the No. 2 seed in Sioux Falls.

Loss, however, opens the door for NDSU, Oral Roberts or Kansas City to finish as high as second or as low as fourth.

That’s right. After the Bisons won six straight, and nine of 10, to overtake ORU for second place and put them in control of their destiny, the loss to Kansas City turned everything upside down.

A look at the Summit League standings from Tuesday:

With North Dakota’s loss to St. Thomas on Tuesday afternoon, the Fighting Hawks were eliminated from the eight-team postseason tournament. St. Thomas, which is still transitioning to NCAA Division I, is not eligible for the playoffs, so the field in Sioux Falls will be SDSU, Oral Roberts, NDSU, Kansas City, South Dakota, Western Illinois , Denver and Omaha.

Other than the Jackrabbits being #1, the rest of the spots are a bit jumbled up. Four teams could end up at 12-6 depending on this week’s results, so it would be fun to see who gets which seed. We’ll leave that to the league office.

For our NDSU-centric goals, here are this week’s games involving teams battling for second, third, fourth and fifth place.

THURSDAY

South Dakota at Kansas City, 7 p.m.
South Dakota State at Oral Roberts, 7 p.m.

SATURDAY

North Dakota State at North Dakota, 1 p.m.
South Dakota State at Kansas City, 7 p.m.
South Dakota at Oral Roberts, 7 p.m.

Here are some scenarios involving NDSU and where it could end up in the final standings:

If NDSU defeats UND and Oral Roberts and Kansas City each lose at least one game, NDSU is the second seed. (NDSU would be 13-5 and would have the head-to-head over Oral Roberts if the Golden Eagles also finished 13-5. With at least one loss, the best Kansas City could finish would be 12-6.)

If NDSU loses to UND and Oral Roberts and Kansas City each win at least one game, NDSU is seeded fourth. (ORU would be 13-5 while Kansas City and NDSU would both be 12-6, but Kansas City has the head-to-head on NDSU).

NDSU can also finish third. The easiest way for that to happen would be if Oral Roberts wins twice, NDSU beats UND and Kansas City loses once.

South Dakota, currently fifth, could finish fourth.

It remains to be seen to what extent all jockeys under SDSU matter. With a sweep this week, the Jackrabbits would become the first Summit team to finish undefeated in the league. They are clearly the best team in the league and are ranked 68th in the NCAA NET rankings. If SDSU wins twice this week and follows with a league tournament championship, the Jackrabbits would finish 28-4 and could consider a possible No. 12 seed for the NCAA Tournament. ESPN bracketology expert Joe Lunardi has the Jacks as the 13th seed if they are automatic qualifiers for the Summit.

But the second seed is important for several reasons.

First, the second seed faces the seventh seed in the quarter-finals. It will likely be Denver, a better game than likely sixth-seeded Western Illinois or likely fifth-seeded South Dakota (especially Sioux Falls).

Second, the second seed plays Saturday night and gets a day off Sunday before Monday’s semifinals. The third and fourth seeds will not play their quarter-final matches until Sunday, with the semi-finals on Monday. No day off.

Third, the second seed would not have to play at SDSU before the championship game if both teams advance that far. If you get a hit at best, you’d rather it be in the title match than the semis – if you happen to beat the No. 1 seed in the semis, you’ll need to back it up with another win the Game title.

One thing is certain: if SDSU, ORU, NDSU and Kansas City are the top four seeds (in any order) and the seeds hold, the semifinals are going to be a lot of fun. The Jackrabbits will surely be favored, but not guaranteed to beat the other teams in the semi-finals or in the championship game.

Here are the tiebreakers for the Summit League (thanks to Ryan Powell from the league office for sending them:

Two-Team Tiebreaker Criteria. The following must be applied (in order) to break the links between two teams:

1. Results of the head-to-head competition between the two tied teams.

2. Comparison of each tied team’s record with the team occupying the highest position in the standings going down the standings until one team gains an advantage.

3. When you come to another group of tied teams while comparing records, use each team’s record against the collective tied teams as a group (before that group’s tie-breaking procedure) instead than performance against individual tied teams.

4. If a tie still cannot be broken after applying criteria (1), (2) and (3), it will be broken by comparing the NET of each tied team (based on the published NCAA NET report the morning following the last regular season championship game).

Three or more team tiebreaker criteria. The following applies to sever the links between three or more teams:

5. Results of each tied team collective record against other teams tied for the same position.

6. If there are still multiple ties, the record of each tied team will be compared to that of the team or group (if 2 or more are tied) occupying the highest position in the standings and continue to descend in the standings until one team gains an advantage.

7. If the results above result in two teams remaining, the two-team tiebreaker is used.

8. If a tie involving three or more teams still cannot be broken after the application of criteria (1) and (2), it will be broken by comparing the NET of each tied team (based on the NCAA NET report published the morning following the last regular game). league game of the season).

Here’s the draw for the Summit League Men’s Basketball Tournament in Sioux Falls, March 5-8.