Figured we can get this going for non-Drexel games or discussions. Some decent opportunities on the opening day of games.

Hofstra is on ESPN+ right now against some non-DI. On Twitter and Youtube the Iona/CofC game will be streamed for free. Also have Delaware at Bucknell, Monmouth at Mason, A&T at Pitt, Towson at Colorado, Boston at NU and Elon at Wake.

Hoping CofC shows well and also Towson shows well against a power 5 team

Charleston won a close one at home against Iona. Disappointing to me since Iona has a new coach and all new players and CofC is supposed to be the cream of the CAA. Glad they won, but disappointing at that result against that team.

Nice win for NU over rival BU

Towson hung tough for a half in Boulder before Colorado pulled away

Elon shocked everyone and was up 12 at half over Wake only to go back to being Elon and losing by 23

Delaware got a nice road win over Bucknell, who has struggled for a few years now, but any road win is a good one.

Monmouth stayed close at Mason, which seemed like a good result for them

Edit: Forgot Campbell. Nice win over Navy. Welcome to the CAA

Everyone else played non DI except for A&T who we knew was in for a struggle and got blasted by about 50 at Pitt. Welcome back to the CAA Mont-tay

In another opening night D1 game Howard beat Hamption 92-80

Thanks. Im still adjusting to all these new members (Yes I realize Hampton was her least year too). Nothing really noteworthy so far. I think Campbell beating Navy was likely the only upset everything else played as expected so far. For the conference's benefit we need the top teams to win and win often. There are plenty of good opportunities, but we need everyone to win some of them. (Like Towson against Colorado)

CAA continues to sputter OOC.

Monmouth got beat bad by Princeton, likely showing their win in Morgantown was a nice win but likely more of a fluke.

Charleston didnt get going in Myrtle Beach and settled for 7th (losing to Vermont and Wyoming before beating the hosts Coastal Carolina). Vermont lost in the final to Liberty in a fun game

Towson bombed out in the Charleston classic going 0-3 (losing to Houston, Wake Forest and north Texas). All quality teams, but a win was needed somewhere. Big missed opportunities

W&M bombed out in the Air Force Class losing to Omaha, the hosts (Air Force) and then Lindenwood. Ouch

Elon finished 2nd in the Rock Hill Classic losing to hosts Winthrop in the final. They beat IUPUI and Holy Cross to reach the final

NU got the best win over the weekend beating ECU.

First NET rankings have come out

67- Hofstra
98- Delaware
120- UNCW
123- Drexel
132- Charleston
145- Monmouth
177- Northeastern
255- Elon
281- Towson
297- William & Mary
315- Campbell
320- Stony Brook
334- Hampton
355- NC A&T

How does the CAA rank as a conference? That fact that the CAA has 2 below 100, and 5 in the 100's seems like a win for the CAA at this point. Strong improvement from last year where other than CoC, it was pretty weak.

This website seems to have the average NET for all conferences. The CAA ranks 22nd, right behind the Summit and right ahead of the Sun Belt.

https://bracketologists.com/conferences/

The average NET of the 7 northern schools is 173, which is between the WAC and WCC. The average NET of the 7 southern schools is 258, which is between the ASUN and Southland. We need the southern schools to be stronger overall, particularly the ones with football, for the CAA to improve as a whole.

warren nolan has the conference at 23 right now. Ahead of Patriot and behind AEast. I would also agree these are favorable rankings individually as the conference has floundered to this point. This weekend was big with 3 Q1 (for now) wins. Prior to those the conference didnt even have a Q2 win this OOC its been that bad. Delaware seems highly inflated for some reason. Avoiding any bad losses is clearly key here as theirs are all top 120 teams right now

The dregs are being dreggy.

Don't bet the house on my being accurate here, but I think this is how the quartiles break down by league:

I posted this on the slack channel but this is depressing how poor the league has been so far OOC

Q1: 3-14
Q2: 0-14
Q3: 7-20
Q4: 32-12

And yes our league is likely as top heavy as you can get from top to bottom. Half our league is acceptable the other half are really bad right now. So the overall numbers for the conference look bad as a result. Also to your chart, its tough to measure quartiles since the numbers change depending whether you face a team home, away or neutral. I am assuming you are looking at it for neutral games?

Yeah, I am probably doing it wrong.

That's just how many teams are in the top 25% (i.e. ranked 1-90), 26%-50% (91-182), etc.

CAA has 6 ******* teams ranked 274+ in the NET. That's bad.

But also, lol Patriot and MAAC. The preseason MAAC favorite is currently ranked 351 and the Patriot has 7 out of 10 teams at the bottom.

(12-04-2023 01:39 PM)JonP Wrote:  The dregs are being dreggy.

Don't bet the house on my being accurate here, but I think this is how the quartiles break down by league:

Seems like AE is #2 at the moment.

OOC didnt end well and I believe in Kenpom we finished 21st as a conference as the bottom half of our league continued to pull everyone else down with them. The bottom of the league is easily as bad as its been ever. And everyone else pays for it. That being said conference play kicked off last night. Stony Brook surprisingly beat NU in Boston, the fighting Mont-Tee Ross's beat newcomer Campbell and in the other marquee game (besides our own) Charleston beat Hofstra on Long Island. There is going to be a lot of variance in this conference.

As of yesterday's NET rankings, the lowest-ranked of the northern seven was Stony Brook at 226th. Elon is the third-highest team of the southern half at 288th. If I were a northern administrator, I would be constantly beating the drum for divisional scheduling (assuming we find a northern replacement for Delaware). I don't want to assume this will be a trend, but divisional scheduling would insulate us a bit from that risk.

The additions just need to invest more into their programs if they are going to fit into this league. Its as simple as that.

You're not wrong, but divisional scheduling would significantly boost the northern schools, who had the least to gain from the southern adds.

(01-08-2024 09:24 AM)jcohen42 Wrote:  You're not wrong, but divisional scheduling would significantly boost the northern schools, who had the least to gain from the southern adds.

From a purely basketball perspective sure. But moving to that would immediately put the conference at an even greater risk of falling apart since that would go against the allure of the league to some of the members. Meaning institutional alignment and basketball alignment dont mesh. W&M and Elon as 2 examples want games in the northeast/mid atlantic for their recruiting pipeline of students. Sticking them south would hurt their goals and would making leaving an even easier decision.

The fact is this league has always been a mix mash of teams and schools ever since us and the other AEast schools saved the league. So keeping a league of misfits together for a long time is not easy and is only getting more difficult. I think that scheduling would easily be a straw to break the proverbial's camels (not Campbell's) back and would create the dominoes to really fall.

It's really striking so far this season how schools that don't play football are actually good at basketball.

Charleston – 99
Drexel – 106
Hofstra – 113
Monmouth – 161
Delaware – 133
UNCW – 134
Towson – 181
Northeastern – 218
Stony Brook – 229
Elon – 285
Campbell – 311
W&M – 320
NC A&T – 337
Hampton – 351

Instead of north-south, can we do football/not-football divisions? (Joking, sort of.)