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CAA Basketball: Balance could create a serious tournament Cinderella

By John Parker

Dec 12, 2015; Washington, DC, USA; North Carolina-Wilmington Seahawks forward Marcus Bryan (21) reaches for a loose ball in front of Georgetown Hoyas center Jessie Govan (15) in the second half at Verizon Center. The Hoyas won 87-82. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 12, 2015; Washington, DC, USA; North Carolina-Wilmington Seahawks forward Marcus Bryan (21) reaches for a loose ball in front of Georgetown Hoyas center Jessie Govan (15) in the second half at Verizon Center. The Hoyas won 87-82. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports /
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You’ll want to give the CAA basketball automatic qualifier an in-depth look when brackets come out in March.

The Colonial Athletic Association had an excellent run through the non-conference portion of its schedule. The CAA finished non-conference play ranked ninth in the Conference RPI and its members tallied a number of impressive wins over higher profile teams.

Related Story: North Carolina Basketball: How dangerous are the Tar Heels?

CAA teams have stunned 12th ranked Miami at the buzzer, clobbered an LSU team that’s currently half a game out of first place in the SEC, taken down bubble contender Florida State and destroyed a talented but struggling North Carolina State.

Normally, a league in the CAA’s spot in the Conference RPI would be in a position to send a team to the NCAA Tournament as an at-large bid. In fact, the last time a conference finished the year with a Conference RPI in the single digits and failed to have at least one team with an at-large worthy resume was 2009.

Northern Iowa earned the Missouri Valley automatic bid and the conference’s lone trip to the tournament as a 12-seed. UNI put up an impressive fight, pulling within two points with 19 seconds to play, but fell to Purdue 61-56.

While some CAA teams entered conference play with intriguing NCAA Tournament resumes, they’ve beat each other up and destroyed one another’s at-large chances. During non-conference play, defending CAA co-champion and NCAA Tournament representative Northeastern showed what the league’s teams are capable of.

The Huskies pulled off the CAA’s biggest win of the non-conference schedule when Quincy Ford knocked down a buzzer beater to lift Northeastern to a 78-77 win over then-15th ranked Miami. Conference play has been a different story for the Huskies. The team currently sits in 7th place at 6-8 in the CAA, two games out of the 6th place finish it would need to avoid playing an extra game in the CAA Tournament.

The team that the Huskies are chasing for the final bye is Charleston. Like Northeastern, Charleston looked more promising in non-conference play than it has since the start of CAA action. Charleston went to Baton Rouge, LA in November and came away with a comfortable 70-58 win over Ben Simmons and his talented supporting cast at LSU.

Dec 19, 2015; Coral Gables, FL, USA; Charleston Cougars forward Jarrell Brantley (5) scores a basket past Miami Hurricanes forward Kamari Murphy (21) during the first half at BankUnited Center. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 19, 2015; Coral Gables, FL, USA; Charleston Cougars forward Jarrell Brantley (5) scores a basket past Miami Hurricanes forward Kamari Murphy (21) during the first half at BankUnited Center. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports /

Charleston, who came into conference play with an 8-3 record, is 8-6 in the CAA, on the wrong end of the five-team cluster in the middle of the conference. The good news for the Cougars is that the team is just a game out of a three-way tie for third place and two games behind second place Hofstra.

Unfortunately, even if Charleston is able to get back into contention for the CAA title, the losses it has taken will limit the seed that it can achieve. Conference play took two teams that showed serious promise during the non-conference portion of the schedule and crushed any slight hopes of an at-large bid they had.

The CAA would probably be in a better position if a team other than UNC-Wilmington currently sat two games ahead of second place in the conference. The Seahawks started the season 5-0, but did so largely by beating up on overmatched opponents.

While the team hung tough at Georgetown, a weak non-conference schedule with losses to East Carolina and Radford made it difficult to tell how good UNCW really was.

If conference play is any indication, the answer is very good. UNC-Wilmington is 12-2 in conference with a two-game lead on second place Hofstra. The problem is that UNCW’s weak non-conference slate means it entered conference play with a lackluster RPI, and dragged down top conference foes with every early victory.

Busting Brackets’ Doug Winkey currently projects UNC-Wilmington as a 13 seed in the NCAA Tournament. As the conference’s highest ranked team on KenPom and second highest in the RPI, UNCW is a good representative of the best-case scenario for the CAA’s potential seeding.

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In the fairly likely event that the CAA’s top seed doesn’t win its conference tournament, a 14-seed is likely for the CAA’s autobid. Given that CAA teams have already buried a team that beat potential 3-seed Miami, most top teams would probably prefer not to be the team on the other end of that matchup.

Think CAA has a Cinderella waiting in the wings? Let us know in the comments!