Iona at St. Peter’s, 2:00 PM Eastern, espn3
Welcome to March. For a college basketball fan, there is no greater month in the calendar year. On Tuesday, the 13 day event known as Championship Week begins, with almost every single team having a chance to make a magical run at an NCAA tournament bid. Exactly two weeks from today, the Selection Committee will announce the field, the office pools will begin, and the entire country will join us in talking nothing but college basketball. But before all of that starts, we have two days of nothing but regular season games left to go. Two days that are truly the calm before the storm.
This afternoon, regular season play will be completed in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. While most of the key seeding battles (especially those for the #1 spot and those for the byes past the first round) are already decided, a full slate of five games will set the final bracket by the end of the day. Today’s UTR Game of the Day is the final regular season contest for the top team in the conference, the Iona Gaels, as they travel to Jersey City, NJ to take on the St. Peter’s Peacocks. Iona enters today’s game with a record of 17-2 in conference and 24-6 overall. They have a very respectable 46 RPI rating, though their BPI is at 88 and their KenPom is 91. While the Gaels have been winning a lot of games lately, entering play today on an 11 game wining streak, three sub-150 losses combined with no top 100 wins means that they will need to win the MAAC tournament next weekend in order to advance to the NCAAs.
St. Peter’s enters play today at 7-12 in conference and 13-17 overall. The Peacocks can finish anywhere between the 7 seed and the 9 seed based on today’s results. However, they are locked into having to play one of the three opening round games Thursday in Albany. Should the Peacocks end up in the 8 or 9 seed spot, they could very well be Iona’s quarterfinal opponent, making today’s game a potential preview of that one. While playing the same team twice within a week may not be that easy for the Gaels, odds are that they would be thrilled to see St. Peter’s as their opponent. The reason for this is that one of the teams currently in the running for the 8 seed is the conference tournament’s host, Siena. Should St. Peter’s upset Iona today, Siena will be the 8 seed. If St. Peter’s loses and Siena wins at Monmouth (4:30 PM, espn3), the Saints will jump up to the 7 seed and be on the other side of the bracket. For these reasons, Iona not only needs to win today, but will be rooting for the Saints later this afternoon. If things do not fall the right way though, the Gaels may find themselves with a true road game in their very first conference tournament game this season. To that, all we can say is shame on the MAAC for not giving its top seed more protection.
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