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7:47:00 PM EDT
Hearing ESPN's Bracketology Show
If Drexel Is Out, How the Hell Is Duke a 6?
The college hoops FanHouse is frothing with bracket reactions, so let's focus here on just two teams: Duke and Drexel. Duke is a 6 seed, and Drexel is left out, which makes The CAA: Life as a Mid-Major blog seem prescient for comparing the two programs three days ago. The stated difference? Duke didn't play any non-conference road games (like, at all) while Drexel won at Syracuse, Creighton and Villanova. Oh, there's also this tricky matter of RPI ...
"[Drexel] plays in a lesser conference but they have 13 wins as opposed to 8 [for Duke]. Far more road wins. And yet, Duke's RPI is 14 and Drexel 46. You can't tell em that playing and losing to your conference foes is worth that much more. It just makes me scratch my head."
As MDS says, for this and other reasons, it's a sad day for the mid-majors. Hopefully cheering them up is the Napoleon Dukeamite image, courtesy of Thighmaster's Scheyer Face Hall of Fame. No offense meant to Dick Vitale, who just stumped for Drexel (at the expense of Arkansas) on ESPN's Bracketology program. It's an odd feeling, acknowledging Dickie V. as a voice of reason.
Update: Life As a Mid-Major reacts to the Drexel snub ...
"Here's my biggest beef: the committee has repeatedly said that the path to inclusion is to play on the road, win those games, and beat somebody. You have to win in conference, but it's what you do outside of conference that will tell the tale.
So that's exactly what [Drexel coach] Bruiser Flint did. They went to Syracuse. Villanova. St. Joseph's. Vermont. Creighton. And won them all. An NCAA-best 14 road wins. The Dragons were not rewarded. It's one thing if they didn't hand you the roadmap. This is worse than a snub, to be honest."
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3/12/07 3:16 PM