(04-18-2015 11:59 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote: Also odd to see that we're the #1 seed with a losing record and Charlotte is 18-3 on the season.
Yep. Very odd. So what might be behind that seeding decision?
Here's a link to
Charlotte's schedule ... and
ours.
Unfortunately, Charlotte's match with our only common opponent, ODU, was postponed on Feb. 20. (We hosted the Monarchs on Jan. 25 and lost, 4-2.)
The 49ers typically competed against small southern colleges. Their only three losses were to the only major schools they met: Wake Forest (2-7), Duke (0-4) & NC State (0-4).
Rice had as much more challenging schedule, although we lost to many majors/mid-major schools, too: Ole Miss (0-4), Texas Tech (3-4), Texas (1-6), LSU (1-6), TCU (1-4), San Diego State (1-6), Tulane (2-4), George Washington (0-4), Texas A&M (0-4) & SMU (2-4) ... as well as to C-USA schools UTSA (3-4) & ODU (2-4, as mentioned above).
We did beat Cornell (4-1) and Northwestern (4-1).
Did those two victories -- and the relative degree of difficulty in the Owls' schedule -- trump Charlotte's gaudy W-L percentage and the head-to-head loses to
UTSA (15-8) &
ODU (16-2), both on our home courts?
Also, we did have a better record vs common opponents with UTSA: 4-2 vs 2-4 against Cornell, ODU, GWU, Incarnate Word, A&M-Corpus & Texas.
And the Monarch's only losses were to South Alabama and ... Cornell (@Ithaca!), whom we beat @Rice.
It must have been an interesting seeding discussion.