I thought I should make something clear, given the discussions of
who's "to blame" for the lack of major conference opponents on MAAC
schedules.  I do not believe, as some on this list do, that the MAAC
needs to "pay its dues" before being considered for an at-large bid,
nor do I think Quinnipiac should be denied a bid solely because of the
reputation (or lack thereof) of their conference, nor even that
scheduling major conference opponents is neccessarily a prerequisite
for at-large consideration.  I simply think it is clear, given the
results of this season, that no MAAC team has played well enough
*this* *year* to deserve a bid.  Quinnipiac's weak schedule would make
it difficult for them to prove they were deserving of an NCAA bid, but
winning only two of their three games with the service academies,
splitting the season series with UConn (0-2 vs Mankato and 0-1 vs
Army) and only going 2-0-2 against Canisius (0-3 vs Niagara and
Mankato), is not what I'd call a good start.  To take an extreme
example, if Q had won all of their games this season, their KRACH (and
RPI) would be third behind North Dakota and New Hampshire, and IMHO
they would certainly deserve a bid.  I haven't run any intermediate
scenarios, but I'd say they would need to have won the Air Force game
for starters, and it would also have help if some of the other MAAC
teams had won or tied games with Mankato or Niagara.
 
This is why I think the NCAA needs to find a replacement for RPI and
improve the PWR:  in a few years a MAAC team will likely accumulate a
decent record against a respectable schedule, and if the NCAA is still
making judgement calls about the relative strengths of conferences,
they might be excluded unfairly.  If we fix the statistical selection
criteria now, those criteria will have credibility when they tell us a
MAAC team belongs in or out of the tournament down the road.
 
                                          John Whelan, Cornell '91
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                                     http://www.amurgsval.org/joe/
 
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