Sunday, March 3, 2013

Southern Utah is Suddenly In Trouble

For much of the conference season, it looked like Southern Utah was the frontrunner to be the number three seed in the Big Sky. Suddenly, things are looking a lot more difficult for them.

As things currently sit, the Thunderbirds are 8-9, which is good for fifth place in the Big Sky. However, here is the remaining schedule:

Montana
@ Northern Colorado
@ North Dakota

While Montana is not nearly at full strength, they are always well coach and always tough. Plus, even without Will Cherry and Mathias Ward, they are arguably on par talent-wise with the rest of the Big Sky (excluding Weber State). That is going to be a dogfight on Monday night. They close the year with two of the hotter teams in the Big Sky.

Northern Colorado has won five of seven games, and their two losses in that stretch have come at the end of the game. They are peaking at the right time. North Dakota has won six of eight conference games to solidify themselves as the three seed in the Big Sky. Plus, SUU will be playing their second straight road game, while North Dakota will be at home playing their first game in a week.

In SUU loses to Montana, they will be in a four-way tie for fifth, which also means that they are in a four way tie for eighth. The eight seed means you are watching the conference tournament at home. All of a sudden, the Thunderbirds are uncomfortably toeing that line. Monday night is going to be a huge game for both teams.

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2 comments:

  1. Maybe SUU are in trouble, but at least they have an extra game. N Arizona and Sac State both finish the season with two games in Montana - that won't be easy. SUU, Sac and NAU could realistically all lose all of their remaining games and finish at 8-12 - I'll leave the tie-breakers to you! Of course being at SUU I hope we win one of the games and make it moot from our point of view.

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  2. The craziest thing is... it's not even all that hard to envision a scenario where 5 teams - UNC/SUU/MSU/SAC/NAU - all finish 9-11 and are in a tiebreak for 4 spots. That could most definitely happen.

    SUU has a great opportunity taking on Montana on the road for their 2nd straight game... if they can win that, they will be sitting in a really nice spot.

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