IVA Tournament Projections
It is an absolute shame that none of these teams will go to the national tournament. I will die on this hill.
Just because this collection of teams doesn’t get an auto-bid, doesn’t mean this won’t be an amazing tournament. This is exactly what growing the game looks like and I love it!
The Bracket
The IVA has a 6-team format with all matches played at a host site. This year, second-year program Barry hosts the tournaments down in Miami Shores, FL. With six teams making the tournament, this looks like a standard layout where the top two seeds get a bye to the semifinals.
Lincoln Memorial and Barry were rewarded with the top seeds in the tournament. These two teams are a combined 36-11 this season. The rest of the field features an exciting group of new/relatively new teams. Most exciting of all is UPR-Rio Piedras making the trip up to Florida from Puerto Rico.
With all of the excitement, there is the tough side of tournament selection. First year program Newberry missed out on the postseason this year. Starting a brand new program is tough, but there are some great things happening in Newberry, South Carolina.
Round-by-Round Projections
I used the VBelo model and simulated the Conference Carolinas tournament 10,000 times. Below are the results for how often each team progressed through the tournament.
This could shape up to be a very exciting tournament. The quarterfinals are all fairly evenly matched. Then you take a look at the top of the bracket and realize that the top seed might not be the favorite. LMU and Barry haven’t faced each other this season, but this could be the year that someone dethrones the Railsplitters.
Just looking at the elo for this conference, there is a big gap between the top and bottom here. There is definitely room for upsets here though because these teams have not played each other a lot. This is the conference that we know the least about, in many ways.
What do you think? Will Lincoln Memorial continue their reign in the IVA? Will Barry be a giant killer? Will the lower seeds find some Miami magic?