NEC Tournament Projections
Another auto-qualification battle starts today.
The NEC has been highly competitive this year and the tournament should be exactly the same. The battle for this ticket to the NCAA Tournament will be must-watch volleyball. Seriously, these teams know the stakes and will play like it.
The Bracket
Two very clean 4-team brackets on the same day! This is great. The NEC is straight forward with their bracket and have it hosted at the #1 seed, Saint Francis this year.
This year, the NEC had a very complicated conference record situation where three teams tied for the final spot. In the end, Long Island got the spot with tie-breakers. I know it would extend the tidy tournament to another day, but it almost feels like this should be a 6-team format instead of four Maybe in the future.
Adding to the drama, after this season SFU will be transitioning to D-III. That means this will be the last chance for the Red Flash to make it to the big dance. Expect a little extra fight from them, in addition to their usual grit.
Round-by-Round Projections
I used the VBelo model and simulated the NEC tournament 10,000 times. Below are the results for how often each team progressed through the tournament.
Every team has at least a 9% chance of winning it all. That is impressive parity! Saint Francis, the #1 seed and host has the best odds. And they should. 2 out of 3 tournament simulations ended with the Red Flash going to the NCAA Tournament.
When you look at the next three teams, they are all within 52 elo points of each other. This is a very tight grouping and could lead to some close matches.
I am excited to see how this tournament plays out and who gets the coveted golden ticket.
This is it as so many storylines. LIU gets in on last day but won the inaugural tournament w/o the AQ. UMES would have a fairytale finish in their 1st season. FDU has never finished this high and this like LIU is year 5 of the program. SFU has been the host every year but has never won but this year hits different in their swan song as a Division I program.