Undoubtedly you've had an opportunity now to review the DIII NCAA Tournament brackets that were released earlier this afternoon.......I had held out a sliver of hope that somehow, someway, Augsburg might be able to slip through the cracks and into the Dance but, just like 2019 and 2020, there simply weren't any cracks to sneak through. In retrospect, I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised when I take a look at the bigger picture. Again, what really hurt the Auggies chances in this thing was the way they stumbled out of the gate back in November with losses to Bethany Lutheran, Chicago and then at UW-River Falls that likely killed their chances right then and there on the at-large front. Their only avenue into this thing was to win the MIAC Championship Game and they simply weren't able to get the job done yesterday. You wonder sometimes had they been able to get a win over a Bethany Lutheran or a Chicago early on if that might have upped their chances. We'll never know now, of course, but when you have only three chances to play out of conference opponents because of the ridiculous round robin schedule that the MIAC has, you'd better make the most of your chances.
GAC meanwhile is kind of a good news/bad news proposition. The Gusties were safely in with the AQ so no issue there. The problem isn't so much that they got shipped down to the Simpson pod at Indianola, IA as I expected that they would. I just didn't expect them to get PAIRED UP against Simpson from the get-go. Not necessarily a death sentence by any means and I wouldn't put it past this Gustie team to pull off a huge upset against one of the top teams in the nation.
You look around the neighborhood and you'll see that the WIAC got three teams in (UW-Eau with the AQ, UW-Whitewater and UW-Oshkosh (b'gosh) while the ARC got in both said Simpson team (AQ) and Wartburg with the at-large. Wartburg is a good example to look at. They got to play a handful of out of conference games that gave them ample opportunity to strengthen their SOS and Regional Ranking capability while Augsburg did not. UW-Whitewater is another example. They had several out of conference games (against very good opponents, too) that again assured them of a strong SOS and Regional Ranking capability. UW-Oshkosh also had several out of conference games with ample opportunities to build a strong SOS and Regional Ranking capability. Had it not been for their win yesterday, GAC would have been left on the outside looking in.
With that said, the MIAC has to do SOMETHING to change this, wouldn't you agree? I'm sure you're familiar with the old saying about how insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, right? Well, that seems to describe the MIAC right now and this predicament isn't going to change unless action is taken to remedy this problem. I don't feel that the conference does a good enough job in marketing the women's basketball scene to begin with but that can be dealt with later. In the meantime, it's going to be up to MIAC Commissioner Dan McKane, the ADs of the conference and the coaches to come up with a solution to this problem. I do have some ideas that I'll be happy to share later on.
In the meantime, I want to raise a glass to toast the Gusties of Gustavus Adolphus for winning their very first MIAC Championship Game yesterday and wishing them the best of luck in the Big Dance. GO GUSTIES!!!!!
Will have more on their upcoming first round game versus Simpson later on this week.
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