Friday Morning Update On The Bigger Picture And A Look At Saturday's MIAC Championship Game

Simulated NCAA Tournament Field and possible bracket breakdowns (courtesy of Scott Peterson)

 So I wanted to provide something of an update on the bigger picture here this morning after last night's wild action in the MIAC Playoff Semifinals that saw Bethel oust GAC and then Concordia's improbable comeback from a twenty-one point deficit in the third period to overcome SMU.  Down in St. Peter, the Royals were simply too strong down the stretch and their experience paid off as they downed the Gusties 73-66.  In the second game, the Cardinals appeared to have things firmly in control with a twenty-one point lead early in the third period before the Cobbers; behind sophomore forward Maya Metcalf and freshman reserve guard Kaitlyn Rohloff led a surge late in the third period and throughout the fourth as Concordia punched its ticket to the MIAC Championship Game; their third in four years and now will be hosting this game for the first time since the 2012-13 season.  

So what does this mean for the MIAC in terms of the bigger picture - specifically the NCAA Tournament?  Well, you can now pretty much book three teams - Concordia, Bethel and GAC into the Big Dance.  Now, SMU on the other hand could very well be left on the outside looking in on all of this; not so much because of the fact that they fell short last night but rather because of a big result elsewhere - specifically DePauw's huge upset of Denison in one of the NCAC semifinal playoff games last night that put the Tigers, who were on the outside looking in before last night's game, firmly into an at-large bid with a big rise in their NPI ranking that might've otherwise been safely secured by SMU.  Keep in mind that there's still a lot of moving pieces in action both today, tonight and tomorrow but as badly as I would love to see the Cardinals get in, the late slump they had in the last week of the regular season along with two "bad" losses to both St. Kate's and CSB earlier might be too much to overcome in this case.  We'll see.

In any event, this sets up the third meeting tomorrow (Saturday 2-28) between Bethel and Concordia - this one for all the marbles in the MIAC Championship Game.  The Royals won the two previous meetings - the first in Moorhead in a non-conference setting back on 11-25 and then at home in Robertson Center a little more than a month ago on 1-24 - both of which were very tough, hard-fought games that were very close.  Undoubtedly, the Cobbers cannot afford to get themselves into a significant hole like they did last night and whenever you play Bethel - I don't care who you are - you've gotta take care of the rock and you've also gotta box out and you've gotta rebound.  I will say that I think that Concordia is better-equipped to take down the Royals than GAC was simply because of their depth and the physicality/size aspects.  But let's also remember too that Bethel's been here before and they know what this is all about and the Cobbers are going to have to bring their "A" game with them tomorrow if they want to hoist their first MIAC Playoff title since 2011.  

Will be heading up US Highway 10 and the BNSF's Staples Sub mainline this afternoon to Fargo-Moorhead.  This should be a great game tomorrow.  As always, please feel free to fire away with thoughts.