If the Season Ended Today...
The "smart dog" has been suffering from some unknown ailment (as of now) that makes his arm feel like someone is squeezing it tightly without letting up. The pain makes it difficult to type or to sit at the desk. Hopefully an upcoming MRI will figure out the problem and a swift recovery can happen. Until then, my articles will be sporadic.
With zharkins doing a fantastic job with his stories about upcoming games, I wanted to do something different. As the headline states, I am going to look into my cloudy crystal ball and forecast how the playoffs would go if the season ended today and the playoffs started tomorrow.
In the East, top seeded West Liberty St is joined by a trio of SAC teams in Shepherd, Glenville, and Tusculum. Additionally, Bowie St, Northern Michigan, Western New Mexico, and Wayne St. The first round sprung one upset as #25 Tusculum took down #8 Bowie St. NMU advances over WNM, WLS rolled over #32 Wayne St, and in the best game #9 Shepherd takes out #24 Glenville. The second round finds Shepherd continuing their playoff magic for the third straight season in taking out their second SAC team in Tusculum. Their opponent ended up being NMU as they edged WLS. NMU then ended Shepherd's run in the third round again to gain a berth in the final four.
The West became a loaded bracket with a fantastic rematch between #2 North Alabama and #31 Cheyney. The other three games have #15 Hillsdale facing #18 N Dakota St, #7 Bloomsburg opposing #26 Valdosta State, and #10 West Chester taking on fellow-PSAC team #23 Edinboro. Round two finds North Alabama and N Dakota St battling in one game with N Dakota St moving on and Bloomsburg beating West Chester. The third round has a high scoring contest that goes back and forth before Bloomsburg pulling it out in the fourth quarter.
The North may be the weakest of the four brackets as three SIMs made the field. One half of the bracket has #3 Winona St advancing over #30 sim Washburn-Topeka and #19 N Carolina Central moving on over #14 sim Ft Lewis. In the second round Winona St keeps their season going with a convincing win over N Carolina Central. The other half of the bracket has #6 Morehouse beating #27 West Alabama and #11 St Joseph's beating #22 sim Benedict. In a SIAC rematch game, Morehouse takes down St Joseph's before moving on to the final four with a victory over Winona State.
Where the North was the weakest, the South probably ended up being the toughest. #4 Virginia State didn't get the benefit of an easy opponent as they found #29 Texas A&M-Commerce on the other side of the field. The winner of that game then gets the winner of #13 Long Island and #20 Midwestern State. The other half of the bracket has #5 Southern Conn St facing #27 Albany St and #12 Lock Haven taking on #21 Humboldt St. With Virginia State, Long Island, Southern Conn St, and Humboldt St advancing, the NE-10 conference gets to see a rematch between Long Island and Southern Conn St. The rematch ends the same way many of their recent games have with Long Island advancing.
The semi-finals ended up producing a championship game rematch between Bloomsburg and Long Island. Long Island gets their payback as they nip Bloomsburg at the buzzer.