After starting 2-0 at home to begin the conference season, the Miners have only won two out of their last five in the Don. Things are also terrible on the road, where, after winning their first two road games in CUSA, they have lost four out of their last five. Looking at it another way, after starting 4-1 CUSA play, the Miners have gone 3-6. No matter how you look at it, the team has been terrible in conference play after a good start.
While it might be temping to say that none of this matters, as the only thing that matters now is the CUSA Tournament, this isn't entirely true. The top six seeds in the conference will have to win three games in order to make the NCAA Tournament, the bottom four will need to win four games. Much has been said about the parity in the conference; if you assume that each team has a 50% chance of winning each game (bad assumption, but it makes the math easy), each of the top six teams has a 12.5% chance of winning the tournament. Not great odds, but each of the bottom four teams only has a 6.25% chance of winning the tournament, half that of their other conference mates. And right now, the Miners are in 6th place, only half a game up on falling to the dreaded seventh seed.
I'm torn on this one. Are the Miners going to turn their fortunes around and win a home game, or continue their abysmal slide. I'm going to don the orange colored glasses for this one, but I won't be surprised if they tank this one.
UTEP 74
WKU 72
While it might be temping to say that none of this matters, as the only thing that matters now is the CUSA Tournament, this isn't entirely true. The top six seeds in the conference will have to win three games in order to make the NCAA Tournament, the bottom four will need to win four games. Much has been said about the parity in the conference; if you assume that each team has a 50% chance of winning each game (bad assumption, but it makes the math easy), each of the top six teams has a 12.5% chance of winning the tournament. Not great odds, but each of the bottom four teams only has a 6.25% chance of winning the tournament, half that of their other conference mates. And right now, the Miners are in 6th place, only half a game up on falling to the dreaded seventh seed.
I'm torn on this one. Are the Miners going to turn their fortunes around and win a home game, or continue their abysmal slide. I'm going to don the orange colored glasses for this one, but I won't be surprised if they tank this one.
UTEP 74
WKU 72
