Stetson hopes to create some real March Madness
e of the earliest bids to the NCAA Tournament will be awarded tonight. If Stetson has its way, a screwball strain of March Madness will be unleashed.
The Hatters play Florida Gulf Coast in the championship game of the Atlantic Sun tournament. If you like Cinderellas, you could build a castle around Stetson.
It was 9-21 heading into its last regular-season game. But the Hatters rallied from 18 points down to beat FGCU 80-73. That didn?t impress basketball analytics website Kenpom.com, which gave Stetson an 0.6 chance of winning the A-Sun tournament.
The Hatters have never been to the NCAA Tournament. They haven?t even played for a conference title since 1994.
Now they could be one win away from getting into the NCAA pool. There?s just one hitch. They can?t go.
Stetson did not meet the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate standards and is ineligible for postseason play.
But that's only half of the screwiness. The tournament runner-up can't go, either.
If an ineligible team wins its tournament, the A-Sun had decided the regular-season champ would get its automatic bid.
That would be North Florida. The same North Florida that lost to FGCU 89-56 in a semifinal game Thursday night.
So, the Eagles could finish second and lose the NCAA bid to a team they just beat by 33 points.
No wonder Stetson coach Corey Williams figures North Florida coaches, players and students might paint their faces green and wear Stetson jerseys Sunday night.
"There's no shame in that," Williams said.
The shame, he said, is the Hatters getting sidelined by the APR. It's a point system that tracks academic eligibility and retention. A perfect score is 1,000, and teams must maintain a score of 930 over a four-year stretch.
Stetson is one of four teams that didn't make it. The Hatters missed by one academic point.
Williams' problem is that the APR was based on the stretch from 2010-11 to 2013-14. Stetson had two coaching changes and a lot of player turnover in those seasons. It could have met the APR if it had not allowed two players to transfer without penalty.
The Hatters appealed to the NCAA last summer but were turned down. Essentially, the players and staff that got Stetson into the academic doghouse are no longer around.
"The ones who committed the crime aren't paying the price," Williams said.
Few envisioned that price would include having an automatic bid snatched from the Hatters' hands. They start two juniors, two sophomores and a freshman. Besides dealing with such inexperience, Williams had to motivate a team that knew
orlandosentinel.com
e of the earliest bids to the NCAA Tournament will be awarded tonight. If Stetson has its way, a screwball strain of March Madness will be unleashed.
The Hatters play Florida Gulf Coast in the championship game of the Atlantic Sun tournament. If you like Cinderellas, you could build a castle around Stetson.
It was 9-21 heading into its last regular-season game. But the Hatters rallied from 18 points down to beat FGCU 80-73. That didn?t impress basketball analytics website Kenpom.com, which gave Stetson an 0.6 chance of winning the A-Sun tournament.
The Hatters have never been to the NCAA Tournament. They haven?t even played for a conference title since 1994.
Now they could be one win away from getting into the NCAA pool. There?s just one hitch. They can?t go.
Stetson did not meet the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate standards and is ineligible for postseason play.
But that's only half of the screwiness. The tournament runner-up can't go, either.
If an ineligible team wins its tournament, the A-Sun had decided the regular-season champ would get its automatic bid.
That would be North Florida. The same North Florida that lost to FGCU 89-56 in a semifinal game Thursday night.
So, the Eagles could finish second and lose the NCAA bid to a team they just beat by 33 points.
No wonder Stetson coach Corey Williams figures North Florida coaches, players and students might paint their faces green and wear Stetson jerseys Sunday night.
"There's no shame in that," Williams said.
The shame, he said, is the Hatters getting sidelined by the APR. It's a point system that tracks academic eligibility and retention. A perfect score is 1,000, and teams must maintain a score of 930 over a four-year stretch.
Stetson is one of four teams that didn't make it. The Hatters missed by one academic point.
Williams' problem is that the APR was based on the stretch from 2010-11 to 2013-14. Stetson had two coaching changes and a lot of player turnover in those seasons. It could have met the APR if it had not allowed two players to transfer without penalty.
The Hatters appealed to the NCAA last summer but were turned down. Essentially, the players and staff that got Stetson into the academic doghouse are no longer around.
"The ones who committed the crime aren't paying the price," Williams said.
Few envisioned that price would include having an automatic bid snatched from the Hatters' hands. They start two juniors, two sophomores and a freshman. Besides dealing with such inexperience, Williams had to motivate a team that knew
orlandosentinel.com
