Tilting at the Last Few Windmills

Bracketbuster Weekend didn't treat the Wrens all that well, as they fell short against a mediocre Loyola (IL) squad in Williamsburg. At least their next opponent should be nice and pissed off: George Mason got pantsed on national television, giving up 50 second-half points and turning a 13-point lead at the break into a 12-point loss to Ohio. Teejay and I will be in attendance at the Patriot Center Wednesday night, root, root, rooting for the road team, but I'm quite afraid that it'll be in serious vain.

W&M enters the regular season's final week tied for 4th place in the CAA with Old Dominion. A top 4 seed ensures a bye in the first round of the conference tournament. Let's dispense with the what-ifs here and now: our guys will be playing in the first round. ODU holds the tiebreak by virtue of their win over VCU, and in order to leapfrog the Monarchs, the Wrens would have to beat either Mason or VCU while ODU loses to both Northeastern and UNCW. Those odds, not so much.

Barring something odd (theoretically, Delaware and/or Northeastern could nip the Wrens, but they'd both have to win out), it looks like a 2:30 tip on Friday, March 7 in Richmond as the #5 seed. As FOG:TB Michael Litos points out, that could very well be a rematch of last year's first-rounder against Georgia State. Where the Panthers and their goofy-ass mascot ended the Wrens' season on a 35-foot buzzer-beater. Yeah, that sounds about right.