The Duquesne Dukes finish their regular season Friday night at PPG Paints Arena. Richmond is in town.
There is a lot on the line.
The Spiders take the court in second place of the Atlantic 10. The Dukes are in a three-way tie for fourth with St. Bonaventure and Saint Louis.
Those two teams square off Saturday in St. Louis.
Based on how that game, Rhode Island’s contest Saturday at UMass and the Dukes’ game against the Spiders all turn out, Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot’s team could be anywhere between third place and sixth in the season-ending standings.
The tie-breaking formula in the A-10 is antiquated and unkind to Duquesne. They need to avoid being in a two-way tie with the Bonnies, whose loss to Dayton somehow counts less than Duquesne’s two losses to the Flyers. So, in a way, the Dukes are being punished for playing one of the best teams in conference history twice. And St. Bonaventure benefits from only facing the Flyers once.
Take a look. Here is how the A-10 lays it out.
1. Head-to-head results.
2. Conference record of the tied teams based on winning percentage vs. the highest common opponent and proceeding down to the lowest common opponent, if necessary, until one team gains an advantage.
a. All ties are broken in descending order.
b. When arriving at another pair of tied teams, use each team’s record against the tied teams as a group. When comparing records against a group of teams, the higher winning percentage will prevail. In case of tied percentages vs. the team or group of 1.000 or .000, the following shall apply: 2-0 is better than 1-0; 0-1 is better than 0-2.
3. Coin toss.
Dambrot gives his thoughts as to what the conference should do with the policy.
I also interview Dukes forward Marcus Weathers. He’s leading the team in scoring (14.4 points per game) and rebounds (7.9 points per game).
We talk about the wild permutations for where the Dukes could finish in the tournament bracket and the prospects for a victory in the conference tournament. It’d be just their second since a trip to the final in 2009.
Also, Weathers describes his offensive ascent this season, the looming showdown against Richmond, the club’s first 20-win campaign in 11 years, and how defenses are adjusting to his game.
LISTEN: Duquesne aims to avoid A-10 tiebreaker in season finale
