Notre Dame & Virginia Add to ACC Confusion – DI Rundown Week 9

While the top-five teams saw a few upsets (thank you Notre Dame and Virginia), the top 20 was pretty stable this week overall. Most of the teams that should have won did, and nearly every top-20 team won. But, that’s not to say things aren’t getting interesting. So we’ll take a little bit of a look into the MAAC and ACC, while the percent of games played on time took a little bit of a dip this week as well.

Now, onto the rundown!

Notre Dame & Virginia Add to ACC Confusion – Week 9 DI Rundown

Scoreboard

Tuesday

St. Bonaventure 9 v Canisius 11

Wednesday

Siena 5 v Quinnipiac 7

Mount St. Mary’s 16 v VMI 9

Thursday

Albany 8 v Syracuse 13

Friday

Detroit 7 v Monmouth 9

Hofstra 12 v UMass 11

Saturday

Binghamton 7 v Hartford 8

St. John’s 9 v Providence 19

Virginia 18 v North Carolina 16

Georgetown 10 v Marquette 8

Cleveland St. 7 v Robert Morris 15

Lafayette 6 v Bucknell 14

Villanova 10 v Denver 17

Duke 8 v Notre Dame 13

Air Force 5 v Jacksonville 11

Fairfield 11 v Towson 12

Drexel 12 v Delaware 9

Vermont 16 v UMass-Lowell 5

Saint Joseph’s 13 v Hobart 12

Army 12 v Loyola 7

Navy 7 v Lehigh 13

Stony Brook 12 v NJIT 8

Merrimack 12 v Mount St. Mary’s 11

Boston U 14 v Colgate 10

Johns Hopkins 12 v Ohio State 14

Rutgers 22 v Penn State 10

Maryland 18 v Michigan 12

Manhattan 12 v Quinnipiac 13

Bellarmine 11 v VMI 9

Sunday

UMBC 9 v Albany 14

Canisius 11 v St. Bonaventure 12

Conference Comparison

This is the section of the rundown to keep track of how conferences are doing against each other. Intra-conference games are not part of the records below.

*2021 Independents: Utah, Robert Morris, Cleveland State, Hampton (2021 season is suspended)

This week saw us go all the way down to just two non-conference games. Mount St. Mary’s represented the NEC against the SoCon’s VMI while Cuse and Albany faced off in an AE v ACC game. Neither game did much for standings, but the NEC over SoCon win helped the NEC in trying to overtake the SoCon to get out of last place.

Game Notes

Thursday

Albany 8 v Syracuse 13

Friday

Detroit 7 v Monmouth 9

Hofstra 12 v UMass 11

Saturday

Binghamton 7 v Hartford 8

St. John’s 9 v Providence 19

Virginia 18 v North Carolina 16

Georgetown 10 v Marquette 8

Cleveland St. 7 v Robert Morris 15

Lafayette 6 v Bucknell 14

Villanova 10 v Denver 17

Duke 8 v Notre Dame 13

Air Force 5 v Jacksonville 11

Fairfield 11 v Towson 12

Drexel 12 v Delaware 9

Vermont 16 v UMass-Lowell 5

Saint Joseph’s 13 v Hobart 12

Army 12 v Loyola 7

Navy 7 v Lehigh 13

Stony Brook 12 v NJIT 8

Merrimack 12 v Mount St. Mary’s 11

Boston U 14 v Colgate 10

Johns Hopkins 12 v Ohio State 14

Rutgers 22 v Penn State 10

Maryland 18 v Michigan 12

Manhattan 12 v Quinnipiac 13

Bellarmine 11 v VMI 9

Sunday

UMBC 9 v Albany 14

Canisius 11 v St. Bonaventure 12

MAAC Update

While the Big Ten gets all the attention for not playing any games out of conference (because we really want to see what Rutgers and Maryland would do against the ACC and Patriot), let’s not forget about the MAAC. In what is pretty much always a one-bid league, it still typically has a team that’s scoring a few good upsets or close games. But this year, it’s all in house.

The result? Weird. You have Marist, who has still only played a single game so far, while Siena is winless – 0-5 overall. And while Monmouth is in first at 5-1 (its lone loss was to Manhattan), you have Quinnipiac, Detroit, Manhattan, Canisius, and St. Bonaventure all at or within a game of .500. It gets even crazier when you try to do the whole “X beat Y beat Z” transitive thing with the wins, because there is no order. Basically, if you’re interested in watching some DI games where you absolutely have no ideas what will happen, go turn on a MAAC game, because it’s sure to be wild.

The ACC Also Makes No Sense

So while the ACC conversation tends to be about the incredible individual matchups and how loaded they all are, it’s still important to try and compare resumes against each other to make sense of things. The trouble is, you can’t. Looking at just win/loss records within the conference, UNC has now split games with UVA (+1 point in the series) and not yet played Notre Dame, Cuse has lost to Notre Dame and Duke while beating UVA, and Notre Dame now has lost to UVA but has wins over Duke and Cuse.

But the beautiful part about this? It’s exactly what you want to have happen if you’re going to say this is the best conference from top to bottom. You want them to destroy other conferences (the ACC collectively has 30 wins and loss to Army), while all finishing as close to .500 as possible against each other. No consensus worst team, no consensus best team. That makes it fun for everyone that isn’t on the NCAA Tournament selection committee.

Reschedule Tracker

I’ll be using this section to keep track of which games are postponed or canceled as the season goes on as that information will easily get lost in the shuffle. Every season always has a few games postponed or canceled due to weather or travel issues, but as you’ll see below, this season is already going to be quite a bit different.

Also note: the “Games Scheduled” will include new games added, which may make the percentages look different compared to the missed games listed below. For example: Colgate and Robert Morris both had games canceled, so they played each other, meaning there are two games cancelled but one game played as scheduled.

Games scheduled: 290

Games played: 252 (86.9%)

Games played as scheduled: 235 (81.0%)

Missed Games

2/13 Army v UMass – Canceled

2/13 Army v Virginia – Moved to 2/14 – PLAYED

2/13 Loyola v Richmond – Moved to 2/14 – PLAYED

2/13 Villanova v Delaware – Canceled

2/13 Mount St. Mary’s v VMI – Rescheduled to 4/7 – PLAYED

2/13 Cleveland St v Marquette -Canceled

2/16 Bellarmine v North Carolina – Postponed

2/18 Bellarmine v High Point – Rescheduled to 4/3 – PLAYED

2/20 UMass vs UMass Lowell – Moved to 2/23 – Canceled

2/20 Robert Morris v Bucknell – Canceled

2/20 UMBC v Saint Joseph’s – Canceled

2/20 VMI v Colgate – Canceled

2/21 Albany v Lehigh – Canceled

2/23 Bellarmine v Robert Morris – Rescheduled to 3/2 – PLAYED

2/26 Bucknell v Colgate – Rescheduled to 4/3 – PLAYED

2/27 Bellarmine v VMI – Rescheduled to 3/9 – PLAYED

2/27 UMass v Boston U – Canceled

2/28 Bucknell v Delaware – Canceled

3/6 Hofstra v UMass – Moved to 3/30 – PLAYED

3/6 Wagner v St. Joseph’s – Rescheduled to 3/8 – PLAYED

3/6 Navy v Bucknell – Rescheduled to 3/28 – PLAYED

3/9 UMass vs Albany – Moved to 3/23 – PLAYED

3/13 UMBC v Binghamton – Moved to 3/24 – PLAYED

3/13 Mount St. Mary’s v Bryant – Moved to 5/1

3/13 Quinnipiac v Marist – Moved to 4/20

3/13 Colgate v Army – Postponed

3/13 Hofstra v Towson – Moved to 4/13

3/13 Georgetown v Denver – Rescheduled to 3/16 – PLAYED

3/20 St. Bonaventure v Canisius – Rescheduled to 4/6 – PLAYED

3/20 Marquette v St. John’s – Postponed

3/20 Hofstra v Syracuse – Postponed

3/20 Siena v Quinnipiac – Moved to 4/7 – PLAYED

3/20 Vermont v UMass – Canceled

3/20 Holy Cross v Army – Rescheduled to 3/27 – PLAYED

3/20 Marist v Monmouth – Rescheduled to 4/13

3/20 Navy v Lafayette – Moved to 5/1

3/21 Denver v Villanova – Postponed

3/27 Sacred Heart v Hobart – Rescheduled to 4/30

3/27 St. John’s v Marquette – Postponed

3/27 Canisius v Marist – Rescheduled to 4/11 – Postponed again

3/27 Bucknell v Army – Canceled

3/27 Holy Cross v Navy – Canceled

4/3 Marist v Siena – Postponed

4/3 Wagner v Saint Joseph’s – Postponed

4/3 Sacred Heart v Mount St. Mary’s – Rescheduled to 4/14

4/9 Marist v St. Bonaventure – Postponed

4/10 Bryant v LIU – Postponed

4/10 Wagner v Sacred Heart – Postponed

4/10 Canisius v Siena – Postponed

4/11 Richmond v Mercer – Postponed

5/8 Syracuse v Utah – Canceled

This Week’s Games

Tuesday

Marist v Monmouth

Wednesday

Sacred Heart v Mount St. Mary’s

Thursday

Duke v Virginia

Friday

Lehigh v Lafayette

Michigan v Penn State

Binghamton v Stony Brook

Robert Morris v Bucknell

Saturday

Sacred Heart v Merrimack

Cleveland St v Bellarmine

Colgate v Holy Cross

Mount St. Mary’s v LIU

Albany v Vermont

Jacksonville v Richmond

Towson v UMass

Delaware v Hofstra

Villanova v St. John’s

NJIT v Hartford

VMI v Air Force

Utah v Virginia

Denver v Georgetown

Siena v Manhattan

North Carolina v Syracuse

Navy v Loyola

Hobart v Wagner

Mercer v High Point

Saint Joseph’s v Bryant

UMass Lowell v UMBC

Boston U v Army

Johns Hopkins v Rutgers

Marquette v Providence

Canisius v Quinnipiac

Marist v Detroit

Drexel v Fairfield

Sunday

Ohio State v Maryland

Lafayette v Lehigh

What to Watch

Thursday

Duke v Virginia

Friday

Michigan v Penn State

Saturday

Albany v Vermont

Delaware v Hofstra

Denver v Georgetown

North Carolina v Syracuse

Navy v Loyola

Johns Hopkins v Rutgers

Sunday

Ohio State v Maryland

The two ACC matchups are big for somewhat obvious reasons. Is UVA actually playing better than Duke right now? Is UNC going to end its ACC skid, or has Cuse gotten things back on track? For B1G games, Michigan won its last meeting with Penn State, and a sweep would be historic for the program, while Maryland is just in the mode of not slipping up.

Outside of the big two conferences, nearly every other conference has major games. Vermont needs to fend off a resurgent Albany for the second time, while the Danes are fresh off their defeat of AE contender UMBC. Delaware needs to bounce back from the Drexel loss to top Hofstra, who seems to be assuming the drivers’ seat of the CAA. Then in the Patriot, you have Navy getting its best shot to prove it belongs by playing Loyola, and the Big East gives us Denver v Georgetown round two.

Catch Up on the DI Rundown

This is the 10th DI Rundown of the season. If you want to see what you missed earlier in the campaign, you’ve come to the right place.

Week 0 | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8