CAA Mid Major Power Conference

Well the new collegeinsider.com Mid Major Top 25 came out today and over half the teams in the 12 team conference were either in the top 25 or receiving votes. That is a tie with the Missouri Valley Conference, but the Colonial has 6 teams in the top 25 with 1 receiving votes whereas the MVC has 5 with 2 receiving votes.

Here is where the CAA teams placed in this weeks poll with last weeks ranking in parenthesis:

ODU 4 (7)
Hofstra 12 (17)
Drexel 16 (14)
UNCW 17 (16)
GMU 19
VCU 24 (24)
Northeastern 45

Also all these teams besides Northeastern remain in the top 100 in the latest RPI rankings:

ODU 24
GMU 42
VCU 60
UNCW 68
Drexel 79
Hofstra 98

I find these statistics interesting because most basketball pundits believe that the Missouri Valley Conference will get at least 3 bids to the NCAA tournament and that the Colonial will only get the 1 automatic bid.

Here is how the Missouri Valley fared in this weeks Mid Major Poll:

Norhern Iowa 2
Wichita State 6
Southern Illinois 11
Missouri State 13
Creighton 15
Indiana State 27
Bradley 42

And in the latest RPI rankings:

Northern Iowa 9
Missouri State 22
Southern Illinois 30
Creighton 48
Wichita State 52
Bradley 53

Now while these overall rankings are stronger keep in mind that the Missouri Valley is a smaller conference with 10 teams opposed to the CAA's 12. And yes top to bottom the Valley is tougher with their lowest team RPI being Illinois State at 185 whereas the lowest Colonial team is James Madison at 256. The problem is that the lower tier CAA teams are god awful in the 200's RPI and the MVC lower tier is all in the 100's making their conference RPI 7th in the nation and the CAA's 12. I think the top 7 teams in the CAA are quite comparable to the top 7 teams in the Valley. It would be interesting seeing some of these teams meet up in OOC play next year or maybe in the Bracket Buster weekend this year.

Thats enough analysis for now...