Big Apple Buckets Breaks Down the Northeast Conference

So here we were assuming that it was a three-dog race in the Northeast Conference, only to find out that we were mightily mistaken. And the team we assumed was the top dog in that group -- Long Island -- might not lead the pack.

At least that is the lesson that can be taken from the latest round of simulations run by John Templon over at Big Apple Buckets. As he did with the Ivy League, Templon rolls through 10,000 iterations of the season in the Northeast, using both Dan Hanner's and Ken Pomeroy's projections.

Since both projections had Robert Morris as the top team by far, the results are quite skewed toward the Colonials, even though most analysts believe it will be much closer.

The bigger head scratcher to Templon though is not the result of the sim, which is primarily due to the inputs, but the inputs themselves which have Robert Morris flying so high:

Let me express how improbable that sounds. No NEC team has finished in the top 100 in the nation in the entire KenPom era, which goes back to the 2002-03 season. The best was Wagner's 112th finish last season (the RMU team that lost to Villanova and LIU's first NCAA team were both ranked 118th.) Now, Hanner is saying that a team is projected to be in the top 60 in the country. (It's worth noting that Pomeroy has RMU at 73rd overall.) I just don't see either happening.

I personally can't wait to see how this one plays out for real on the court, and you can bet we will have an eye on it at Mid-Major Madness.