Once again, NDSU could be involved in a regular season league tiebreaker situation, only this time, there’s more on the line. Recall in November when the Bison football team got the Missouri Valley Football Conference autobid after finishing tied with Illinois State, a team it did not play. The Valley tiebreaking procedures went all the way to the third and final criteria, which was the Gridiron Power Index. NDSU had the higher rating, thus got the nod — although it really didn’t mean much because both teams were virtually guaranteed spots and first round byes in the FCS playoffs.
Basketball is different, and here’s what NDSU needs this week: a win over Oral Roberts and a South Dakota State loss at South Dakota. Anything different and the Jackrabbits will be declared regular season champions and here’s the significance: the regular season champ gets an autobid to the N.I.T. should it fail to reach the NCAA tournament. If NDSU and SDSU both win this week, the Jacks would get the nod because the criteria goes to whichever team had the better record against the next-highest finisher, in this case the team that matters would be South Dakota. NDSU split with the Coyotes while the Jacks would have swept. The other two teams in the top five, Fort Wayne and ORU, would both be moot in the discussion because NDSU would have swept ORU and both split with Fort Wayne. Sixth-place Denver and IUPUI, both at 5-9, are out of the discussion.
By the way, this is unofficial. Nothing surprises me in tiebreaker criteria.
Here’s the schedule this week:
- SDSU (12-3) is at USD (8-6) Saturday
- NDSU (12-3) is at Oral Roberts (8-6) Thursday
- Fort Wayne (8-6) hosts Omaha Thursday and Western Illinois Saturday
- Oral Roberts (8-6) hosts NDSU Thursday and Denver Saturday.
- USD (8-6) hosts Denver Thursday and SDSU Saturday