By virtue of its victory over Binghamton on Sunday afternoon at Patrick Gymnasium, the University of Vermont (21-6, 13-1 America East) clinched the top seed for the upcoming America East Men's Basketball Championship and at least a share of the regular-season title.
The Catamounts boast a league-best 13-1 conference record, two games up on second-place Albany (18-9, 11-3), with just two games remaining for each squad. The Great Danes will be the two seed for the nine-team tournament with an outside shot of sharing the regular-season crown with UVM if Albany wins out AND Vermont loses out.
Boston University (11-15, 8-6) currently sits in third, two games up on a three-way tie for fourth between Hartford (12-15, 6-8), Maine (11-16, 6-8) and UMBC (10-17, 6-8). The Terriers could wrap up the third spot with one more victory, but it won't come easy as their final two league games are versus Vermont (Feb. 22) and at Albany (Feb. 25).
The log-jam in the middle of the standings will come into focus over the final week of the regular season. New Hampshire (9-18, 5-9) sits all alone in seventh place, while Binghamton (11-15, 4-10) and Stony Brook (9-17, 4-10) are deadlocked in eighth.
Below is a list of the games remaining in the 2006-07 regular season, along with championship seeding tie-breaking procedures.
Tuesday, February 20
Binghamton at New Hampshire, 7 p.m.
Thursday, February 22
Albany at Stony Brook, 7 p.m.
Hartford at Binghamton, 7 p.m.
Maine at UMBC, 7 p.m.
Vermont at Boston University, 7:30 p.m. (AETV: NESN)
Sunday, February 25
Boston University at Albany, 12:30 p.m. (AETV: NESN/TW3)
UMBC at New Hampshire, 1 p.m.
Stony Brook at Maine, 1 p.m.
Hartford at Vermont, 1 p.m.
Championship Seeding Tie-Breaking Procedures
Teams tied for first place will be deemed “co-champions.” Ties for chamionship seeding will be broken in the following manner:
a. Ties shall be broken from the top of the standings down.
b. In the event of a tie between two or more teams, the tie shall be broken using the following criteria in order.
c. The record in regular-season Conference play of the tied teams shall be determined against the other team(s) with which it is tied. The team with the highest winning percentage based on the results of their in-season head-to-head competition shall gain the advantage.
d. Record versus other Conference opponents in descending rank order. In the event of arriving at another pair of tied teams when comparing records, each team’s record against the combined tied teams is used rather than the performance against individual tied teams.
e. Conference record in road games. In the event a game was played on a neutral floor, the home team shall be considered to be the team which was originally awarded the home game when the Conference schedule was issued.
f. RPI ranking as determined by the College RPI Report (www.rpiratings.com) through the end of the regular season. The team with the highest ranking shall gain the advantage.
g. If the tie is not resolved, then the tie shall be broken by a coin flip or draw conducted by the Commissioner or his designee.
h. In the event of a tie between more than two teams, once the tie is broken and a team is awarded the highest seed among the tied teams, return to (a.) above.