By virtue of its 58-40 victory over Maine on Wednesday night at Chase Arena, the University of Hartford (20-7, 14-1 America East) clinched the top seed for the upcoming America East Women's Basketball Championship and at least a share of the regular-season title.
The Hawks boast a league-best 14-1 conference record, one game up on second-place Stony Brook (16-10, 12-2), with just two games remaining for Stony Brook and one left for Hartford. The Seawolves will be the two seed for the nine-team tournament with a shot of sharing the regular-season crown with Hartford if Stony Brook wins out AND Hartford loses the regular-season finale at UMBC.
Despite the loss, Maine (13-13, 7-8) currently sits in third, a half game ahead of Vermont (16-11, 6-8) and Binghamton (10-17, 6-8).
The log-jam in the middle of the standings will come into focus over the final week of the regular season. Boston University (14-14, 6-9) and UMBC (13-15, 6-9) are tied for sixth place just a half game out of fourth place.
New Hampshire (9-17, 4-10) and Albany (8-19, 4-10) are tied for eighth and both need to win out to try to avoid the opening round game.
Below is a list of the games remaining in the 2006-07 regular season, along with championship seeding tie-breaking procedures.
Wednesday, February 28
*Binghamton at Boston University, 7 p.m.
*Stony Brook at Albany, 7 p.m.
*Vermont at New Hampshire, 7 p.m.
Saturday, March 3
*New Hampshire at Binghamton, 1 p.m.
*Albany at Vermont. 1 p.m.
*Maine at Stony Brook, 4 p.m.
*Hartford at UMBC, 7 p.m.
* America East Conference game
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.