Photo: Kameron Melendez
BY JONNY WALKER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Ahead of the 2023-24 season, St. Bonaventure men’s basketball head coach Mark Schmidt said he expects his team to compete for a conference championship and make the NCAA Tournament. Just two games into the season, Bonaventure’s March Madness aspirations suffered a hefty blow with a home loss to Canisius.
By season’s end, the result will likely represent a Quadrant 4 loss — a serious indictment on any potential bubble team’s resumé. Another such loss will all-but require Bona to win its conference tournament in order to make the NCAA Tournament.
Using the NET rankings, a results-based system for comparing all 362 NCAA Division I programs, each of Bona’s opponents can be sorted into one of four groups, or quadrants. Since the NET’s introduction in 2018, the NCAA Selection Committee has openly admitted it values two categories most highly when handing out at-large berths: Quadrant 1 wins and Quadrant 4 losses.
Power-conference teams routinely face a double-digit number of Quadrant 1 opponents each season. With more opportunities to prove themselves against greater competition, these teams can often account for bad losses with multiple good wins.
Mid-major teams like Bonaventure routinely face a double-digit number of Quadrant 4 opponents. They get fewer opportunities to prove themselves against greater competition and more opportunities to slip against lesser competition.
Take last season for example.
In an overall down year for the Atlantic 10 Conference, the Bonnies faced just one Quadrant 1 opponent, going 1-0. They faced 12 Quadrant 4 opponents, going 6-6 in those contests. The Big 12’s top team by NET ranking, Texas, played 25 Quadrant 1 games compared to just seven Quadrant 4 matchups that same season.
With a tougher non-conference schedule this season, Bonaventure could finish with upwards of three — maybe four — Quadrant 1 opportunities. Two appears more likely. Getting one Quadrant 1 opportunity for the second-straight year remains possible.
But even if the Bonnies can put together an otherwise stellar resumé, one Quadrant 4 loss would significantly cloud any at-large conversations come selection time. A second would assuredly be a death knell for such talks.
Some may argue it’s too early in the season to accumulate a fully accurate picture of where teams like Canisius will finish in the NET rankings. However, by all available metrics, Canisius appears to be a resumé-sinking loss.
Using KenPom, a popular stat-based rankings system, Canisius ranked 232nd in the country as of Thursday. That places the Golden Griffins well within the parameters of a Quadrant 4 opponent. No Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference team ranks higher than 160th in KenPom. In the MAAC’s Preseason Poll, the Golden Griffins were picked third.
For coach Schmidt and his team to fulfill their NCAA Tournament promise, two options remain after Saturday’s loss: Hope to go on a regular-season run that includes multiple opponents playing their way into Quadrant 1 territory. Or save that run for early March and the A-10 Tournament.
