With the fields now set for the men’s NCAA tournament and NIT, I thought it would be interesting to look at the teams from GW’s 2007-2008 schedule and see which ones are still playing into March.

The Colonials (9-17, 5-11 Atlantic 10) played 26 games against 23 opponents (GW played Xavier, Saint Louis and Rhode Island twice). Eleven of those 23 opponents are in either the Big Dance or the NIT and 13 of the 26 games were against teams still playing. The teams in the NCAA tournament that the Colonials faced this year, with their tournament rankings: No. 1 UCLA, No. 16 Mount St. Mary’s (in the play-in game against Coppin State, with the winner making the full bracket), No. 15 UMBC, No. 3 Xavier (twice), No. 11 Saint Joe’s, No. 12 Temple. In the NIT: No. 2 UMass, No. 6 Rhode Island (twice), No. 6 Charlotte, No. 3 Dayton, No. 1 Virginia Tech.

The A-10 got three teams in the NCAA tourney (Xavier, Temple, Saint Joe’s) and four in the NIT (Rhode Island, UMass, Charlotte, Dayton).

Also looking at some other numbers…

According to kenpom.com, the Colonials currently have an RPI of 185 but a strength of schedule of 67. Of the 65 teams in the NCAA tournament, two had lower RPIs and 28 had lower strength of schedules. Of those 28 teams, six were at-large bids (St. Mary’s, Purdue, Gonzaga, Notre Dame, BYU, South Alabama). The A-10 finished seventh as a conference in RPI, behind the six BCS conferences, with GW sixth within the 14-team A-10.

So while fans and athletic officials are dissapointed with how this year’s team finished, they can at least take comfort in knowing that the Colonials played a somewhat difficult schedule. This is particularly interesting because of how much flak the athletic department gets for scheduling every year.

Women’s brackets are released tonight. I’ll take a look at numbers when those are out.