Benedictine vs Lonestar
Benedictine, which we’ve covered somewhat, is a breakout team in the Gateway. Meanwhile, the Lonestar is a new conference in this bracket and it’s a tough thing to get a new conference fully into the playoff system. TCU won the Lonestar D2 final over SMU, but could not go further.
The plan had been for SMU to advance to this play-in, but they have also pulled out, according to NCR sources.
This is a fact of life in college rugby even at the highest levels, sometimes budget and timing get in the way.
For Benedictine, this means the Black Monks go straight to the Round of 16, which is probably where they belong anyway.
Benedictine put everything into their conference final win over John Brown, beating a team they lost to earlier in the year. Freshman Leo Hull was a standout for the Black Monks and captain Jacob Ortiz added that "our conditioning, overall chemistry, and just buy-in from the guys," were some of the factors that led to them getting here. But he adds something more.
"The biggest factor overall has been our faith. We put Jesus and Mary at the center of everything we do and owe all our success to them," said Ortiz.
Round of 16
On November 21, the full playoffs kick off. We felt like giving you a quick prediction on who we think will win, and then we’ll revisit next week and see if we want to change it:
Northern Iowa vs Grand Valley State. Despite UNI being favored here, this could be an upset special. Grand Valley State, if healthy, are pretty good.
Scranton vs Norwich. This promises to be a close one. We’ll go with Scranton, but not 100% … maybe 75%.
Chicago vs Benedictine. Such a great run for Benedictine, but the run probably ends here. Chicago is a serious final four contender.
Colorado Mesa vs winner of Loyola-vs-UM Duluth. One of our insights into this game is from the teams that Mesa beat to get here. Yes the travel is going to be tough for CMU, but we’re picking them.
Vermont vs Villanova. What a wonderful matchup. Vermont is our favored team. Their consistency and variety of try-scoring means they can handle any kind of team. Catamounts, yes.
IUP vs Cornell. Another upset special? We’ll go with IUP, but Cornell has been excellent this year and do things that win rugby games, like score points and prevent points. Things have been relatively quiet for IUP—Lord knows they need a more consistently strong conference—but the Crimson Hawks are the favored team.
UNC-Wilmington vs Salisbury. We have UNCW ranked #1 and we’re not changing that opinion of their quality.
Coastal Carolina vs Memphis. We’re thinking Tigers here.
Final Note:
Best teams not in the playoffs. These are teams that we think could compete in this playoff if they had the chance. We're not saying they should be in there. We're just saying they could do fine.
Miami of Ohio
RPI
John Brown
