Bison137
Professor
Posts: 16147
Reg: 01-23-06
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12-05-19 01:27 PM - Post#293815
In response to res
Jay Fisette, who lives up the street from me, was the captain of, I believe, the '77 team. His bio says they were ranked 7th.
At best, his claim is a bit misleading. At that time, I don't think they had official rankings. His 7th place claim comes from BU's finish in the NCAA tournament. At that time, they allowed two Eastern teams into the eight-team NCAA field, along with two other non-California schools. That left four California schools, who normally would easily beat the others. That year Bucknell was easily beaten by two teams before beating Brown in the final consolation game to finish seventh. Had they allowed more California schools into the event, Bucknell would have finished worse than 7th. His claim is similar to a fan of Fairleigh Dickinson basketball (ranked 211th in the nation last year by Pomeroy) claiming they were #65 in the country because they made the NCAA tournament.
To give you some idea of the disparity, the Bison lost 28-10 to Cal in their first round game in 1977. A couple of years later, Bucknell finished 5th - during Scott Schulte's junior year. I think that was their best finish ever. During that time period, they never beat a California school in the tournament, although they gave Pepperdine (who eventually finished 4th) a close game one year.
This year the Bison, who are ranked 10th, will likely lose to USC. If that happens, a player could claim his team was ranked 5th - although that really would not be accurate. To say that they finished 5th in this limited-field event would be accurate. Still a great accomplishment.
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