CAA or Ivy

[baltolax]

Six CAA teams in the top 20. I'd say the CAA will be a tougher schedule than the Ivy (Princeton excepted).

Having to play five or six top 20 teams seems tougher than playing Princeton and Dartmouth, even though Penn, Yale and Harvard aren't slouches.

Four teams make the CAA tourney. The battle to be one of the four might be the story of the regular season. I'm guessing JMU, Towson, Hofstra and Mason.

Any other predictions?

[Frodo Lives]

Four CAA teams in tourney? I’d love to see it, but that's a stretch IMO. They'll knock each other off in conference play and stock of individual teams will accordingly decrease. I do, however, see 2 or perhaps 3 from CAA, something like the ALC last year. ALC is more highly regarded by the selection committee, however -- see Hopkins, NW and Vanderbilt making the tournament last year. CAA actually has a stronger average conference power rating (at end of 04 season), but the inclusion of Davidson brings its average conference rating way down.

[baltolax]

Four teams make the conference tourney. Winner gets an AQ.

[Frodo Lives]

baltolax - Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about 4 teams making the NCAA. I probably agree with your four teams in the CAA tourney, though Delaware may surprise with its new and highly respected coach. I look for Hosftra to be the no. 1 team in the CAA this year.