Cinderella is at the Ball!

The Cinderella Bison after last night’s 3-1 victory over the Randolph-Macon Yellow Jackets went into today’s match against Stevens as the #21 ranked T100 team. The metrics had them just shy of 8% to win that match.  They did! Coming out of it with a 1.20-point bump to push themselves to #15 in the land according to the T100.  Of course, that 1.20 bump in their favor means that the Ducks dropped the same 1.20 points, taking them from #3 to #7 as it turns out. The NPI & the committee threw every roadblock possible at Nichols from arriving in this Elite 8.  NPI had them 16th of the bid teams and 28th overall to mandate a play-in game. The committee then matched them up against the strongest of the 6 not to get a bye on a line of the bracket reserved for a 19th seed, with a reward for winning that match to play the #3 Stevens Ducks in their home gym in Hoboken, NJ earlier today. The T100 thought Nichols should have earned a bye rather than Lancaster Bible, where it would have required only a single upset win to arrive in this coveted Elite 8 position for Saturday. Probably turned out to do them a favor, now having already defeated the regional host.  This means whoever they play next, either Juniata or Wentworth, will be a neutral match against a lesser ranked team than they just knocked off. Look out for the team wearing the glass slippers! (Juniata just this minute took the 3rd set against Wentworth and will play Nichols with the winner moving on to a National Semi.)

Here is what the Nichol’s chances were according to the math at the start of this match:

This Nichols win was the biggest upset of the year among the top 25 teams. See where the “Gold Star” is on the 2025 T100 Win-Matrix among the best 50 teams during the regular season!

Congrats to Nichols! It looks like their paradigm shift in scheduling for 2025 worked out great, even though the NPI undervalued its performance this year. Their 2025 narrative might be the best plan for any team who is an odds-on favorite to win their conference in the future. Even should the NPI too harshly penalize it for the risks they’ll take along the way.