Apparently the best that an undefeated season and provincial title can get you is sixth place in the country.
Just ask the Quest Kermodes women’s basketball team.
After winning 21 regular season games and two playoff games to clinch the team’s second straight Pacwest title on Saturday, March 7, Quest found out that they would be ranked sixth for the CCAA Nationals tournament starting on March 19 in Nanaimo.
It makes you wonder, what else could the Kermodes have done?
Last year, Quest finished third in the Pacwest during the regular season and were ranked fifth after winning a provincial title. So they go undefeated and repeat as provincial champs this year and lose a spot in the rankings?
Not only that but the Kermodes were regularly ranked as the best team in the country for most of the regular season. I don’t understand how winning literally every game you compete in can cause a team to drop in the final rankings. It’s a disservice by the CCAA to the players and staff of the team to fail to recognize the remarkable season by the Kermodes.
But I believe it all comes down to a basic East Coast bias of which everyone here on the West Coast is well aware. There are two Quebec teams, one Ontario team and one team from the Maritimes ranked ahead of Quest. None of those teams had undefeated seasons, and all of those teams are much more on the radar of the CCAA’s head office of Cornwall, Ontario than some small, private liberal arts school in Squamish.
Quest shouldn’t be penalized for the performance of Pacwest teams in past women’s basketball tournaments (like the CCAA twitter account explained to me). They beat everything that was placed in front of them, and really, there’s nothing more they can do.
They were only ranked one spot higher than the VIU Mariners – a team Quest beat three times and that won a bronze medal at the same tournament where Quest won gold. Did they use a dartboard to decide the rankings?
But maybe this is an opportunity for the team to prove the CCCA wrong and stuff it in their face that the Pacwest and this Kermodes team is no joke. We’ll find out starting March 19.
