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There's a pretty straightforward explanation for why Mount St. Mary's won1 Reverse Survivor this season: The team has experienced the perfect storm of poor performances exacerbated by an aggressive schedule that is above The Mount's level of competitiveness. This is the cruel reality for the Mountaineers, one that is unrelenting in its infliction of pain. The details underlying Mount St. Mary's campaign in 2014 are kind of startling:
| METRIC | VALUE | NATIONAL RANK |
| Strength of Schedule (Pythagorean) | 49.95% | 31 |
| Strength of Schedule (Opposing Defenses Faced) | 31.74 | 44 |
| Possessions per 60 Minutes Margin | -9.13 | 67 |
| Face-Off Percentage | 39.16% | 57 |
| Clearing Percentage | 79.29% | 64 |
| Adjusted Offensive Efficiency | 16.23 | 67 |
| Shots per Offensive Opportunity | 0.89 | 66 |
| Ratio of Shots on Goal to Total Shots per Offensive Opportunity | 56.40% | 46 |
| Raw Offensive Shooting Rate | 18.48% | 66 |
| Opponent Save Percentage | 67.23% | 67 |
| Assists per 100 Offensive Opportunities | 7.63 | 66 |
| Extra-Man Postures per 100 Offensive Opportunities | 8.90 | 55 |
| Extra-Man Posture Reliance | 15.38% | 20 |
| Extra-Man Posture Conversion Percentage | 28.57% | 50 |
| Turnovers per 100 Offensive Opportunities | 56.36 | 58 |
| Turnover Margin | -18.82 | 65 |
| Pythagorean Win Expectation | 12.17% | 67 |
Icky. To be clear:
- In the overall, Mount St. Mary's had played a difficult schedule but has gotten pummeled and underperformed against it. The Mount should -- based on the team's Pythagorean win expectation -- have won at least one game so far this season ([smashes fist] "MANHATTAN!" [shakes fist at the sky]).
- The Mountaineers' offense has been dreadful, and it's not like The Mount has faced a murderer's row of opposing defenses. The team's shooting rate is the kind of tragedy that Mel Brooks has called high comedy, and it's hard to argue with that. The most telling aspect of the team's offensive struggles, though, isn't merely limited to Mount St. Mary's inability to find twine. Rather, it's this: The Mountaineers have relied on extra-man postures to score but (1) have rarely been on the extra-man, and (2) aren't any good with the personnel imbalance in their favor. Reverse Survivor, ahoy!
- Turnovers. Are. Poison.
Mount St. Mary's (0-8)
Next Opponent: Robert Morris -- March 25th
Chance of Victory: Not great. A log5 analysis shows The Mount as having only a nine percent chance of victory tonight. Things that also have a nine percent chance of happening: Me piloting the first space mission to the center of the sun; Bruce Springsteen actually living in a trailer like the people he sings about; and Uncle Joe Biden becoming president of the International Home Brewers Association.
Next Reasonable Chance of Victory: Hobart -- March 29th. "Reasonable" is a fluid concept. Look: A log5 analysis for the Mountaineers' two games following their date with the Colonials -- home to Hobart and away to St. Joseph's -- doesn't exactly love Mount St. Mary's in those spots. The Mount's log5 win expectation in those games is 13.03 percent and 12.23 percent, respectively. The next time that the Mountaineers approach a 20 percent chance of victory is against Wagner (35.04 percent) and Sacred Heart (18.00 percent), and those games don't appear on the schedule until the end of April.
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1 Remember: New programs aren't eligible for Reverse Survivor. Thus, while Furman, Monmouth, and Mount St. Mary's are still without a victory this year, it's the Mountaineers that earned the 2014 Reverse Survivor championship.