Quote from: Ralph Turner on February 19, 2025, 07:28:35 PMHmmm.  What is the C2C item on the agenda?

I think we have an answer to this now that the report has been posted, assuming I am reading and understanding everything correctly...

First, from the meeting report:

QuoteRequest from the Coast-To-Coast Athletic Conference. The committee approved the request from the Coast-To-Coast Conference to waive the current application of Bylaw 20.9.1.2 (composition of conference) and apply the new legislated standard immediately.

One of the legislative items at the D3 Convention in January was to align the membership standards between multi-sport and single-sport conferences. Previously a multi-sport conference required a minimum of seven members while a single-sport conference required six. The legislative action item changed this to require six across the board.

With six core members for the 2024-2025 academic year I believe this would have been year one of the grace period for retaining the conference's automatic qualifier to national tournaments. It seems that is no longer the case with an approved waiver to apply the new standard immediately.

Now, the C2C will fall below six with Mount Mary departing for NAIA but my interpretation of the situation is that this waiver delaying the AQ grace period will be enough for the C2C to avoid any seasons without Pool A access between losing Mount Mary and Regent and JWU-Charlotte reaching Provisional Year 3 and counting toward the membership total required by the bylaws.

Lincoln Lockhart has de-committed from Trine

Quote from: Greek Tragedy on March 05, 2025, 08:47:59 AMOn the women's side, the WIAC got 5 teams in and two of them are in the same pod. Pretty disappointing.

I was gonna say that Concordia hosted a pod because Point was in that pod and I remember going down there, just couldn't remember the year, but Wiz saved me from searching!  I believe they got to host because Stevens Point's women were hosting that weekend.

That Calvin game will depend on who wills their pace on the other team. Calvin grinds out games. WLC seems like to run.

Disappointed WLC or Carthage couldn't host (one of them probably would have had they won their conference tournament).

Platteville and La Crosse are too far for me. Chicago is actually closer, but still 2 1/2 hours away.

The difference in tempo is only about two possessions per game and likely not enough of a difference to really make the game feel all the different either way.

To put this in more familiar conference terms, this is a tempo matchup similar to WLC taking on Edgewood or Aurora and Calvin facing Kalamzaoo. I will defer to the NACC posters as to whether or not those matchups feel like a battle in contrasting tempos but from the Calvin side I don't think it does.

Upsets are part of the fun of tournament time but that an understanding of who the favorites are and how much they might be favored by. Our big first round preview episode of The D3 Datacast is out now and we go through all the matchups and take a look at our computer ratings-based projections for win probabilities and point spreads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnLmHtEVjNU

Stay tuned for another tournament preview episode dropping Wednesday morning as we take a zoomed out look at overall bracket odds for each team to advance through each round.

Quote from: Greek Tragedy on March 03, 2025, 02:19:44 PM

Quote from: Tigerfan on March 03, 2025, 01:30:02 PMUMW played a tough schedule.  I noticed that the D3 Datacast efficiency ratings were always rather high for their record, so the computers liked them.  Throughout the year I thought they were better than their record, so I'm glad they got a reward for competing hard. 

NPI had them at 88 and as a Pool C 61/62. GAC had an NPI ranking 38 and Pool C 22. But hey, MW competed hard for 2 games and won the C2C conference tournament and got the AQ.

For all the gripes people may have about the C2C the conference tournament is basically the one big thing they have in common with everyone else. GAC had the same opportunity to win their conference tournament as members of the C2C did, though I suppose it is at that fundamental level that the disconnect happens, making it a discussion as to whether the C2C deserves an automatic bid to be fought over. There are no new points to be made in that argument, however.

Technically seeding won't even be a mystery as we will know how all 64 teams rank compared to each other as soon as final NPI numbers are run. What will remain to be seen is how the committee creates the bracket based on that seeding. The messaging seems pretty clear their intention is to be true to seeding but obviously there are constraints in place like limiting flights and who may or may not have submitted bids to host.

Much of the intrigue of the in/out and jockeying for top eight protected seeds or top 16 for potential hosting opportunities will play out as the final game results roll in. We will be going live on the D3 Datacast YouTube channel that day with fresh NPI runs as each game concludes. Stream page is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gyocTtk_Bg

Following Hampden-Sydney's early exit from the ODAC Tournament tonight, Tufts has moved into the NPI top eight to be in position for one of the protected seeds. Now we'll see if they can keep it to give the NESCAC three of the top eight.

https://d3datacast.com/npi/

Quote from: ChickenHoops on February 26, 2025, 12:28:04 PM

Quote from: Pat Coleman on February 25, 2025, 03:43:51 PMStevens Point went from 59.676 to 59.836. If they can get one more win -- I know, a tough ask -- they can drop Olivet from their calculation and that would make a big difference.

So if you schedule some weaker opponents but play enough games, they fall out?  Seems like a flaw in the system but I raise chickens for a (good) living.

It is very much a feature, not a bug, on the premise that you shouldn't be hurt by winning. A minimum wins threshold is in place to ensure a reasonable portion of a team's schedule is included but once that threshold is reached any additional win that would lower your NPI when counted can be excluded. This is in contrast to the previous regional ranking system where there could be a phenomenon where a team got a win over a really bad team and somehow looked worse in the criteria because the SOS hit was larger than the WP gain.

Quote from: nescac1 on February 25, 2025, 11:12:47 AMWPI has to be on the short list for "best overall D3 program never to make a Final Four."  Tufts, Whitworth, Hamilton, St. John's (MN), Maryville, Emory, and Johns Hopkins are some other that come to mind (and many of these schools have a shot at it this year!), but I think WPI has to be the most consistently strong program to have fallen JUST short. 

Best D3 program never to have won a title would also be an interesting list, of course ... maybe Hampden-Sydney, F&M, Augustana, Wooster or Hope? 

Over the offseason we took a look at the "Top ten D3 programs of all-time" list inspired by a point-based system used by CBSsports.com a few years ago to make a D1 program ranking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj0aCV_uEZM

F&M was tops in the list among programs without a championship, followed by Augustana, Wooster and Hope.

Two wins over Stout are actually the lowest wins counting on UWSP's resume right now (then Olivet). The additional win over Whitewater knocked Lakeland below the point at which additional wins would hurt the Pointers and thereby is dropped from the calculation. The small increase in overall NPI is due to the incremental nature of that win replacing another in the resume.

John Carroll is one of the teams who have really helped themselves over the last couple weeks and benefitted from some teams who may have been ahead of them in the Pool C pecking order taking some losses (Whitworth, Anderson, Keene State are prime examples that come to mind).

In our latest run of simulations (at the conclusion of play Sunday), JCU is "bubble-in", receiving an at-large bid 71.4% of the time when needed. This breaks down further to 54.7% when the loss comes in the semifinals and 84.4% when they lose in the OAC final.

Overall, John Carroll looks to be in fairly good shape as long as they can win their semifinal game and there isn't an above-average amount of carnage in other conference tournaments.

Bubble Watch will continue to be updated with fresh simulations each day here: https://d3datacast.com/npi/mbb-projections/

Quote from: bopol on February 19, 2025, 04:21:28 PMHas it ever been them that has an error and not you?  That could happen...

Yes. There were a few games we caught in the "official" data that were incorrect with their conference/non-conference designations due to teams in the same conference playing a non-conference game. Those have been resolved on the NCAA side, though we are now seeing that happen against with UEC tournament games as Matt noted above. Our understanding is that we are correct to handle these as conference games, though the "official" NPI run through yesterday's results released by the NCAA today shows them as non-conference contests.

Quote from: mwunder on February 20, 2025, 11:03:17 AMOdd question. Where is Carthage getting the idea that they are ranked #17? It's all over their website, but they are not ranked on the nation's premier source of D3 basketball information and I don't see anything on the NCAA site outside of regional rankings.

Just found it odd.

They are likely referring to their ranking in NPI, the metric that is used for NCAA Tournament selection and seeding. They were #17 earlier this week but rank #15 through games played 2/19/25: https://d3datacast.com/npi/

Quote from: Ralph Turner on February 19, 2025, 07:28:35 PMHmmm.  What is the C2C item on the agenda?

My first thought is something related to the status of their automatic qualifier because I don't believe their new members in the provisional pipeline will be coming soon without a gap between the grace period and being back to "full strength" - however that may be more of a Championships Committee issue.

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on February 19, 2025, 11:37:16 AMWow.  They dropped even further than I thought.  A conference tourney loss and they're probably out of the NCAAs altogether.

They went from 40.2% Pool C if needed in yesterday's bubble watch to 2.8% in this morning's run of simulations.

https://d3datacast.com/npi/mbb-projections/

It's a much different outlook for Virginia Wesleyan, who also lost last night and is ranked below Whitworth in the current NPI rankings. They took a much smaller hit to their Pool C odds and are still in our "bubble-in" group above 50%. The key difference is the quantity and quality of opportunities still on Virginia Wesleyan's potential path.