That is priceless. The irony is that I didn't catch on until I got to the 5 guys in the park date!

Joking aside I do feel for the players who were never given the best possible opportunity to earn the bid due to scheduling. That is, after all, what this is about.

Well for years Chapman had the opportunity to play Colorado College in Jan and Feb and passed unless we came to CA (usually Santa Cruz). The NCAA doesn't care when you play the games as we didn't have many West Region games after December.

I'm not sure if the current criteria factors in the home, away and neutral status of the games, but it did back then and it was our job to understand the criteria and give the student-athletes the best possible chance to earn the bid.

We (including yours truly) drove vans from CSprings to Phoenix to play in the Cactus Jam and then on to Socal where we beat Laverne on a neutral court and CMS on their home court before driving back to CSprings where we beat Nebraska Wesleyan a few days later to "earn" our bid.

Hard to have any sympathy for the Chapman staff who has a much better landscape to work on. At a higher level the media would call them out on this but thanks to Pat and the D3Hoops organization I would say they have been effectively called out at this point.

Agreed that the assistant coach who was the genesis of annual "Chapman Whine" is no longer with the program. No confusion towards current assistants intended.

In some ways the pool B route can be easier than an AQ, especially if you are trying to get the AQ in a tough conference. The pool B route in the West region however, is perhaps the toughest of all due to the overall strength of the region (not many weak conferences or bad teams) and geography.

Having coached the last pool B entrant from the West I can tell you that it takes a good players, a well thought out schedule, consistent performance in the "big" games and perhaps even a little luck. Chapman has managed 2 or 3 of those variables in most years.

I believe they have been a better team than some of the pool B selections in recent years but my subjective appraisal (nor anyone else's) will ever be used to make the selection. The criteria is readily available and pretty straightforward.

Our scheduling strategy was to play teams from the lesser conferences (which in the West Region are still pretty strong) who would finish in the middle third of the conference, ideally on a neutral court (counted as an away game). Losing to the 6th place team in the Wisconsin league at home does the most damage. Beating the 3rd place SCIAC team on a neutral floor is much better.

Chapman has a huge advantage relative to the other West Region independents in that they have the majority of the scheduling recipe in their geographic backyard.

The Chapman men's program has been on the short end of the selection due to their scheduling. As evidence of this, the women's program has made multiple trips to play at Colorado College during the past decade. The men's team, despite being invited each year, would not make that trip. They did however make several trips to Hawaii to play non D-3 games so hard to believe it was a budget issue.

Additionally, they could never seem to make it to the Cactus Jam in Phoenix but found a way to get to Phoenix to play Non D3 Southwestern several times.

If the assistant coach had worked as hard at scheduling and/or fundraising as he has at complaining about the selection system over the years it is highly likely that they would have been in the tournament several times.

The real disappointment should be for the quality players who were never given the right opportunity to make the tournament as they have had good teams and players during this decade.