D3 vs. D1/D2/NAIA/NCCAA

[sixfour]

Scores from 2/15

St. Joseph's, Brooklyn (USCAA) 86, Polytechnic 69
Tennessee Wesleyan (NAIA 2) 65, Maryville, TN 64

:owow ....whats going on at polytechnic?

[Rhodes Scholar]

D3 vs.

D1....1-44
D2....10-73
NAIA 1....21-41
NAIA 2....87-100
NCCAA 1....8-6
NCCAA 2....51-11
USCAA....49-26
Other....70-11

(Totals through 2/15)

[diehardfan]

We are sorta having a bad year against the NAIA, huh?

[Mr. Ypsi]

We are sorta having a bad year against the NAIA, huh?

April, you beat me to it!

Rhodes Scholar, do you have previous years' results?  I though we usually had rough parity with NAIA 1 and a sizeable margin over NAIA 2, though I may be misremembering.

[diehardfan]

D3 vs.  

D1....2-61
D2....10-47
NAIA 1....16-22
NAIA 2....67-70
NCCAA....37-7
USCAA....68-7

[diehardfan]

Totals through regular season*

D3 vs.

D1...2-66
D2...22-68
NAIA 1...22-31
NAIA 2...119-118
NCCAA...72-9
USCAA...75-18
Other...37-2

*Subject to revision. There are missing scores, but far fewer than those of previous years.

[diehardfan]

You are misremembering, but we usually do better than we're doing. Rhodes Scholar, I am curious as to what you think the reason for that is... 

[Rhodes Scholar]

You are misremembering, but we usually do better than we're doing. Rhodes Scholar, I am curious as to what you think the reason for that is... 

I really don't have any great insight on this matter. Perhaps the scheduling favored D3 in previous years and now favors NAIA 2. The data is there for some kind of analysis to answer your question, but I haven't gone that far. Maybe I'll do it down the road. I do know that last year's totals and this year's totals are 100% complete. I tracked down every score of every game that was listed on the scoreboard. In previous years I let a fair amount of scores (maybe 20%) remain unrecorded.

Judging by the NAIA games that I've seen in recent years (almost all of them on tape), the top NAIA 2 teams were more or less comparable to their D3 counterparts, while the top NAIA 1 teams appeared to be slightly better than the top teams in D3.   

[Rhodes Scholar]

Scores from 2/16

Baptist Bible 89, Valley Forge Christian (NCCAA 2) 68
Lincoln Christian 78, Emmaus Bible (NCCAA 2) 42
Mount St. Joseph 88, Robert Morris-Springfield (USCAA) 74
Piedmont 114, Southeastern Bible (NCCAA 2) 83
Rust 82, Knoxville (other) 81

[Gregory Sager]

You are misremembering, but we usually do better than we're doing. Rhodes Scholar, I am curious as to what you think the reason for that is... 

I really don't have any great insight on this matter. Perhaps the scheduling favored D3 in previous years and now favors NAIA 2. The data is there for some kind of analysis to answer your question, but I haven't gone that far. Maybe I'll do it down the road. I do know that last year's totals and this year's totals are 100% complete. I tracked down every score of every game that was listed on the scoreboard. In previous years I let a fair amount of scores (maybe 20%) remain unrecorded.

Judging by the NAIA games that I've seen in recent years (almost all of them on tape), the top NAIA 2 teams were more or less comparable to their D3 counterparts, while the top NAIA 1 teams appeared to be slightly better than the top teams in D3. 

I think that the major reason for D3's slippage against other small-school collectives, NAIA-2 in particular, is geographical. Isolated D3 teams (e.g., the Maine state institutions, Nebraska Wesleyan, Minnesota-Morris, Finlandia, Colorado College, etc.) tend to be D3's spear-carriers in most of the inter-organizational contests that Rhodes records here. Coincidentally or non-coincidentally, those isolated D3 teams tend to have disproportionally bad records, not just against non-D3 opponents but against D3 opponents as well. In other words, I don't think that we're exactly putting up the cream of our crop against the likes of the NAIA, USCAA, NCCAA, in a large proportion of these games.

[Rhodes Scholar]

I think that the major reason for D3's slippage against other small-school collectives, NAIA-2 in particular, is geographical. Isolated D3 teams (e.g., the Maine state institutions, Nebraska Wesleyan, Minnesota-Morris, Finlandia, Colorado College, etc.) tend to be D3's spear-carriers in most of the inter-organizational contests that Rhodes records here. Coincidentally or non-coincidentally, those isolated D3 teams tend to have disproportionally bad records, not just against non-D3 opponents but against D3 opponents as well. In other words, I don't think that we're exactly putting up the cream of our crop against the likes of the NAIA, USCAA, NCCAA, in a large proportion of these games.

You may or may not be on to something. I can't really say at this point because I've only recorded the results; I haven't analyzed them. It is true that the D3s in Maine are not top-notch teams, but their NAIA 2 opponents are in the Sunrise Conference, which is probably one of the weakest NAIA 2 conferences in the country. So in that instance, at least, weak D3s are facing weak NAIA 2s, which actually is a fairly good barometer of the relative strength of the two organizations.

[Rhodes Scholar]

Scores from 2/17

University of Dallas 84, Johnson & Wales, CO (NAIA 2) 77
Finlandia 84, Northland Baptist Bible (NCCAA 2) 73
LaGrange 97, Carver Bible (NCCAA 2) 93
Maine-Machias (NAIA 2) 66, Maine-Presque Isle 60
Nebraska Wesleyan 78, Briar Cliff (NAIA 2) 66
Pensacola Christian (NCCAA 1) 83, Piedmont 75
St. Joseph's, ME 99, Maine-Fort Kent (NAIA 2) 82
Wesley, MS (NCCAA 2) 73, Huntingdon 58

[pufin]

The NCAA rules that are pusing teams to play more in-region games may be a factor, also.  This year, there are 249 results against NAIA-1 and -2.  Last year there were 290. This may not be a significant difference, but are teams trying to schedule more NCAA D3 (in-region) games at the expense of games against non-NCAA schools?

[smedindy]

Sometimes, I think games against NAIA schools (and others) may be games that one schedules because they can get no other team, or some other team drops out unexpectedly from a tourney or a scheduled game.

[Rhodes Scholar]

Score from 2/20

Lincoln 91, Penn State-Delaware County (other) 75