FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[GRIZ_BACKER]

Hard to argue with SJF's quality wins.

It's not exactly easy to argue in favor of their losses to a two loss team and a four loss team.

A legit point.  So let's see...Washington and Jefferson gets in and they have "quality" wins against a 7-3 Wooster, a 5-5 Grove City, a 3-7 Thiel, a 4-6 Westminster, a 0-10 St. Vincent, a 5-5 Geneva, a 7-3 Waynesburg, although they did beat a very good 9-1 and champ Thomas More.  They lose to a good SJF team but also to a 4-6 Bethany-which kind of cancels that out.  So I guess that they figure since W&J played SJF and Thomas More, that counts more than Wabash's schedule.  Seems to me that Wabash gets penalized for being in a less competitive conference.  Regardless, the problem comes when you don't win your conference and then with 1 or 2 losses, some good team is always going to be left out.  Too bad Wabash get's hosed again.

I think Bash was treated fairly. Scheduling a weak Hanover team makes them all-in against Witt.  Had they played a playoff quality opponent they would have probably gotten in.  The NCAC is not that far up the ladder from the HCAC.  The only difference is there are two good teams and a bunch of mediocre or bad teams.  One of the the two worst teams in the HCAC had a win against the NCAC.

Hey, listen. Go. Away.

I will, Deal. With. Reality.

[wally_wabash]

Finally got the lights back on and everything working after a dark, miserable evening.  Some thoughts...

Man, that's frustrating.  So, so frustrating.  Wabash played 38 quarters of football about as well as a team can be expected to play them and still be sportsmanlike.  Two quarters, against a top 12 team, and that's what gets you passed over.  Something about that just isn't right. 

It isn't right...but it is fair.  Given the current rules and criteria, it's totally fair.  As I've projected the at-larges over the last couple of weeks, it has looked for all the world like Wabash would be measured against SJF for that fifth spot.  And SJF has criteria advantages over Wabash in more than one area.  That the committee could weight those criteria in such a fashion as to select SJF was always a distinct possibility.

But- the criteria are incomplete.  They don't tell a complete story.  The SOS calculation is pretty rudimentary.  In 2010 that math told us that Wabash played the 15th strongest schedule in D3.  That wasn't entirely accurate.  It also didn't help Wabash get in (inconsistent application of the criteria is also frustrating, but that's a different rant).  We like to applaud teams for "scheduling up" and are even willing to give teams a pass for signing up to get wailed on by UMU or UWW or Linfield or UMHB.  But SJF didn't do that.  They didn't play a powerhouse that comes along with a free pass.  There is no doubt that SJF plays a stronger slate of teams in E8 than Wabash does in the NCAC, but they don't have a free pass loss on their schedule. 

They do have quality wins though, such as they are.  They beat W&J fairly handily.  Bethany also beat W&J, so while a win over W&J is a nice win, it isn't something that stands way out.  Or it shouldn't.  They also get a "quality" win over Alfred.  Alfred is 7-3 and got stomped on by SJF this weekend.  But not any more so than Wabash stomped on Wooster or Denison- also 7-3 teams.  But the East pretty rapidly runs out of top tier teams to occupy their top 10, so teams like Alfred get recognized in that set of rankings.  In the North, Alfred wouldn't sniff the rankings...like Wooster and Denison don't sniff the rankings.  This is a problem.  Not all RROs are equal.  As it stands right now, East #s 7-10 are probably the equivalent of North #s 11-14 or West #s 11-14.  Or lower. 

It's an imperfect system that doesn't tell a complete story.  The boundaries of quality are different from region to region.  The application of the criteria is inconsistent from region to region and from year to year.  The system (particularly the SOS) as it is put together basically counts wins and losses in a vacuum.  What we look at currently to pick teams for the tournament isn't really a full body of work.  It's more like a skeleton.  I'm not sure what the fix is; how to flesh out that skeleton a bit more so that teams that play in deeper regions or teams that play 9-game league schedules don't get shorted.  I need to think on that some more.  A lot more. 

I think most people would look at this stuff can look at Wabash and SJF per the selection criteria can come to the conclusion that picking SJF was justified or reasonable or whatever synonym you want to use.  I think there are far less people who would say that SJF is the better team.  And that's the part that has me bummed out more than anything. 

[wally_wabash]

Probably worth a quick note about the SOS...or at least an addendum to what I said about it earlier. 

It's not as easy as to say Wabash played Hanover and Hanover is weak so Wabash deserves whatever they don't get.  When you play a 9-game league schedule, you CAN NOT get an SOS that will get within the same part of town as the .550-.575 that are obtainable elsewhere.  You just can't do it. 

Let's do an example.  Wabash's SOS this year was .503.  The OOWP portion of the thing involves so many results (nearly 900) that changing one opponent for another is going to make that whole thing negligible for a team in a 10-team round robin where 810 of those 900 results are all even.  So I'm going to focus on OWP only here.  Wabash's OWP record is 45-44 or .5056.  Two thirds of that goes into the SOS...so Wabash's OWP contribution to their total SOS of .503 is .337. 

No let's swap out poor ol' Hanover for somebody else.  Let's use next year's Hampden-Sydney as an example.  Hampden-Sydney lost two league games, plus we'll have to assume that Wabash beats them because 2-loss Wabash isn't sniffing the postseason without a lot of help.  So HSC contributes a 7-2 record in place of Hanover's 5-4 (you don't count the results against the team you're calculating SOS for).  That makes Wabash's OWP record 47-42, for a win pct of 0.5281, and a SOS contribution of .352.  That's a net gain of 0.015 which bumps Wabash up to 0.518.  Is that number going to change the mind of the committee when compared to a 0.575?  No chance.  The only other thing that could change here is is HSC were ranked, but at 7-3 with that loss they wouldn't be. 

Do the same exercise with, oh say, Mount Union.  The Raiders contribute 9 wins and zero losses.  Wabash OWP record is 49-40, win pct is .5506, SOS contribution is .367 or a plus 0.030 over Hanover.  That pushes Wabash up to 0.533.  Still well below SJF.  But now we have to consider that Wabash has lost that game with Mount Union and carries two losses (because if they had beaten Mount Union, we wouldn't be having a last in/first out conversation).  Is 8-2 Wabash with a 0.533 SOS and 0-2 vs RROs getting in over 8-2 SJF with 0.575 and 2-1 vs RROs?  Of course they aren't. 

So it's easy to pound the table and say "schedule better", but that one game doesn't change the equation.  The equation changes when a third team in the NCAC is good enough to get ranked so that an NCAC runner up can notch a quality win in there somewhere. 

[smedindy]

I think 'schedule better' means two things - at least it does to me.

First is to have everyone in the league schedule a notch up - and schedule teams that aren't doormats in their league. If they do that, the OWP and OOWP of the SOS calculus improves for everyone. I think it does matter.

Second, schedule so that the third place team has a good chance of getting to 8-2. An 8-2 NCAC team against a MIAA team could be an even fight.

Of course, we have to hope the OAC doesn't get a fourth good team (like a B-W) where you have three 8-2 teams flitting about there.

Finally, HSC is in the ODAC which usually devours their own because they have a lot of parity. I think it's great, except come playoff time when you can't get a good seed because you roll in 8-2 or so.

A warning about scheduling though - Linfield thought it had a good schedule but Hardin Simmons and the ASC were down, and Cal Lutheran was down. Now they're probably the sixth seed in the tournament. Mary Hardin Baylor isn't chasing #1 because Kean and Trinity had bad seasons, surprisingly. Outside of scheduling a super-elite, you takes your chances when scheduling.

[wally_wabash]

But that's pie in the sky stuff, smeds.  It would be awesome if everybody in the league won their non-conference game.  And it would be awesome if everybody in the league played a non-conference game against a team that wasn't going to post a 1-9 record.  But I know you know enough about the teams in our league that those two things can't happen simultaneously.  The NCAC isn't going to go 10-0 against a group of teams that have a .700 win pct or better.  As awesome as that would be, it isn't happening. 

So the league was what, 5-4 in non-league this year?  That's about as good as we're going to do. Maybe an extra win or two on a really good year.  That's not going to get any of our teams up into the top 20 or even 30 of the SOS rankings. 

This was always going to be a limitation of the round robin.  It locks you into what amounts to the middle 50% of D3 in SOS.  You can't schedule your way out of that and still have 9 league games. 

[WittFootball]

Wabash should still be playing.  Tough break.  I'm not a big fan of this selection process.

[firstdown]

First - thanks WittFootball for your thoughts and good luck in the play-offs.

Second - Special thanks to this year's Wabash Senior Class!  You gave us a lot of thrills over the past 4 seasons.  You brought home the Monon Bell all 4 of your years - whipping DePauw soundly each time.  You accumulated a record of 37 - 6 and took us on a great run in the play-offs in 2011.  No one who was there will ever forget the great come back win!

You are All Some Little Giants!! Thanks for a great ride.

[bleedpurple]

Finally got the lights back on and everything working after a dark, miserable evening.  Some thoughts...

Man, that's frustrating.  So, so frustrating.  Wabash played 38 quarters of football about as well as a team can be expected to play them and still be sportsmanlike.  Two quarters, against a top 12 team, and that's what gets you passed over.  Something about that just isn't right. 

It isn't right...but it is fair.  Given the current rules and criteria, it's totally fair.  As I've projected the at-larges over the last couple of weeks, it has looked for all the world like Wabash would be measured against SJF for that fifth spot.  And SJF has criteria advantages over Wabash in more than one area.  That the committee could weight those criteria in such a fashion as to select SJF was always a distinct possibility.

But- the criteria are incomplete.  They don't tell a complete story.  The SOS calculation is pretty rudimentary.  In 2010 that math told us that Wabash played the 15th strongest schedule in D3.  That wasn't entirely accurate.  It also didn't help Wabash get in (inconsistent application of the criteria is also frustrating, but that's a different rant).  We like to applaud teams for "scheduling up" and are even willing to give teams a pass for signing up to get wailed on by UMU or UWW or Linfield or UMHB.  But SJF didn't do that.  They didn't play a powerhouse that comes along with a free pass.  There is no doubt that SJF plays a stronger slate of teams in E8 than Wabash does in the NCAC, but they don't have a free pass loss on their schedule. 

They do have quality wins though, such as they are.  They beat W&J fairly handily.  Bethany also beat W&J, so while a win over W&J is a nice win, it isn't something that stands way out.  Or it shouldn't.  They also get a "quality" win over Alfred.  Alfred is 7-3 and got stomped on by SJF this weekend.  But not any more so than Wabash stomped on Wooster or Denison- also 7-3 teams.  But the East pretty rapidly runs out of top tier teams to occupy their top 10, so teams like Alfred get recognized in that set of rankings.  In the North, Alfred wouldn't sniff the rankings...like Wooster and Denison don't sniff the rankings.  This is a problem.  Not all RROs are equal.  As it stands right now, East #s 7-10 are probably the equivalent of North #s 11-14 or West #s 11-14.  Or lower. 

It's an imperfect system that doesn't tell a complete story.  The boundaries of quality are different from region to region.  The application of the criteria is inconsistent from region to region and from year to year.  The system (particularly the SOS) as it is put together basically counts wins and losses in a vacuum.  What we look at currently to pick teams for the tournament isn't really a full body of work.  It's more like a skeleton.  I'm not sure what the fix is; how to flesh out that skeleton a bit more so that teams that play in deeper regions or teams that play 9-game league schedules don't get shorted.  I need to think on that some more.  A lot more. 

I think most people would look at this stuff can look at Wabash and SJF per the selection criteria can come to the conclusion that picking SJF was justified or reasonable or whatever synonym you want to use.  I think there are far less people who would say that SJF is the better team.  And that's the part that has me bummed out more than anything.

First of all, to all the Wabash fans: sorry for the disappointment of Wabash not being selected to the field. The team had a great year and to be left right on the edge without a bid has to be a tough pill to swallow.

Wally, I agree with you 100%. The system is flawed.  But I think any system will be flawed in some way.  I'm glad thinkers like you are pondering ways to make the process more equitable. We need to make the process as clean as possible.  To me, the most important thing is that the National Committee have the charge of putting the best possible teams in the tournament through the Pool B and Pool C processes.  Criteria should be a set of tools for the committee to accomplish that, not a set of rules forcing them into putting a team in based solely on numbers.  If Wabash is a better football team than St. John Fisher, they should be in. If St. John Fisher is better, the committee made the right choice.

I think the healthiest and least frustrating way for AQ conference fans to look at the tournament is, "To have a right to play in the playoffs, we must win our conference. Fail that and we are putting our fate into the hands of imperfect people working within an imperfect system."  I believe regardless of tweaks and revamps, that will always be the case.

Sorry again for the way this played out. It is always frustrating when it feels like the team did its part and the process failed them.  I know you will all keep fighting. Wabash always does.

[jknezek]

Wabash needs to take advantage of that one OOC game and schedule a team that stands a chance at being regionally ranked. They've done that with HSC going forward for the next two years at least. However, with the NCAC being basically a two horse race most years, it only gets them one shot against a RRO. It needs to be 2 if they are going to be serious about needing a "C" bid. Especially coming from the North. Witt should be the same way. That is the peril of a large round-robin conference with 2 dominant members.

Use that one OOC game wisely, it's the best chance the loser of the Witt/Wabash game have for getting a "C". As has been pointed out, moving the SOS needle is not real likely.

[WABCOL86]

I think my comment after the Witt loss was borne out.   We didn't get the miracle.  Simple as this, though - Wabash needs to not lose at home, period.  Was Witt better?  Well, at least in this case they were.  Wabash came out unprepared for what they got and I am still unsure why.   Winning the Bell was satisfying but unconvincing when put against the previous four.  Like last season, but to a somewhat lesser degree, something undefinable seems missing (and the unsportsmanlike penalties don't help that image).  Wabash has spoiled us lately, I agree.  But the bar has now been set, and all Wabash fans will be upset when we don't reach the playoffs...  Good luck to Witt in the playoffs, represent the NCAC well!!

[ExTartanPlayer]

But that's pie in the sky stuff, smeds.  It would be awesome if everybody in the league won their non-conference game.  And it would be awesome if everybody in the league played a non-conference game against a team that wasn't going to post a 1-9 record.  But I know you know enough about the teams in our league that those two things can't happen simultaneously.  The NCAC isn't going to go 10-0 against a group of teams that have a .700 win pct or better.  As awesome as that would be, it isn't happening. 

Some really good discussion above.  Wally is correct that this is generally an impossible dream to expect everyone in the NCAC to schedule a game against a decent OOC opponent (but still one they can beat!) and then have everyone win.  Either everyone schedules tough and you take a few on the chin, or everyone schedules at about their level and you pick up a bonus win (Hiram over Westminster) while also losing a bad one (Kenyon vs. Earlham) here and there.

smedindy, you also pointed out one of the difficulties; except for a handful of absolutely-good-every-year teams, you can schedule some teams ahead of time that look like they'll be decent competition, only to hit a rough patch or down year, such as scheduling games against Hardin-Simmons/Kean-level programs. 

One thing that you post which seems a bit counterintuitive is the suggestion that you should "schedule so the third place team has a good chance of getting to 8-2" because, first, it's hard to know exactly who the contenders for that third-place spot are every year, and second, it goes against the grain of "everyone in the league has to schedule a notch up" philosophy.  Wooster was probably, when it's all said and done, the NCAC bronze medalist this year.  They scheduled a very good team from a so-so league that's roughly the NCAC's peer...and got obliterated.  So in one breath we ask the better NCAC teams to schedule so they'll finish in the RR's even if they end up third in the conference, but also schedule a good team that isn't going to finish at the bottom of its conference.  That's a pretty narrow target that you're trying to hit.  Wooster, OWU, Denison (the presumptive candidates for the bronze medal in the next few seasons) would have to schedule the better MIAA/HCAC teams who are just good enough to go 6-4 or 7-3, but not so good that they'll lose the game.

My perspective that I'll throw out there is that "schedule better" when you have a single OOC game really won't change the SOS calculus, as wally has explained so eloquently, but you might be able to take a chance on scheduling a team with a fighting chance to finish in the regional rankings (i.e. Wabash's game with HSC next year) who also will be evenly matched (and then just play your butt off and hope to win the game).  Once again, we have the difficulty that you're looking for a very, very narrow sliver of D3 when you're talking about the handful of teams that have OOC openings, are willing to play you, and are just good enough to hang around the regional rankings but not UWW/Mount/UMHB.  One option would be to schedule Wesley, but many teams shy away from that and it may not be practical logistically and travel-wise.

[wally_wabash]

I think my comment after the Witt loss was borne out.   We didn't get the miracle. 

You need to educate yourself on the process before you start talking about what Wabash needs or doesn't need.  It was simply a matter of preference...an either/or choice and they didn't choose Wabash.  They could have, but they didn't.  It wasn't wing and a prayer stuff.  No miracles.  Wheaton needed a miracle. Texas Lutheran needed a miracle.  Wabash didn't need a miracle.  Simply put, you don't know what you're talking about on this subject.  You want to get out here and blast the team because they didn't play the way you wanted them to on 11/9, tell the world that that isn't a playoff team, and then drop a bunch of "I told you so"s when Wabash doesn't get picked...you feel better about that?   What does that accomplish aside from broadcasting to the world that you're part of the sickening subset of Wabash "fans" that are ready dump all over the team over one loss.  ONE LOSS.  What does this accomplish? 

Wabash needs to take advantage of that one OOC game and schedule a team that stands a chance at being regionally ranked. They've done that with HSC going forward for the next two years at least. However, with the NCAC being basically a two horse race most years, it only gets them one shot against a RRO. It needs to be 2 if they are going to be serious about needing a "C" bid. Especially coming from the North. Witt should be the same way. That is the peril of a large round-robin conference with 2 dominant members.

Use that one OOC game wisely, it's the best chance the loser of the Witt/Wabash game have for getting a "C". As has been pointed out, moving the SOS needle is not real likely.

Again, it would be nice to be able to pick and choose exactly which team you play for the non-league game and it would be nice to be able to know with any amount of certainty who is going to be regionally ranked in the year 2017 when you're lining up a home and home in 2013.  But you can't know that.  And even if you could know that, you can't always get that game. 

There's a flaw in how we measure "strength" of schedule.  There's a flaw in how we define a quality win.  Those are a couple of the things that have to be examined as part of the quest to craft criteria that help identify the best team. 

[bashgiant]

I am new to all this so this might be a silly question but what about Wabash going independent like Notre Dame?

[wally_wabash]

I am new to all this so this might be a silly question but what about Wabash going independent like Notre Dame?

1000% no.  Oh my god no.  Independent is the worst possible thing you can be in D-III.  Look at Wesley's schedule in October/November.  That's what you get if you're an independent. 

And being a member of the NCAC is awesome.  It really is.  This group of schools is incredible. 

[jknezek]

Again, it would be nice to be able to pick and choose exactly which team you play for the non-league game and it would be nice to be able to know with any amount of certainty who is going to be regionally ranked in the year 2017 when you're lining up a home and home in 2013.  But you can't know that.  And even if you could know that, you can't always get that game. 

There's a flaw in how we measure "strength" of schedule.  There's a flaw in how we define a quality win.  Those are a couple of the things that have to be examined as part of the quest to craft criteria that help identify the best team.

Read my post again Wally. I said "stands a chance". There is a pretty common subset of opponents that get ranked every year in the East, South and North. Sure sometimes it doesn't work out, and there is no way of knowing, but you can do it better than Hanover (2 recent seasons over .500). SJF is proving that. While W&J didn't look like a good pick early in the year, it ended up being the difference. W&J isn't the W&J of 10 years ago, but most years they are good enough to be RR. Same with Otterbein (3 of last 5 seasons are 8 wins). In 2012 SJF went TMC and W&J, hedging bets one of them would be ranked from the PAC, a good guess. 2010 they played Hobart. 2009 was UMU. In other words, every year SJF goes out of their way to TRY and get a Regionally Ranked Opponent. As you pointed out, you can't use a crystal ball to be sure, but you can do better than Hanover.

You may want new criteria or changes to criteria, but it's a lot more efficient to work within what we have than to try and change the system going forward. One game makes it tough, but as next year proves, Wabash can find an opponent that stands a good chance at being Regionally Ranked. Had they done it this year, they might have squeezed ahead.