MBB: Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Ohigy]

Updated Standings:
3-1 Defiance
3-1 Mount St. Joseph
3-1 Rose-Hulman
3-1 Hanover
3-1 Anderson
2-2 Bluffton
1-3 Transylvania
1-3 Manchester
1-3 Franklin
0-4 Earlham

[dc_has_been]

According to Massey's DIII Rankings out of 416 DIII teams:

MSJ 52
DC 81
Hanover 113
RHIT 155
Transy 202
Bluffton 221
Anderson 224
Franklin 314
Manchester 383
Earham 404

Also the Heartland according to Massey's is 28th out of 47 DIII conferences. 

I am happy that DC has already played MSJ and Hanover and won, but it will be tough to go on the road and beat both teams twice.  Also, they still have RHIT to play twice as well as Bluffton, who they always have a tough time with too. 
I am also still not overlooking Anderson as they are still taking care of business in conference play and only loss comes to Hanover on the road. 
Regardless of how the conferences standings look at the end of the season, the team that wins the tournament will be the one who gets in the national tournament. 

[dc_has_been]

Update on Massey's and conference record
MSJ   38       5-1
DC     53      5-1
HC     97      5-1
RHIT 171     4-2
AU    205     4-2
TU    216     2-4
BC    232     2-4
FC    305     2-4
MU   379     1-5
EC   407      0-6

[Ohigy]

Defiance and Mount St. Joe tied at the top with a few weeks left.  This appears to be a one bid league for the NCAA tournament.  Who will win the tournament title?

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Regional Rankings are out: http://www.d3blogs.com/d3hoops/2015/02/11/first-regional-rankings-released-today/

[dc_has_been]

Thank you Dave!  Not surprised to see that there wasn't a HCAC team representing. 

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

No... conference is down. Wouldn't get ranked in the old Central, I don't think, either. It happens. Going to be an AQ only conference this time around.

[sac]

I feel for Mt. St. Joseph

They went out and put together a decent non-conference schedule of Berry, Augustana, Wilmington, Capital, Albion, Thomas More.  Its not great but just those 6 games is worth a current OWP of .567

Playing in the Heartland Conf has dragged that OWP number down to an un-rankable .462

The primary culprit is Earlham's 0-22  record they have to count.  Against both multipliers that's a .000 and .000.  They get no credit for playing them at all.  Pretty hard to have decent criteria when 9.5% of your current schedule is basically air, and that goes for the whole conference at its multiplied affect on OOWP as well.

Current OWP  .462
w/o Earlham OWP  .511

Earlham is dropping their OWP number down by almost a .050, Mt. St. Joseph is a team that would get a rankings look without those Earlham games and I suspect the same would be true of Defiance.

After the HCAC Tournament I estimate Mt. St. Joeseph's OWP component will be .479, still not rankable.  Take out Earlham and that skyrockets to .529, that's potentially rankable.  This really is a severe punishment for being in a conference with a very bad team.

[iwumichigander]

I feel for Mt. St. Joseph

They went out and put together a decent non-conference schedule of Berry, Augustana, Wilmington, Capital, Albion, Thomas More.  Its not great but just those 6 games is worth a current OWP of .567

Playing in the Heartland Conf has dragged that OWP number down to an un-rankable .462

The primary culprit is Earlham's 0-22  record they have to count.  Against both multipliers that's a .000 and .000.  They get no credit for playing them at all.  Pretty hard to have decent criteria when 9.5% of your current schedule is basically air, and that goes for the whole conference at its multiplied affect on OOWP as well.

Current OWP  .462
w/o Earlham OWP  .511

Earlham is dropping their OWP number down by almost a .050, Mt. St. Joseph is a team that would get a rankings look without those Earlham games and I suspect the same would be true of Defiance.

After the HCAC Tournament I estimate Mt. St. Joeseph's OWP component will be .479, still not rankable.  Take out Earlham and that skyrockets to .529, that's potentially rankable.  This really is a severe punishment for being in a conference with a very bad team.

it is possible the RAC will take Earlham into consideration.  MSJ certainly IMHO has a case to make as does the RAC if MSJ close or gets up on the board.  I have not looked at their other numbers or other ranked teams.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Well they are taking a lot of teams into consideration, but the bottom ranked teams in the Great Lakes are probably not going to get into the NCAA tournament as at-large teams and if Earlham enters that situation - that means they took another loss. HCAC is getting the AQ and only the AQ this year.

[sac]

I feel for Mt. St. Joseph

They went out and put together a decent non-conference schedule of Berry, Augustana, Wilmington, Capital, Albion, Thomas More.  Its not great but just those 6 games is worth a current OWP of .567

Playing in the Heartland Conf has dragged that OWP number down to an un-rankable .462

The primary culprit is Earlham's 0-22  record they have to count.  Against both multipliers that's a .000 and .000.  They get no credit for playing them at all.  Pretty hard to have decent criteria when 9.5% of your current schedule is basically air, and that goes for the whole conference at its multiplied affect on OOWP as well.

Current OWP  .462
w/o Earlham OWP  .511

Earlham is dropping their OWP number down by almost a .050, Mt. St. Joseph is a team that would get a rankings look without those Earlham games and I suspect the same would be true of Defiance.

After the HCAC Tournament I estimate Mt. St. Joeseph's OWP component will be .479, still not rankable.  Take out Earlham and that skyrockets to .529, that's potentially rankable.  This really is a severe punishment for being in a conference with a very bad team.

it is possible the RAC will take Earlham into consideration.  MSJ certainly IMHO has a case to make as does the RAC if MSJ close or gets up on the board.  I have not looked at their other numbers or other ranked teams.

No they would not. Trine has the same problem but less severe, about a .020 to .025 impact on their OWP component.

But this will also affect Mt. St. Joeseph's seeding, right now they'll likely be on the road at one of the pod hosts, might have done better without Earlham.

[KnightSlappy]

Through Wednesday I have Mount St. Joseph at .762/.477. Take out Earlham and they're .737/.511.

Calvin was .737/.516 last week and didn't end up ranked. So MSJ would be close, but still out of the picture, and certainly not looking great for Pool C consideration regardless. The 0-1 vRRO that will get added in (Augustana) isn't going to help out much either.

[sac]

Through Wednesday I have Mount St. Joseph at .762/.477. Take out Earlham and they're .737/.511.

Calvin was .737/.516 last week and didn't end up ranked. So MSJ would be close, but still out of the picture, and certainly not looking great for Pool C consideration regardless. The 0-1 vRRO that will get added in (Augustana) isn't going to help out much either.

If you get the time, play around with OOWP and how Earlham's 0-22 is affecting the whole conference.  8 opponents of Mt. Joseph have to count two games as .000, that has to be very punishing.

[KnightSlappy]

Through Wednesday I have Mount St. Joseph at .762/.477. Take out Earlham and they're .737/.511.

Calvin was .737/.516 last week and didn't end up ranked. So MSJ would be close, but still out of the picture, and certainly not looking great for Pool C consideration regardless. The 0-1 vRRO that will get added in (Augustana) isn't going to help out much either.

If you get the time, play around with OOWP and how Earlham's 0-22 is affecting the whole conference.  8 opponents of Mt. Joseph have to count two games as .000, that has to be very punishing.

OK, so I wiped out all of Earlham's conference games.

Mount St. Joseph ends up looking: .737/.496. So better than .762/.477 probably, but not all that clearly so.

They lose Earlham's bad component OWP and some bad OOWP components from conference members, but they lose 2-0 x2 (or 1-0 in a few cases) in the OWP column from each conference opponent who has beaten them.

[sac]

Thanks, I wondered after I posted if it might be counter intuitive to OOWP to drop Earlham.