2012 Division III NCAA Tournament

[nwhoops1903]

nw:  i like your idealistic attitude. but lets be honest, would it really make that much of a difference to have neutral site regional games?  Who would host these games?  You would still have these games most likely on campus sites in small gyms, and if thats the case the committee will always regionalize the brackets to make sure the top team gets to play close to home if they make the next round.  In theory your idea is fair, but in practice you'll still get the same problem of a team with a distinct home court/travel advantage.  

Then you run into the "dead atmosphere" problem which you get when a home team loses the first game under the current format.  I'd imagine the players would like playing in a viper's nest than they would a neutral side "dead" game.  Under your system, we might have even more dead games if travel is too far.

I remember listening over the Lawrence network (to a very good play-by-play announcer whose name I cannot find today) to the UWSP-Lawrence Elite 8 game in 2004 at UPS.  That game was played before about three hundred (300) fans in the L&C gym, some of whom were disguised as empty seats.  Where was the D3 fan support?  IMHO, that game was as tough as 2004 National Champion UWSP faced.  (I will defer to Point Special.)

Obviously "travel" was to far.  A FAR WEST neutral host site will never nor should never be an option.  I see your point in the dead game atmosphere.  Never good.  At UPS?  L&C gym?     Something out of whack there...

[Pat Coleman]

Actually, that guy was Andy York, who lives here in the Twin Cities area. He and I do a few games together each year, including the MIAC title game a few days ago.

[Bombers798891]

On the one hand, yes, playing at home in the round of 16 may be an advantage, but I don't know if it outweighs the possibility of a no-show crowd.

If your team is playing a game that starts at 8 or so, you're asking an extra fan base to make what could be a long trip home late at night, or staying over

And what of the students? Maybe this is just an IC thing, but how many of them are going to give up a Friday night or Saturday night to travel to a basketball game? Seems like a small number to me.

And not to get political here, but gas being $3.60 a gallon doesn't exactly make traveling an appealing process for some, especially students. Hopping out of your dorm room and walking to the gym is one thing. Are you going to maybe spend 20-30 bucks on gas and a ticket to watch your team play? Seems unlikely, but that's just me.

The cynical part of me also says that if a team considers it that much of a disadvantage to playing on the road, well, maybe that team isn't good enough anyway. Seems to me that most good teams are capable of winning on the road. And respectfully, we're not talking about playing at Cameron Indoor or the Breslin Center. I don't think anyone would say playing at home isn't an advantage, but how much of one is there at the D-III level? I don't know if anyone has home/road numbers for all of D-III, but I doubt it's that big of a difference

In looking at the four teams lumped in with IC, Ithaca is 7-4 at home, 13-2 on the road or in neutral environments.  MIT is 9-4 at home, 10-4 in road/neutral environments. Rochester was 12-2 at home, 8-3 in road/neutral. Elms was 9-1/11-6. Overall, seems like only one team of the four was significantly better at home, and one, paradoxically, was worse.  

Maybe this is just these four teams, but I just don't think it's this significant disadvantage. Of course, this could be because I've watched IC lose so many home playoff games in recent years I've lost count, but there it is.

[Just Bill]

You don't want neutral site D-III sectionals. Unless Calvin, Hope, UWSP or IWU is in it, no one will be there. I'll take the risk of the home team losing the first night and having a weak crowd on the second night, rather than having three weak crowds.

If you wanted to make a rule that prohibits hosting both the regional and sectional rounds, I'd be more on board with that.

I am so accustomed to fan base support (see Whitworth avg attendance) I am probably naive to the travel fan base suppport outside of NWC.

My biggest thought, as you correctly listed, is 4 home game path seems like an "annointing".  Make a rule D3 presidents. 

Then you'd really dislike the women's tournament. Illinois Wesleyan has the potential to play all six NCAA Tournament games at home. They had the same potential last year, but lost in the Sectionals.

It may feel like "annointing" a champion, but since the women's championship went to pre-determined Final Four sites, not one host school has ever made the Final Four, much less won it. That list would include Western Connecticut, Rose-Hulman, Virginia Wesleyan, Springfield, Hope and Illinois Wesleyan.

[ScotsFan]

You don't want neutral site D-III sectionals. Unless Calvin, Hope, UWSP or IWU is in it, no one will be there. I'll take the risk of the home team losing the first night and having a weak crowd on the second night, rather than having three weak crowds.

If you wanted to make a rule that prohibits hosting both the regional and sectional rounds, I'd be more on board with that.

I am so accustomed to fan base support (see Whitworth avg attendance) I am probably naive to the travel fan base suppport outside of NWC.

My biggest thought, as you correctly listed, is 4 home game path seems like an "annointing".  Make a rule D3 presidents. 

What then would you propose?  If you are a #1 seed, I think you have earned the right to host.  So, with the proposal of not allowing hosting of regional and sectional rounds, say the top seeds all host in the regional rounds.  Then you are going to award lesser seeds hosting privileges for the sectional rounds because the higher seeds have already hosted?  And, on the flip side, if you are a #1 seed, are you going to forego hosting the first weekend and take the chance that you can get it done on the road and then hope that you are awarded hosting of the sectional should you make it through the regional? 

I just don't see how this rule would work without using neutral sites and I think using neutral sites would be completely unfair to the athltetes to work so hard all year only to be rewarded with playing in relatively empty neutral arenas.

[dahlby]

IMHO, if you are seeded higher, you host. I don't care if you host all the games, you have earned it. I don't believe in not keeping score and handing ribbons out to everyone either.
You want to host...win your games. It is real life.

[John Gleich]

nw:  i like your idealistic attitude. but lets be honest, would it really make that much of a difference to have neutral site regional games?  Who would host these games?  You would still have these games most likely on campus sites in small gyms, and if thats the case the committee will always regionalize the brackets to make sure the top team gets to play close to home if they make the next round.  In theory your idea is fair, but in practice you'll still get the same problem of a team with a distinct home court/travel advantage.  

Then you run into the "dead atmosphere" problem which you get when a home team loses the first game under the current format.  I'd imagine the players would like playing in a viper's nest than they would a neutral side "dead" game.  Under your system, we might have even more dead games if travel is too far.

I remember listening over the Lawrence network (to a very good play-by-play announcer whose name I cannot find today) to the UWSP-Lawrence Elite 8 game in 2004 at UPS.  That game was played before about three hundred (300) 250 fans in the L&C UPS gym, some of whom were disguised as empty seats.  Where was the D3 fan support?  IMHO, that game was as tough as 2004 National Champion UWSP faced.  (I will defer to Point Special.)

We had three tough games and three not-so-tough... the Gustavus Adolphus game in St. Peter was pretty much insane.  I mean, if you want to talk about the antithesis of an empty gym, go there (at least in that era, I don't know if it's still insane now).  We had to overcome a really good team and the crowd.

The Lawrence game was weird before the tip and weird after the game... but the dimensions of the court actually didn't make it seem like we were playing in front of such a tiny crowd... there's a pretty small lower bowl around the court and then an upper bowl above... I'm not going to say the lower section was full (and there was nobody in the upper), but it even in the game against UPS the night before, when there was about 1800 there, it got loud a few times, but we really took them out of the game.  It might have been something completely different to have Memorial Fieldhouse packed to the rafters like Gus Young was... but it wasn't.

And honestly, the game itself was so intense we really didn't really notice the small crowd... it was just like an away game... when we did something well, our contingent cheered... and I have to say, for there only being about 70-100 of them, they did a pretty nice job!

[Just Bill]

IMHO, if you are seeded higher, you host. I don't care if you host all the games, you have earned it. I don't believe in not keeping score and handing ribbons out to everyone either.
You want to host...win your games. It is real life.

I agree with you in general, but remember that hosting in the D-III tournament is not awarded strictly on the merits of your team.  Geography almost always comes first.  So it's very possible a less than elite can simply get lucky in the draw and host all the way to the Final Four.

[Ralph Turner]

Thanks for the corrections.  (I will be glad when the archives have been restored to the new server, so I can double check the facts.)  +1! 

Andy York did a great job, both on the Lawrence SRSU Sweet 16 game the night before and on the Lawrence Stevens Point game in the Elite 8.

[Pat Coleman]

I remember that night fondly because Lawrence's student station stream reached its capacity and I pulled out my laptop, ran a phone cord into the other room, logged in on dialup, then plugged a cable out of one computer into my broadcast board, ran that board into the laptop so we could effectively double the capacity and still have a mic available to talk about the bonus coverage and do a scoreboard show.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Do we know what coverage is coming from Cabrini?

[Pat Coleman]

Cabrini is planning video and we are staffing the audio portion of that broadcast with Gordon Mann and Chris Pesotski.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Cabrini is planning video and we are staffing the audio portion of that broadcast with Gordon Mann and Chris Pesotski.

Nice.  I'll be in attendance at least on Friday; maybe I'll try to inconspicuously walk by the camera.  I'll probably be the only person wearing an Eastern Nazarene College t-shirt.

[ronk]

Hopefully, Cory Lemons will generate a lot of fantasy points.

[John Gleich]

Hopefully, Cory Lemons will generate a lot of fantasy points.

I think hope Lemons will draw all the attention and Dom Farrello will go off!