2012 Division III NCAA Tournament

[Pat Coleman]

I've read a lot about here about how many hours a team should reasonably have to be subjected to a bus ride in the national tournament.

1. Is there any NCAA "standard" ?

2. How may hours does everyone think is reasonable?

The standard is 500 miles, not hours. Is that reasonable? Ehh, not in my book. It used to be 400 until a few years ago. I thought that was better. I think the 500-mile trips are pretty rare, though.

[AndOne]

I've read a lot about here about how many hours a team should reasonably have to be subjected to a bus ride in the national tournament.

1. Is there any NCAA "standard" ?

2. How may hours does everyone think is reasonable?

The standard is 500 miles, not hours. Is that reasonable? Ehh, not in my book. It used to be 400 until a few years ago. I thought that was better. I think the 500-mile trips are pretty rare, though.

Not in my book either.

I believe Mapquest directions assume about a 65 mph average per long (Interstate) trip. I think buses generally go a little slower. So even at 60 mph average a 500 mile trip would take 8.3 hours--and thats just driving time--no time to stop to eat and/or take a potty break. I suppose if you're the NCAA, that sounds like a very reasonable reward for a season thats good enough to qualify for the national tourney, and not too much of an obsticle to overcome. It also helps guarantee that your team will no doubt have a large following of fans attending the game.   

[Pat Coleman]

Well, it is on their dime -- schools could fly if they are willing to make up the difference.

[AndOne]

(Borrowed from the Front Page of D3Hoops.com)

"Power outages"

"The two best conferences in Division III men's basketball got exactly two teams in the NCAA Tournament."

Is this the right way to run a national tournament which is alledgedly comprised of the best 59 teams in the land? I think not! 

Supposedly a new formula will be in use next year. Good--it seems like just about anything would be an improvement! 

[Pat Coleman]

It's never been comprised of the best 59 teams in the land, though, and it's not supposed to be -- just like D-I isn't comprised of the best 65. There are 37 automatic bids, after all. Not every conference champ is in the Top 59, not by a long shot.

[AndOne]

Well, it is on their dime -- schools could fly if they are willing to make up the difference.

The    says it all!

[AndOne]

It's never been comprised of the best 59 teams in the land, though, and it's not supposed to be -- just like D-I isn't comprised of the best 65. There are 37 automatic bids, after all. Not every conference champ is in the Top 59, not by a long shot.

Not by a long shot for sure!

And maybe some of these automatic bids shouldn't be so "automatic." ? 

[golden_dome]

Just to play devil’s advocate here. Everyone has been very critical of the NCAA selection committee and the process for selection but I have seen few better suggestions than the process we have now. The most popular suggestion is to just let a committee select the teams subjectively but how can someone do that without bias when they have not seen teams from each region play. It is an impossible task.

There are strong arguments to be made against each team that did not make it. I do feel bad for Elmhurst who I think is one of the best teams in the country potentially, but they lost 5 of their last 12 including a terrible loss to Millikin which probably pushed them out.

UW-La Crosse lost eight games including three losses to Carleton (10-16), UW-River Falls (10-16) and UW-Eau Claire (10-16). I don’t see an outrage here that they got left off.

UW-Oshkosh had a better season than Lacrosse with all six losses coming against quality teams, but they lost three times to La Crosse. I would have a hard time keeping Lacrosse out and putting in a team that lost to them three times.

I am sure I will get much opposition on this but I just don’t see the outrage keeping these three teams out, they got left out for bad losses. With so many DIII teams trying to get in the tourney, you just can’t suffer bad losses.

For one of these to get in a team like Guilford would probably be left out. Guilford went 21-4 with two of their losses coming to defending national champion Virginia Wesleyan. In my opinion if they were left it would have been an even bigger disappointment, though I doubt we would have heard nearly as much about it.

[Gregory Sager]

I'm one CCIW fan that is not outraged about the league only having one rep, in spite of its universal recognition as one of the elite conferences in D3. I'm disappointed, but not outraged, because I know how the system works and I understood all along that this would be one of those years in which the league was in trouble, Pool C-wise. I realized about two weeks ago that the CCIW would have a hard time getting a second team into the tourney, unless Augie lost the automatic bid by falling in the conference tournament.

My disappointment is along the it's-not-the-best-59-teams lines, but hey -- even the D3 men's basketball handbook itself acknowledges that the best teams aren't all gonna get to go dancing. It's right there in black and white on page 12: "The Division III championships philosophy is to field the most competitive teams possible while minimizing missed class time; to emphasize regional competition in regular-season scheduling; and to provide representation in NCAA championship competition by allocating berths to eligible conferences, independent institutions, and a limited number of at-large teams, realizing that this may be done at the expense of leaving out some championship-caliber teams." (italics mine)

Chris is right; the tournament selection process can't be left in the hands of subjective arbiters, because the obscurity and size of D3 is such that no one observer can have the opportunity to see each contending team in action. But there has to be something better than the current process of comparing and selecting teams on a national basis by using regionally-based criteria. The current system pounds square pegs into round holes. There has to be something better out there. I hope that the new RPI-esque rating system that takes opponents' opponents records into consideration will be a step in the right direction.

[Ralph Turner]

...
Chris is right; the tournament selection process can't be left in the hands of subjective arbiters, because the obscurity and size of D3 is such that no one observer can have the opportunity to see each contending team in action. But there has to be something better than the current process of comparing and selecting teams on a national basis by using regionally-based criteria. The current system pounds square pegs into round holes. There has to be something better out there. I hope that the new RPI-esque rating system that takes opponents' opponents records into consideration will be a step in the right direction.

But does using a regionally based RPI-esque system take care of those disparities?  The complainers in the Wisconisn to Ohio geographic region (which crosses NCAA Geographic Regions #3 and #4) want to break a perceived "District of Columbia to Maine" oligarchy (which is primarily Geographic Regions #1 and some #2, i.e.,  NY and PA). 

To help with the base of "in-region" groups of teams, I suggested creating a North Region that balances out some of the "power" and breaks an "artificial barrier" (called Lake Michigan    )  that isolates the MIAA.  The geographic regions allow access to more teams and now we can construct evaluation regions that span 2 geographic regions to give more choices.  (Please read Pat Coleman's thoughts on my attempt to break up the concentration of teams in the Northeast and tries to balance the number of teams that end up in an Evaluation Region.)

[golden_dome]

Chris is right; the tournament selection process can't be left in the hands of subjective arbiters, because the obscurity and size of D3 is such that no one observer can have the opportunity to see each contending team in action. But there has to be something better than the current process of comparing and selecting teams on a national basis by using regionally-based criteria. The current system pounds square pegs into round holes. There has to be something better out there. I hope that the new RPI-esque rating system that takes opponents' opponents records into consideration will be a step in the right direction.

You worded this opinion much better than I could and I agree 100%. I remember when we were using the opponents' opponents format but honestly don't know how it worked due to the fact I was not very knowledgable about DIII basketball nationally. It is a step in the right direction but it is still the responsibility of each individual school to produce a schedule that benefits them under the selection guidelines of the NCAA.

Everyone knew the criteria this season and had an opportunity to schedule in order to help their QOWI. I think you could have flipped a coin with the last 5-6 teams on the bubble as to who was more deserving. Ultimately if you are in that position you put your fate in the hands of the committee instead of forcing them to take you with better numbers according to the criteria.

I do feel bad for those kids who narrowly missed out on a great experience, but we should be applauding those teams who got in instead of ripping them apart.

[bamm]

Hi all,

With U of Rochester, Fisher, and Brockport consistently in tournament contention, and all making the field this year -- I have two questions:

1) Is there another city in the country this season that has three area colleges in the DIII tournament?
2) What other cities have this many DIII programs? -- Fisher, Brockport, Rochester, RIT, Nazareth

(I realize Brockport is not in Rochester, but they are a "local" sports team and are covered as well as any of the schools actually in the city... so feel free to count similar schools for other cities).

[smedindy]

It's still not right to keep good teams on the sidelines in favor of others who reside in easier regions. It's the opposite argument that keeps worthy D-1 mid-major teams on the sidelines.

[Pat Coleman]

Bracket up, front page.

[Ralph Turner]

Okay, you have four teams and you can match 2 of them in pairings that have not occurred in recent history.

Why do you have UMHB playing Miss College again?  In the first round? For the third time this season!

You could have had Oxy playing Miss College and Maryville playing UMHB!