Around the Nation board

[Ralph Turner]

Keith and Pat,

Nice work on the conference rankings. Its always a favorite and promotes good discussions. I would like to see perhaps a regional ranking analysis? N,E,W,S. That would make for some good discussions/debates. Plus it would allow us North people to us MUC's success as and advantage instead of an obstacle every year! 

A few years ago the West was stacked with 4 of the top 10. On the boards you would see discussions of how the west was robbed by the seedings, they should move west teams to other regions, etc. we have had our share of this discussion in the North in years past and now this year you see several North teams in the top 10. The South has had some great teams too. All this to say it would be interesting to hear the gurus wax poetic on the various strengths of the regions.

just a thought.

Isn't that what the NCAA did last year, moving UWW to the North and MUC to the East?

By the way, do not consider me a D3 guru - not even close!!

+1!      Great comment!

Yes, the committee tried to move the best four team that they could find to the tops of their own brackets.

I will not impugn the coaches/AD's/Committee members that convene on this stuff.  They try to do the best that they can.

Usually my beef is the full-time NCAA support staff that is responsible for the background material.  We amateurs, we fans, should not be finding egregious errors in the Handbook and in the Selection processes as we have occasionally found.

[usee]

Keith and Pat,

Nice work on the conference rankings. Its always a favorite and promotes good discussions. I would like to see perhaps a regional ranking analysis? N,E,W,S. That would make for some good discussions/debates. Plus it would allow us North people to us MUC's success as and advantage instead of an obstacle every year! 

A few years ago the West was stacked with 4 of the top 10. On the boards you would see discussions of how the west was robbed by the seedings, they should move west teams to other regions, etc. we have had our share of this discussion in the North in years past and now this year you see several North teams in the top 10. The South has had some great teams too. All this to say it would be interesting to hear the gurus wax poetic on the various strengths of the regions.

just a thought.

Isn't that what the NCAA did last year, moving UWW to the North and MUC to the East?

By the way, do not consider me a D3 guru - not even close!!

No that's not what they did. They told us who they thought the TOP teams were but they didnt' tell us anything about the top REGIONS. I am merely suggesting a conversation about the strength of Regions the same way we look at conferences on a relative basis, i.e. top to bottom. I think it would be an interesting discussion semi regularly similarly to the conference ranking discussions.

And you are only an alleged "guru" if your screen name says so. 

[Ralph Turner]

Keith and Pat,

Nice work on the conference rankings. Its always a favorite and promotes good discussions. I would like to see perhaps a regional ranking analysis? N,E,W,S. That would make for some good discussions/debates. Plus it would allow us North people to us MUC's success as and advantage instead of an obstacle every year! 

A few years ago the West was stacked with 4 of the top 10. On the boards you would see discussions of how the west was robbed by the seedings, they should move west teams to other regions, etc. we have had our share of this discussion in the North in years past and now this year you see several North teams in the top 10. The South has had some great teams too. All this to say it would be interesting to hear the gurus wax poetic on the various strengths of the regions.

just a thought.

Isn't that what the NCAA did last year, moving UWW to the North and MUC to the East?

No that's not what they did. They told us who they thought the TOP teams were but they didnt' tell us anything about the top REGIONS. I am merely suggesting a conversation about the strength of Regions the same way we look at conferences on a relative basis, i.e. top to bottom. I think it would be an interesting discussion semi regularly similarly to the conference ranking discussions.

And you are only an alleged "guru" if your screen name says so. 

Daily Dose D3Keith at the 12:51 pm post


Yes.

Just talked to Pat. He said that he spoke to prominent members of the committee and a couple of points they emphasized (I believe this is stuff you might have already heard if you watched the show on the U):

[usee]

Ralph,

Sorry, I am not sure I understand your point. Forgive me if I misread this but I still don't see how you have responded to my point. I have previously read the daily dose postings from last year and am aware of the conversations between Pat and the committee members. I don't get how what they did last year with the top four seeds addresses a conversation about how the regions stack up top to bottom. Am I missing something?

[Ralph Turner]

Ralph,

Sorry, I am not sure I understand your point. Forgive me if I misread this but I still don't see how you have responded to my point. I have previously read the daily dose postings from last year and am aware of the conversations between Pat and the committee members. I don't get how what they did last year with the top four seeds addresses a conversation about how the regions stack up top to bottom. Am I missing something?

My bad! 

I would like for them to answer the same questions.

Thanks!   

My guess this year...

North -- MUC, CCIW
South -- ASC, SCAC, Muhlenberg
West -- WIAC and then up for grabs as perennial powers are toppling
East -- SJF is down a bit.

[usee]

Ralph,

Sorry, I am not sure I understand your point. Forgive me if I misread this but I still don't see how you have responded to my point. I have previously read the daily dose postings from last year and am aware of the conversations between Pat and the committee members. I don't get how what they did last year with the top four seeds addresses a conversation about how the regions stack up top to bottom. Am I missing something?

My bad! 

I would like for them to answer the same questions.

Thanks!   

My guess this year...

North -- MUC, CCIW
South -- ASC, SCAC, Muhlenberg
West -- WIAC and then up for grabs as perennial powers are toppling
East -- SJF is down a bit.

Thanks for the clarification. 

[Ralph Turner]

...

Thanks for the clarification. 

What about you?  Any thoughts, especially about the CCIW? 

[PA_wesleyfan]

Ralph,

Sorry, I am not sure I understand your point. Forgive me if I misread this but I still don't see how you have responded to my point. I have previously read the daily dose postings from last year and am aware of the conversations between Pat and the committee members. I don't get how what they did last year with the top four seeds addresses a conversation about how the regions stack up top to bottom. Am I missing something?

My bad! 

 

I would like for them to answer the same questions.

Thanks!   

My guess this year...

North -- MUC, CCIW
South -- ASC, SCAC, Muhlenberg
West -- WIAC and then up for grabs as perennial powers are toppling
East -- SJF is down a bit.

Ralph

  Does the way you have the south set for the top three make a first round game a one vs two because of the Texas bracket or can one of those conferences get a C bid which would put that team behind at least Muhlenburg which would possibly make it a two vs the C bid team?

[Ralph Turner]

No particular order in the South yet.

I also wonder which teams they may move to the East!

I think that Muhlenberg is on a roll.  Going 10-0 in that part of the country allows them to build a better OOWP than Texas.  It's an isolation thing. 

[PA_wesleyfan]

No particular order in the South yet.

I also wonder which teams they may move to the East!

I think that Muhlenberg is on a roll.  Going 10-0 in that part of the country allows them to build a better OOWP than Texas.  It's an isolation thing. 

Ah to be on an island! Wesley now embarks on there non DIII schedule. 
If something doesn't happen soon with a couple of things Wesley and Salisbury may not have any DIII opponents to play. Frostburg doesn't seem to want to play more than nine games and they caused the league championship to be pushed back at the leagues inception because they wouldn't change  their schedule. No love lost their

[usee]

...

Thanks for the clarification. 

What about you?  Any thoughts, especially about the CCIW? 

I think any discussion of the North past MUC has to include Capital. They have proven head to head to be better than the CCIW rep 2x in the past 3 yrs. I do think the CCIW has stepped up its quality of players, in particular the school from Naperville.  It remains to be seen if that translates into quality of play come playoff time. Until a CCIW team makes it to a regional final I don't think we will know.

[K-Mack]

To answer your question usee, more often than not we would've ranked the regions (just guessing off top here)

West
North
South
East

On the heels of last season and at least a third of the way through this one, that ranking would probably not be the same. It might even be:

North
South
West
East

Whaddya think? I can justify it, but I'm between things here at work.

Quickly ... Beyond MUC, you have Capital, North Central and Wheaton in the top 10. Wabash. Case hasn't beaten anyone great, but they're consistent.

South has UMHB, Millsaps, Muhlenberg, Wesley & Salisbury and HSU so far, among others. W&J and Trinity too ... all capable of playoff wins at least.

West and East really not home to too many dominant teams so far.

UWW and UWEC, and then Redlands really out west.

East ... the Empire 8 is jumbled, the MAC is tight but without a dominant team. LL too. We'll learn more about the NJAC this week. NEFC is what it is.

It can change week to week, but that's about where we are no? Who am I forgetting?

[usee]

Good thoughts Kmack. I guess it depends on how deep into the conferences you go to examine the regions. If you go too deep you'll run into the massive numbers of schools in the East region which will skew any analysis. If you look at just the top 3-5 teams in each region you may not get sufficient depth to get a feel for relative strength either.

I am NOT a data guy but here's an analysis I did FWIW: I looked at the D3 rankings and split it 2 ways. the first way is to take the number of schools ranked in the top 25 divided by their ranking to get an average regional rank. I came up with the following

Top 25:

West: 4 teams ranked with an average ranking of 12.24
North: 9 teams ranked with an average ranking of 12.4
South: 9 teams ranked with an average ranking of 13.0
East: 3 teams ranked with an average ranking of 15.6

If you expand this to the TOP 40 of the D3 poll the results are slightly different:

West: 9 teams ranked with average of  25.1
North: 12 teams ranked with average of 17.3
South: 10 teams ranked with average of 15.4
East: 9 teams ranked with average of 25.7

The top 40 is a larger sample and seems more indicative of your "best guess" results. Of course there may be countless teams interchangeable with the bottom 10 which would skew the data pretty significantly. I think the number of teams ranked in the top 25 this year from the North and the South is significant with the average ranking in that analysis slightly more compact. The TOP 40 analysis gives you a better sample of teams and widens out the average ranking.

[usee]

Another analysis I did, FWIW, is to look at the validity of the TOP 10 in the D3 poll. I looked at teams ranked in the TOP 10 of the D3 poll after week 1 of the poll (2003 through 2007). I looked to see where these teams were ranked after week 16 (which takes into account playoff performance) and how many of them ended up in the playoffs. Here is what I found:

2003:
6 out of 10 still ranked in TOP 10 week 16
8 out of 10 made playoffs

2004:
3 out of 10 still ranked in TOP 10 in week 16
5 out of 10 made playoffs

2005:
6 out of 10 still ranked in TOP 10 in week 16
8 out of 10 made playoffs

2006:
6 out of 10 still ranked in TOP 10 in week 16
9 out of 10 made playoffs

2007:
7 out of 10 still ranked in TOP 10 in week 16
7 out of 10 made playoffs

[Mr. Ypsi]

I got a plaintive cry from usee to come to this board, since I'm a retired statistician!

As far as the 'validity' of the polls, with the possible exception of 2004, clearly they do a very good job (though the poll 1 to poll 16 comparison is more 'reliability' than 'validity').  Since week 1 is still largely guesswork, a comparison of week 4 or 5 to 16 might be a better test.

As to the regional comparisons, I noted one computation error (not that I've pulled the original data!): the South averages for top 25 OR top 40 cannot be correct, since that added team in the South was, by definition, somewhere beyond 25, so the top 40 average has to be larger than the top 25 average.

The data presented gives a pretty compelling case that Keith got the order right.  Note a potential problem with the averages, however: the more teams ranked in a region, almost inevitably the higher the average will be.  A cleaner comparison of the averages might be to use only the 6 (or 8 or whatever) highest ranked teams in each region - without having computed the actual numbers, I strongly suspect this would give a very clear ranking (almost certainly the same ranking that Keith gave).