Top 25 talk

[sac]

I don't remember where Albion was at the end of season poll going into the tournament, but I'm quite certain from seeing them in person and seeing 7 other tournament teams that Albion could have done very well in the tournament and were probably among the best 60 teams in the country.

However because of the way the selection process works with regard to Pool C's, Albion was never even discussed as a candidate.

In the case of a stronger than average region (historically the GL, MW, and West) its perfectly reasonable to see one of those schools ranked and not make the tournament, because the tournament does not select THE 60 or so best teams it selects automatic qualifiers some who make it by winning their conference tournament and at large schools that are then selected using regional criteria not national.

I'm not sure what the beef is about the top 25 poll,

[David Collinge]

I don't remember where Albion was at the end of season poll going into the tournament, but I'm quite certain from seeing them in person and seeing 7 other tournament teams that Albion could have done very well in the tournament and were probably among the best 60 teams in the country.

Albion was #21 in the final regular season poll.  They went 2-2 in their last 4 games, dropping from 8th to 11th to 21st.  In the final GL Regional Rankings, Albion was not ranked.  The last GL rankings were as follows, with their final reg. season D3hoops.com top 25 rankings for illustrative purposes:
1. Wooster (5)
2. Calvin (12)
3. Hope (2)
4. Wittenberg (3)
5. Baldwin-Wallace (6)
6. Carnegie Mellon (23)
All six made the tournament; Wooster and Calvin via Pool C, the other four as conference champions.

Sac is correct that Albion was a victim of the geographic squeeze the selection process routinely causes.

[sac]

As Dave pointed out, Albion wasn't ranked in the final regional poll.  To be considered for a Pool C slot I believe you have to be ranked in your region.

There are regions who get to rank 10 teams, 8 teams and 7 teams.  This system alone will breed situations where teams that should make the tournament won't because the regions are imbalanced in # of schools ranked.

[golden_dome]

As Dave pointed out, Albion wasn't ranked in the final regional poll.  To be considered for a Pool C slot I believe you have to be ranked in your region.

There are regions who get to rank 10 teams, 8 teams and 7 teams.  This system alone will breed situations where teams that should make the tournament won't because the regions are imbalanced in # of schools ranked.

I don't think you have to be ranked to receive a Pool C. I am pretty sure I remember ranked teams from certain regions passed over for unranked teams from others. Here is what I found in the NCAA manual.

3. Pool C will be reserved for institutions from automatic-qualifying conferences that are not their conference champion and the remaining teams in Pool B.
4. Berths from Pools B and C will be selected on a national basis, using regional selection criteria. There will be no predetermined regional allocations for Pools B and C.
5. There will be no maximum or minimum number of berths from one region.

[PrideSportBBallGuy]

Pat-

First of all, tell me who CNU beat to get that 25th spot one week.  I know they went ahead and lost two games right after that week.  They then beat Fisk (now 2-10) and Oswego St. (now 7-6).  I am not to sure what pace CNU was on.

Anyone else-

I applied my "formula" to the USASouth standings (last year) and the first 5 were in the exact order as they finished 6 and 7 were flipped-flopped, I believe it was because the 7th place team did get more out of conference wins then the 6th place win.  I have been using it all year as my weekly power ranking for the conference.  I have applied it and I think it works. 

[Pat Coleman]

Applying a formula to seven or eight teams who play fairly similar schedules is one thing.

Applying it to a nation of teams and ignoring strength of schedule leaves you with a final four team not in your ranking.

[Ralph Turner]

As Dave pointed out, Albion wasn't ranked in the final regional poll.  To be considered for a Pool C slot I believe you have to be ranked in your region.

There are regions who get to rank 10 teams, 8 teams and 7 teams.  This system alone will breed situations where teams that should make the tournament won't because the regions are imbalanced in # of schools ranked.

I don't think you have to be ranked to receive a Pool C. I am pretty sure I remember ranked teams from certain regions passed over for unranked teams from others. Here is what I found in the NCAA manual.

3. Pool C will be reserved for institutions from automatic-qualifying conferences that are not their conference champion and the remaining teams in Pool B.
4. Berths from Pools B and C will be selected on a national basis, using regional selection criteria. There will be no predetermined regional allocations for Pools B and C.
5. There will be no maximum or minimum number of berths from one region.

Chris, the Great Lakes gets crunched in that the evaluation formula only evaluates at a ratio of 1:6.5.  For the 41 teams in the Great Lakes region, that permits 6 to be regionally ranked.

Let's run a sample regional ranking on the team records as of this minute.  For discussion sake, let's rank the Great Lakes Region.

1)  Ohio Northern OAC
2)  Wooster  NCAC
3)  Wittenberg NCAC
4)  Hope MIAA
5)  Baldwin Wallace OAC
6)  Bethany Pres AC is likely to have the criteria by the stats.


We have a very good region and not much room for the talented 2nd and 3rd place teams that we haven't listed.  The talent in basketball in this part of the country is such that there are more teams that fit into the measure of quality that the 1:6.5 ratio implies.  When it comes time for Pool C bids, those other Great Lakes teams are just "off the table".  The assertion is that the 6th best team in the Great lakes might be the 3rd best team in the South.  When the bids are doled out, the committee assumes that the #6 in the Great Lakes is better than the #3 in the South and should have gotten the bid.

We are going to see it when the Pool system extends to Golf (I think in 2007.  We ASC schmucks will see Pool A bids going to northern schools and our better ASC squads will be sitting home!       

Golfstat  thru 12-13-2006.


Most of the southern and western schools have not had their formal season (the spring) yet.  The rankings in the Golfstat reflect the non-traditional season for those schools.

[golden_dome]

I could be missing something here, but I have never understood why the different regions have different numbers of regionally ranked teams. I know it is based on the 1:6.5 formula but it really does not matter when NCAA selection comes around because loaded regions like the Great Lakes will get more than the six that are ranked.

It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall when they put the bracket together since the manual already states they will arrange it to have the fewest flights possible. I would like to know exactly how much the rankings do mean in determining home games, particularly in the GL where teams are already in close proximity. After travel, do they look at possible revenue first or the merit of each team.

[Pat Coleman]

The reason that is important is because games against regionally ranked teams is part of the selection criteria. With that in mind it seems reasonable that only a certain percentage of each region should be ranked.

I think there are three main things: is the facility up to standards, travel, and seeding.

[David Collinge]

Travel/pairings and selection are separate subjects (at least in theory, and I believe in practice as well.)  The #7 GL team is not going to be selected over the #3 South team for reasons of flight avoidance.

The way the selection process works is that the Pool A teams are determined, then the Pool B berths are allocated according to the criteria, and then everyone left is lumped into Pool C, separated by region.  The region rankings are re-calculated in a "secret poll" not released to the public.  Then the top-ranked un-selected team in each of the eight regions are presented, and one is selected according to the criteria and awarded a Pool C bid.  The next-highest-ranked team in that team's region then moves up to the "table," and is compared with the top team in the other seven regions, and another team is selected.  This process continues until all of the Pool C bids are allocated.  At no time are there any more or any fewer than eight teams, one per region, under active consideration.

I don't believe there is anything in the Handbook, or in practice, that says that once a region's publishable ranking list is exhausted, that region sends forth no more candidates.  I'd be very surprised if that were the case.  In any case, I don't think the "secret" final rankings are limited to the 1:6.5 ratio.

We don't have the "secret" final regional rankings from last year, but using the last published one (Feb. 22), we see that Hope, Wittenberg, Baldwin-Wallace, and Carnegie Mellon all received GL Pool A bids (as did Lake Erie, who would have been either the #7 or #8 GL team according to the criteria).  So when the Pool C process began, the GL team on the table was Wooster.  They were probably selected pretty quickly, to be replaced at the table by Hope.  They too were an easy pick, and the next-highest ranked GL team moved up into the discussion.  That was almost certainly Albion, at #7 or #8 in the "secret" ranking.  There was a substantial gap between Hope and Albion in terms of the criteria, as is evidenced by the 4 or 5 teams that were between them in the GL rankings.  Albion sat there as team after team from other regions were selected, filling out the tournament field.  We'll never know how close they came to being selected; maybe they would have been the next team, maybe not.  But the fact that they were a relatively low-ranked team (in the regional rankings, not the top 25 poll) had to work against them, at least in terms of when they reached the table, and they were a relatively low-ranked team because they were in such a strong region.

[sac]

Nicely explained DC

In the middle of your PoolC selection process

They were probably selected pretty quickly, to be replaced at the table by Hope. 

I believe you meant Calvin.  My conversation with someone last spring led me to believe Albion never made the table.   But we'll never know.

[David Collinge]

Nicely explained DC

In the middle of your PoolC selection process

They were probably selected pretty quickly, to be replaced at the table by Hope. 

I believe you meant Calvin.  My conversation with someone last spring led me to believe Albion never made the table.   But we'll never know.

I did mean Calvin; sorry.  Hope, Calvin, what's the difference?

If Albion "never made the table," that means one of two things:
1) There was some other GL team with better credentials than Albion, not including Wooster, Calvin, Hope, Witt, B-W, CMU, Lake Erie, or Bethany (Pool B)--if so, it would have been whoever was 2nd in the OAC last season (memory fails.)  EDIT: would have been Ohio Northern
OR
2) There really is a cap on pool C by region, limited by the 1:6.5 ratio, and after Wooster and Calvin got picked, no other GL teams were considered.  I don't believe that's the case, but it's just a belief on my part.

FWIW, in the D3Hoops.com mock selection meeting, Albion was on the table when the last Pool C bid was made (to UW-La Crosse.)  Nine non-GL teams were selected while Albion sat and watched (i.e., after Calvin was taken).

[Ralph Turner]

Travel/pairings and selection are separate subjects (at least in theory, and I believe in practice as well.)  The #7 GL team is not going to be selected over the #3 South team for reasons of flight avoidance.

The way the selection process works is that the Pool A teams are determined, then the Pool B berths are allocated according to the criteria, and then everyone left is lumped into Pool C, separated by region.  The region rankings are re-calculated in a "secret poll" not released to the public.  Then the top-ranked un-selected team in each of the eight regions are presented, and one is selected according to the criteria and awarded a Pool C bid.  The next-highest-ranked team in that team's region then moves up to the "table," and is compared with the top team in the other seven regions, and another team is selected.  This process continues until all of the Pool C bids are allocated.  At no time are there any more or any fewer than eight teams, one per region, under active consideration.

I don't believe there is anything in the Handbook, or in practice, that says that once a region's publishable ranking list is exhausted, that region sends forth no more candidates.  I'd be very surprised if that were the case.  In any case, I don't think the "secret" final rankings are limited to the 1:6.5 ratio.

We don't have the "secret" final regional rankings from last year, but using the last published one (Feb. 22), we see that Hope, Wittenberg, Baldwin-Wallace, and Carnegie Mellon all received GL Pool A bids (as did Lake Erie, who would have been either the #7 or #8 GL team according to the criteria).  So when the Pool C process began, the GL team on the table was Wooster.  They were probably selected pretty quickly, to be replaced at the table by Hope.  They too were an easy pick, and the next-highest ranked GL team moved up into the discussion.  That was almost certainly Albion, at #7 or #8 in the "secret" ranking.  There was a substantial gap between Hope and Albion in terms of the criteria, as is evidenced by the 4 or 5 teams that were between them in the GL rankings.  Albion sat there as team after team from other regions were selected, filling out the tournament field.  We'll never know how close they came to being selected; maybe they would have been the next team, maybe not.  But the fact that they were a relatively low-ranked team (in the regional rankings, not the top 25 poll) had to work against them, at least in terms of when they reached the table, and they were a relatively low-ranked team because they were in such a strong region.

+1 David,

Here is Pat's Daily Dose from last February,

and the Pool C Message Board conversation from that time as well.  Please scroll back a few posts as you need to read the best guesses that we were making last year.

[Ralph Turner]

I have refreshed my memory on Albion.  They did not play enough Great Lakes region games (only 16), they lost too many (4), and their QOWI was too weak (9.125).

Had they won 1 more In-Region game (13-3), they would have picked up 8 more Index points and their QOWI would have been 9.625.  That makes a stronger case.  Or, if Albion had found just 4 more games against Great Lakes region teams that were .500 winning percentage, and won all four, 2 on the road, 2 at home they would have finished with QOWI of 9.8 and a regional record of 16-4.  The UDallas and LaGrange wins probably knocked them out, because they weren't in-region.  And, playing NAIA's such as Concordia-Michigan, Spring Arbor and Michigan-Dearborn serve not purpose towards the tourney.

This year, the DePauw game would be in-region, and Tri-State games count.

The Handbook has been the same for several years now with only minor tweaking.  This year's handbook with its in-region additions and the Tri-State progression thru Provisional status really helps.

[Pat Coleman]

I guess I should mention here when the poll is out.

http://www.d3hoops.com/top25/