Pool C

pabegg · January 21, 2009, 06:44:53 AM

The single A represents teams that are below the "third tier" (teams that would be ranked from 29 to 38 in Pool C). These are schools who have the best rating in their conference but almost no chance of a Pool C bid.

Similarly, the lines with blanks represent teams that have almost no shot of a Pool C who aren't the top ranked conference team.

I guess I've never had the situation in the past where one of these teams made the ranking list and so I hadn't included that in the legend. Each year there are about 7 or 8 conferences who fall into this category.

Ralph Turner · January 21, 2009, 09:18:58 AM

I like the poll at the top, but I wish that there were a third choice...

Which ever way that conference wishes to handle the bid.

The tourney keeps teams playing. Players can still hope for the magical run.

However, I honestly believe that George Fox earned a Pool C bid in baseball last year, because they did not sustain 2 losses in a post-season tourney. That kept the winning percentage that much higher.

As we get closer to tournament time, please remember that post-season tournament loss will drop a team reasonably far, unless they have a very good in-region percentage going into the tourney!

Greek Tragedy · January 21, 2009, 10:38:04 AM

I believe that's the main reason why the WIAC gave the 1st and 2nd seeds byes this year...a 6-team tourney, instead of 8.

sac · January 21, 2009, 10:53:06 AM

Quote from: Old School.... (Tom Doebler) on January 21, 2009, 10:38:04 AM
I believe that's the main reason why the WIAC gave the 1st and 2nd seeds byes this year...a 6-team tourney, instead of 8.

Is it right to assume the idea was to give the 1 and 2 seeds a better chance at advancing? or was it strictly to cut down on the expense of running two more games?

I like the 6 team format over the 4 team format(CCIW), but I still prefer a whole conference get to participate.

Hugenerd · January 21, 2009, 11:17:09 AM

Quote from: Old School.... (Tom Doebler) on January 21, 2009, 10:38:04 AM
I believe that's the main reason why the WIAC gave the 1st and 2nd seeds byes this year...a 6-team tourney, instead of 8.

That comment doesnt really make sense. The two last place teams arent going to have a chance at an at large either way. The top six still have to play in the tourney and 5 of them will sustain losses. The six team tourney may even hurt the top two teams because it will decrease their in-region winning percentage by having potentially one less win.

sac · January 21, 2009, 11:20:09 AM

Quote from: hugenerd on January 21, 2009, 11:17:09 AM
Quote from: Old School.... (Tom Doebler) on January 21, 2009, 10:38:04 AM
I believe that's the main reason why the WIAC gave the 1st and 2nd seeds byes this year...a 6-team tourney, instead of 8.

That comment doesnt really make sense. The two last place teams arent going to have a chance at an at large either way. The top six still have to play in the tourney and 5 of them will sustain losses. The six team tourney may even hurt the top two teams because it will decrease their in-region winning percentage by having potentially one less win.

I believe it would help because they wouldn't be playing the 7th or 8th seeded teams, thus not hurting their OWP and OOWP numbers

Its sad that NCAA bids come down to math.

Hugenerd · January 21, 2009, 11:23:04 AM

Quote from: sac on January 21, 2009, 11:20:09 AM
Quote from: hugenerd on January 21, 2009, 11:17:09 AM
Quote from: Old School.... (Tom Doebler) on January 21, 2009, 10:38:04 AM
I believe that's the main reason why the WIAC gave the 1st and 2nd seeds byes this year...a 6-team tourney, instead of 8.

That comment doesnt really make sense. The two last place teams arent going to have a chance at an at large either way. The top six still have to play in the tourney and 5 of them will sustain losses. The six team tourney may even hurt the top two teams because it will decrease their in-region winning percentage by having potentially one less win.

I believe it would help because they wouldn't be playing the 7th or 8th seeded teams, thus not hurting their OWP and OOWP numbers

Its sad that NCAA bids come down to math.

Yeah, but isnt OWP and OOWP secondary criteria and your in-region record primary criteria?

Pat Coleman · January 21, 2009, 11:36:33 AM

No, they're all primary criteria.

Hugenerd · January 21, 2009, 11:39:34 AM

Quote from: Pat Coleman on January 21, 2009, 11:36:33 AM
No, they're all primary criteria.

Pat,

So which would you think would be better, to have one more in-region win (and a higher winning percentage) or a slightly higher OWP?

Pat Coleman · January 21, 2009, 12:05:46 PM

I am not sure we've seen enough data to really know, but it seems the last couple years that high winning percentages with low opponents' numbers are not enough to get in. That's just an anecdotal observation, though.

Wheaton (Ill.) getting in last year with a strong schedule and lower winning percentage is a good example.

Hugenerd · January 21, 2009, 12:32:27 PM

Quote from: Pat Coleman on January 21, 2009, 12:05:46 PM
I am not sure we've seen enough data to really know, but it seems the last couple years that high winning percentages with low opponents' numbers are not enough to get in. That's just an anecdotal observation, though.

Wheaton (Ill.) getting in last year with a strong schedule and lower winning percentage is a good example.

Although I guess 1 game out of 27 or 28 (with conference tourney games) would not have that large of an effect on either OWP or in-region winning percentage.

John Gleich · January 21, 2009, 01:18:55 PM

Quote from: hugenerd on January 21, 2009, 11:17:09 AM
Quote from: Old School.... (Tom Doebler) on January 21, 2009, 10:38:04 AM
I believe that's the main reason why the WIAC gave the 1st and 2nd seeds byes this year...a 6-team tourney, instead of 8.

That comment doesnt really make sense. The two last place teams arent going to have a chance at an at large either way. The top six still have to play in the tourney and 5 of them will sustain losses. The six team tourney may even hurt the top two teams because it will decrease their in-region winning percentage by having potentially one less win.

The 7 and 8 seeds have won 3 of the 20 matchups between 1/8 and 2/7 in the 10 year history of the WIAC tourney, including #2 Platteville losing to #7 Eau Claire last season. Those games have been rather competitive, actually, with 12 of the remaining 17 outcomes being by 15 points or less. 15 seems like a fairly large margin... but these are the top two and 2/3 of the bottom 3 teams in the WIAC. It would seem that these games would be by a wider margin, but that does go to show the parity in the WIAC.

I posted a more extensive discussion about the new 6-team format HERE on the WIAC page.

And just my two cents... I think this will just solidify the top two teams as the ones who win the tourney and the auto-bid. The top seeds have won 6 tourney titles, with the 2 seed winning two and the 4 seed winning the other two.

Getting back to the original point, though...

Let's look at some numbers.

I'll take Stevens Point's numbers as they currently stand for OWP and OOWP and I'll project that they will lose one game the rest of the season and have the #1 seed in the conference tourney, just for discussion.

Point is currently at 13-2 with 10 reg season games remaining, so let's say they end the year at 22-3. OWP and OOWP are 0.6368 0.5506 respectively.

In the 8-team tourney, let's say they would play River Falls (projected 10-15), Oshkosh (projected 15-11 with first round win) and Platteville (projected 24-4 with first and second and third round win), beating RF and Oshkosh but losing to Platteville in the final.

Point's record would be 24-4, OWP would be at .6331... OWP goes down and winning percentage goes from .88 to .857

In the 6-team tourney, Point plays Oshkosh (15-11 first round win) and loses to Platteville (23-4 first round bye, second round win, third round win).

Point is now 23-4, OWP would be at .6421, it actually goes up, and winning percentage goes from .88 to .8518.

UWSP would be a lock with these numbers... so the point is relatively moot, and I did make several assumptions... the main one being that the OWP for all regular season opponents would remain constant throughout the WIAC tourney. This, of course, is not an assumption that really can be made... because the OWP won't stay the same for ANY team... it's going to fluctuate with each and every game. It also assumes that Point plays the highest possible (projected) seeded teams. With a first round upset of a #5 seed of, say, Eau Claire over Oshkosh, that's a lower win percentage team in round two... and if there is an upset in the second round by any team other than (projected) 3 seed Whitewater, there will be a more dramatic drop to the OWP.

The second assumption I made was that overall record is synonymous with regional record. That is not true either, so these numbers are skewed in that regard to... likely in a negative way, as the WIAC has beaten their non-D3 opponents pretty handily this year, as usual... and they don't play too many out of region games with D3 opponents.

pabegg · January 26, 2009, 10:38:52 AM

Here are my updated approximations to the regional rankings for games through 1/25.

Reg Conf Rank Prior RPI OWP OOWP School Natl Status Reg Overall
NE 16 01 01 0.6330 0.5338 0.5268 Middlebury 003 A w C 15-1 16-2
NE 17 02 04 0.6371 0.5617 0.5499 Worcester Polytech 008 A w C 14-2 14-3
NE 13 03 02 0.6261 0.5605 0.5262 Mass-Dartmouth 015 A w C 12-2 14-2
NE 14 04 05 0.6140 0.5586 0.5260 Salem State 024 A w C 13-3 14-3
NE 17 05 06 0.5900 0.4881 0.5268 MIT 026 C 8 12-2 13-4
NE 18 06 07 0.5688 0.4187 0.5044 Elms 028 B 1 14-1 15-1
NE 16 07 03 0.5857 0.4562 0.5732 Amherst 029 C 10 12-2 14-2
NE 14 08 nr 0.5915 0.5329 0.5312 Bridgewater State 044 C 19 10-3 11-5
NE 16 09 13 0.5972 0.5544 0.5300 Colby 045 C 20 9-3 12-4
NE 12 10 nr 0.6020 0.5774 0.5199 Lasell 047 A second 11-4 11-4
NE 13 11 nr 0.5839 0.5276 0.5303 Rhode Island College 052 C 23 12-4 12-4
NE 16 12 09 0.5753 0.4890 0.5453 Williams 053 C 24 14-4 14-5
NE 90 13 12 0.6252 0.6337 0.5457 Brandeis 054 C 26 11-5 11-5

EA 21 01 01 0.6317 0.5229 0.5523 Ithaca 006 A w C 13-1 15-1
EA 24 02 02 0.6217 0.5396 0.5076 Hamilton 011 A w C 9-1 11-4
EA 21 03 04 0.6035 0.5110 0.5460 St. John Fisher 020 C 5 11-2 14-2
EA 90 04 05 0.6136 0.5656 0.5376 New York University 027 C 9 11-3 13-3
EA 90 05 03 0.6232 0.5982 0.5463 Rochester 036 C 13 12-4 12-4
EA 21 06 nr 0.6004 0.5812 0.5468 Rochester Tech 058 C 29 9-4 12-4
EA 24 07 07 0.5985 0.5926 0.5165 St. Lawrence 060 C 31 9-4 11-4
EA 23 08 09 0.5836 0.5346 0.5510 Oneonta State 062 A third 10-4 12-5

AT 32 01 01 0.6255 0.5536 0.5198 Richard Stockton 012 A w C 14-2 17-2
AT 33 02 03 0.5794 0.4801 0.4827 SUNY-Farmingdale 030 A w C 14-2 14-2
AT 32 03 02 0.5794 0.4911 0.5121 William Paterson 043 C 18 14-3 14-3
AT 31 04 04 0.5672 0.4859 0.4847 Baruch 050 A second 13-3 15-4
AT 33 05 05 0.5409 0.4030 0.5003 St. Joseph's (L.I.) 065 C 34 12-2 13-2
AT 32 06 07 0.5623 0.5425 0.4974 Montclair State 079 10-5 13-5
AT 31 07 06 0.5244 0.4068 0.5064 Brooklyn 090 14-4 14-4
AT 31 08 08 0.5169 0.4376 0.5047 Lehman 125 11-5 13-5

MA 45 01 01 0.6344 0.5600 0.5510 Franklin and Marshall 010 A w C 13-2 14-2
MA 41 02 09 0.5872 0.4750 0.4989 Wesley 021 C 6 9-1 11-5
MA 43 03 06 0.5898 0.4863 0.5115 DeSales 022 A w C 14-2 15-2
MA 45 04 03 0.6163 0.5726 0.5508 McDaniel 032 C 11 10-3 12-4
MA 45 05 04 0.5949 0.5149 0.5501 Gettysburg 037 C 14 12-3 12-3
MA 41 06 02 0.5846 0.5045 0.4963 St. Mary's (Md.) 038 A w C 10-2 13-4
MA 44 07 05 0.5636 0.4154 0.5070 Gwynedd-Mercy 039 A w C 11-1 12-2
MA 42 08 08 0.5961 0.5658 0.5193 Widener 049 A second 11-4 13-4
MA 45 09 07 0.5812 0.5338 0.5241 Johns Hopkins 056 C 27 11-4 11-5
MA 46 10 nr 0.5462 0.4883 0.5024 Scranton 081 B 2 125 13-5
MA 46 11 10 0.5338 0.4528 0.5025 Catholic 089 B 3 83 14-4

SO 54 01 02 0.6077 0.4826 0.5372 Trinity (Texas) 014 A w C 13-1 16-1
SO 51 02 01 0.6129 0.5281 0.5287 Texas-Dallas 018 A w C 13-2 15-2
SO 51 03 04 0.6040 0.5268 0.5165 McMurry 019 C 4 11-2 12-4
SO 54 04 07 0.5923 0.5306 0.5223 Centre 041 C 16 11-3 14-3
SO 53 05 03 0.5621 0.4081 0.5157 Randolph-Macon 042 C 17 11-1 13-4
SO 53 06 05 0.5742 0.5016 0.5244 Roanoke 055 A second 10-3 15-3
SO 53 07 06 0.5738 0.5186 0.5079 Guilford 059 C 30 12-4 13-4
SO 55 08 11 0.5718 0.5433 0.5006 Christopher Newport 075 A 7-3 11-6
SO 51 09 08 0.5599 0.5036 0.5180 LeTourneau 076 104 11-6
SO 54 10 09 0.5523 0.4877 0.5195 DePauw 078 10-4 13-5
SO 53 11 nr 0.5474 0.5112 0.5004 Washington and Lee 087 84 12-4

GL 64 01 02 0.6281 0.5303 0.5185 Capital 004 A w C 14-1 16-1
GL 90 02 03 0.6407 0.6031 0.5383 Carnegie Mellon 017 C 3 9-2 13-3
GL 62 03 01 0.5894 0.5148 0.4945 Calvin 031 A w C 5-1 10-6
GL 64 04 04 0.5860 0.5215 0.5318 John Carroll 048 C 21 10-3 12-4
GL 62 05 07 0.5883 0.5722 0.4944 Hope 057 C 28 5-2 12-5
GL 63 06 06 0.5594 0.4722 0.5077 Wooster 061 A third 11-3 12-5
GL 64 07 05 0.5772 0.5373 0.5200 Ohio Northern 064 C 33 10-4 12-5
GL 63 08 09 0.5418 0.4693 0.4954 Hiram 080 11-4 12-5
GL 61 09 08 0.5391 0.4814 0.4791 Penn State-Behrend 084 A 10-4 11-6

MW 90 01 02 0.6374 0.5385 0.5392 Washington U. 002 A w C 14-1 15-1
MW 71 02 01 0.6415 0.5805 0.5591 Wheaton (Ill.) 013 A w C 11-2 15-2
MW 72 03 04 0.6105 0.5500 0.5089 Transylvania 023 A w C 10-2 13-4
MW 71 04 03 0.6370 0.6165 0.5456 North Central 025 C 7 10-3 12-5
MW 71 05 07 0.6244 0.5918 0.5494 Elmhurst 033 C 12 13-4 13-4
MW 74 06 05 0.5674 0.4108 0.5193 St. Norbert 034 A w C 13-1 14-1
MW 74 07 06 0.5883 0.5007 0.5391 Carroll 040 C 15 13-3 13-3
MW 71 08 11 0.5834 0.5007 0.5675 Augustana 051 C 22 13-4 14-4
MW 71 09 08 0.6201 0.6542 0.5355 Carthage 066 C 35 7-4 12-5
MW 71 10 09 0.5641 0.5000 0.5420 Millikin 069 C 38 104 12-5
MW 72 11 10 0.5629 0.5104 0.5168 Anderson 071 104 13-5

WE 82 01 01 0.6448 0.5266 0.5261 St. Thomas 001 A w C 16-0 17-0
WE 86 02 03 0.6788 0.6390 0.5548 UW-Stevens Point 005 A w C 15-2 15-2
WE 83 03 02 0.6180 0.4602 0.5516 Puget Sound 007 A w C 12-0 15-2
WE 86 04 05 0.6496 0.5898 0.5725 UW-Platteville 009 C 1 11-2 16-2
WE 86 05 04 0.6473 0.5983 0.5690 UW-Whitewater 016 C 2 14-3 15-3
WE 81 06 06 0.5796 0.4653 0.5211 Buena Vista 035 A w C 13-2 16-2
WE 82 07 11 0.5601 0.5007 0.5059 Bethel 068 C 37 11-4 13-4
WE 83 08 07 0.5624 0.5052 0.5249 Whitworth 072 10-4 13-4
WE 84 09 08 0.5302 0.4505 0.4699 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 083 A 9-3 11-5
WE 83 10 09 0.5747 0.5680 0.5629 Lewis and Clark 086 6-4 12-5
WE 84 11 10 0.5217 0.4057 0.4898 Cal Lutheran 092 11-3 13-4

Reg Region
Conf Conference number
Rank Regional ranking
Prior Prior regional ranking
School
Natl National ranking based on regional results
Status
B + number: Pool B ranking (top 4 in tournament)
C + number: Pool C ranking of 18 teams in tournament
C second: second tier Pool C (spots 19-28)
C third: third tier Pool C (spots 29-38)
A w C: Pool A, in likely Pool C range (1 to 13)
A second: Pool A, in second tier Pool C
A third: Pool A, in third tier Pool C
A: lower level Pool A
blank: lower level Pool C

Big move this week by Wesley, but not a lot of change from last week otherwise.

If you're extra observant, you might notice that the table contains the "prior ranking" column that wasn't there last week.

Greek Tragedy · January 28, 2009, 01:42:55 AM

7 days before the 1st regional rankings come out! Wahoo!!! (Wed. Feb. 4)

Greek Tragedy · January 28, 2009, 01:44:17 AM

Quote from: sac on January 20, 2009, 02:24:23 PM
Which means one less bye to work with, or around.

I'm guessing that far west team won't get that undeserved bye.