Pool C

[smedindy]

You have to have some nuance, though. It's elitist to think that a team isolated in geography, without a grand travel budget, and a large conference schedule can merely 'schedule tough teams and beat them.'

Then, what can happen is that teams may not give chances to some teams because they're not PERCEIVED to be 'tough' when in reality they are not easy outs.

The 'avoidance' factor doesn't happen as much as D-3 as it does in D-1, but you really need to take conference, geography, travel budgets, rivals and other considerations into account before segregating teams as 'tough' or 'weak' based on an unbending, unyielding hard-and-fast rule.

I'd much rather have a Birmingham Southern try to prove itself in the tourney after an untimely upset than a mid-pack team from a power conference. That adds flavor and color and gives hope to those who are unfairly tarred as 'weak' because of where they are, the conference they are in, and the fact they don't have the $$$ to go everywhere to play.

[sac]

knight,
A computer formula would be a disaster, because then you have a huge fight over what to use.  lets look at a D1 bubble team: RPI has Oral Roberts 40, Sagarin has them 68th, pomeroy 89th.  All are respected formulas and its across the board.  And if you settle on one formula, then teams schedule solely to meet that formula.  Or worse, you penalize top teams in horrible conferences that get upset in conf tourney.

Teams are already scheduling (or trying) to meet the SOS demands in D3.  There are plenty of teams out there who schedule teams that will end up with gaudy looking records because they play in a weaker conference.

[KnightSlappy]

You have to have some nuance, though. It's elitist to think that a team isolated in geography, without a grand travel budget, and a large conference schedule can merely 'schedule tough teams and beat them.'

Then, what can happen is that teams may not give chances to some teams because they're not PERCEIVED to be 'tough' when in reality they are not easy outs.

The 'avoidance' factor doesn't happen as much as D-3 as it does in D-1, but you really need to take conference, geography, travel budgets, rivals and other considerations into account before segregating teams as 'tough' or 'weak' based on an unbending, unyielding hard-and-fast rule.

I'd much rather have a Birmingham Southern try to prove itself in the tourney after an untimely upset than a mid-pack team from a power conference. That adds flavor and color and gives hope to those who are unfairly tarred as 'weak' because of where they are, the conference they are in, and the fact they don't have the $$$ to go everywhere to play.

If you want to factor in "isolation"? Fine. Define it with a numerical value. Do you want to factor in $$$? Define it with a numerical value. Do you want to add in a bonus for teams with all of their players' last names starting with "W"? Go ahead. But define what you want to do. And then do it. Fairly. Across the board.

We're ending up with an objective list, so let's take subjective decisions out of it.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

You could NEVER come up with numerical values for a lot of these things... and then to have a guidance for each committee to use for weight... when each region is vastly different with teams, conferences, travel, expanse, etc.... just isn't fair. Not to mention the fact... the NE has TONS of schools which has a major impact on say something like vRRO... while the East has very few. This impacts how many teams can be ranked in the first place... and those what those results are. You can't then expect those committees to weight information like vRRO exactly the same. That is why there isn't an weight system on the criteria... there are too many other factors each committee individually have to consider in their regions to interpret what their SOS, vRRO, etc. actually mean.

[smedindy]

You can't put a number on many factors that is fair and right and true and just. It changes year over year, program to program, region to region.

You have to have a human element, otherwise you just have soulless number-crunching without the ability to bribe your way out of the gulag.

[ziggy]

You could NEVER come up with numerical values for a lot of these things... and then to have a guidance for each committee to use for weight... when each region is vastly different with teams, conferences, travel, expanse, etc.... just isn't fair. Not to mention the fact... the NE has TONS of schools which has a major impact on say something like vRRO... while the East has very few. This impacts how many teams can be ranked in the first place... and those what those results are. You can't then expect those committees to weight information like vRRO exactly the same. That is why there isn't an weight system on the criteria... there are too many other factors each committee individually have to consider in their regions to interpret what their SOS, vRRO, etc. actually mean.

I agree with Dave and the conclusion that leads me to is that the regional approach is broken. How to reconcile that with the stated goals of Division III is the overarching problem.

[KnightSlappy]

You could NEVER come up with numerical values for a lot of these things...

But that's exactly what we're doing we're doing currently.

4. Illinois Wesleyan
5. Lake Forest

or

Pool C #19 St Joe's
Pool C #20 Wesleyan

or whatever. They're currently taking all of the factors -- even the supposedly 'unquatifyable' ones -- and coming out with an ordered list. It would be impossible to do that without quantifying everything (even if it currently happens implicitly).

How could you weigh un-numberable factors against each other and ever come up with a conclusion?

[Titan Q]

I feel comfortable with the evolution of the selection process and where things stand today.  I don't want the 100% subjective "good ole boy" process we had as recently as 14-15 years ago, but I also don't want a 100% objective (computer-based) process. 

I think we have a process now that, assuming 19 Pool C bids, results in about 14 very clear cut picks...and then about 5 judgement calls, based on data.  I'm very comfortable with Division III athletics personnel (coaches, AD's), who are carefully and intentionally chosen for the roles, making these judgement calls. 

[ziggy]

I feel comfortable with the evolution of the selection process and where things stand today.  I don't want the 100% subjective "good ole boy" process we had as recently as 14-15 years ago, but I also don't want a 100% objective (computer-based) process. 

I think we have a process now that, assuming 19 Pool C bids, results in about 14 very clear cut picks...and then about 5 judgement calls, based on data.  I'm very comfortable with Division III athletics personnel (coaches, AD's), who are carefully and intentionally chosen for the roles, making these judgement calls.

I would have agreed with everything you just wrote a year ago when it looked like things were headed in the right direction. This year? It was a step back and I don't see how anyone that listened to Hoopsville last night can say otherwise.

[Gregory Sager]

I feel comfortable with the evolution of the selection process and where things stand today.  I don't want the 100% subjective "good ole boy" process we had as recently as 14-15 years ago, but I also don't want a 100% objective (computer-based) process. 

I think we have a process now that, assuming 19 Pool C bids, results in about 14 very clear cut picks...and then about 5 judgement calls, based on data.  I'm very comfortable with Division III athletics personnel (coaches, AD's), who are carefully and intentionally chosen for the roles, making these judgement calls.

Unfortunately, Bob, given the last two seasons I don't think that you're going to be viewed as an unimpeachably objective opinion on this subject.

[smedindy]

I really need we need to stop with the ashes and sackcloth routine. There are issues - there will always be issues. Even a purely numerical autocratic unthinking system will have its biases and unfairness based on the criteria. I would rather have the ones from lesser conferences have a chance instead of loading up the tourney with the few.

Decision making of this type isn't ones and zeroes, and it shouldn't be. I'm a numbers guy but they are tools, not the shed.

[smedindy]

That being said the system can be improved. I don't like the uber-emphasis on regionality and I think the SOS needs to reflect an ACTUAL SOS using some power metric.

[Gregory Sager]

I really need we need to stop with the ashes and sackcloth routine. There are issues - there will always be issues. Even a purely numerical autocratic unthinking system will have its biases and unfairness based on the criteria. I would rather have the ones from lesser conferences have a chance instead of loading up the tourney with the few.

Decision making of this type isn't ones and zeroes, and it shouldn't be. I'm a numbers guy but they are tools, not the shed.

If I'm reading the Snyder brothers correctly, they're just as concerned about the national selection committee using the criteria in the manner in which those criteria are defined in the handbook as they are with the issue of the subjective weighting of said criteria. To wit, the Dean of KnightSlappy U.'s complaint that automatically introducing the secondary criteria willy-nilly into every analysis by the committee in the last five rounds of the Pool C process, as related to us by Bob, violates the process by rendering the terms "primary" and "secondary" null and void.

[HopeConvert]

I feel comfortable with the evolution of the selection process and where things stand today.  I don't want the 100% subjective "good ole boy" process we had as recently as 14-15 years ago, but I also don't want a 100% objective (computer-based) process. 

I think we have a process now that, assuming 19 Pool C bids, results in about 14 very clear cut picks...and then about 5 judgement calls, based on data.  I'm very comfortable with Division III athletics personnel (coaches, AD's), who are carefully and intentionally chosen for the roles, making these judgement calls.

Unfortunately, Bob, given the last two seasons I don't think that you're going to be viewed as an unimpeachably objective opinion on this subject.

Yep.

But, still, when you get to those bottom teams almost everyone is going to have something they can point to in their favor. WPI has a case, but NYU would have had a gripe also. The fact is that all those teams on the bubble didn't take care of things the way they ought to have, and are rounding out the field more than anything. I think most Hope fans are nervous about facing either UWSP or IWU (I suspect IWU will win), but Hope ought to win that game over a team that gets in at the end, whether it be IWU or WPI.

[sac]

That being said the system can be improved. I don't like the uber-emphasis on regionality and I think the SOS needs to reflect an ACTUAL SOS using some power metric.

In fairness to the NCAA, the system is improved quite a bit from when it was first introduced.  I hope they continue to tweak it, but mostly I hope they will be transparent.  Not just for the fans, but because the coaches and administrators that have to put together their schedules need to know clearly what the criteria are, not what they might or might be.


As an aside.....
I find the regional system kind of pointless and kind of arbitrary.  Pointless because we rank teams within a region, expecting them to play regional games.  Then when the brackets come out we send the 6 different Great Lakes regional teams to 5 different locations, none will play a regional opponent in round one.  Arbitrary because we draw lines like 200 miles and say anything over that doesn't count.  Why not 300 miles?  Arbitrary because we say administrative regions.  Why not adjacent states?  Arbitrary because games 201 miles away could possibly not count, but games 1,500 could count?  That makes no sense.


No matter how many Pool C's there are, there will always be 2 or 3 left at the table who "should" have received a bid.  Its just going to happen.