Pool C

[Greek Tragedy]

West Region

MIAC
St. Thomas is safe for a Pool C. St. Olaf sits at 15-3 with a win over Point. Bethel is 12-5, but has two wins over St. Olaf. If you're wondering, St. Thomas' loss was at Gustavus Adolphus.

UMAC
Northwestern is the one and done representative.

IIAC
Buena Vista leads with Coe but Dubuque has the best overall eecord at 15-4. Its a weak region, so they'll probably be ranked.

SCIAC
Tough to figure out with a lot of non-D3 games to figure in. Chapman (16-2), CMS (14-4) Cal. Lutheran (13-4) are all tied for the conference record but Chapman has won 5 non-D3 games, while CMS and Cal. Lutheran each have 3 wins in tjat category. The latter has a win over IWU.

NWC
Whitworth is in good shape at 17-2. Whitman is 13-4 with a W and L against non-D3s taken out.

[7express]

I'll do a New England breakdown:

CCC:
Nichols leads the conference with an undefeated mark of 11-0 and 14-4 overall, Eastern Naz is 16-2 overall, but only 9-2 in conference.  One or both may show up on the RR's in the bottom half of the rankings, but this looks to be a 1 bid league.  Eastern Naz played a very easy out of conference schedule while Nichols at least played Husson, Eastern Connecticut, Bates, and Springfield, though those games are all 4 of their losses.  Hoopsfan can talk more about these teams since he follows the CCC.

GNAC:
I think this year Albertus might actually be on the safe side should they stumble in the conference tournament.  J&W (15-4) may show up on the RR's at the bottom, but both them, Anna Maria (11-7) and maybe St. Joseph's (ME) (8-9 but they are a good 3 point shooting team.  If they got hot from 3....) can all challenge for the GNAC auto bid.  AMC looks to be the only team getting a bid, but if J&W can beat the Falcons in Providence and makes it to the conference final and things break right for them, they could potentially join the Falcons.  PJ, or Junkie can talk more about the Falcons & GNAC

LEC:
Eastern Connecticut (16-4, 8-1 conference) leads the conference while Dartmouth (11-8, 7-2), Rhode Island (14-5, 6-3) & Keene (15-4, 6-3) are all within striking distance.  Rhode Island is done with Eastern this year finishing 0-2 while Keene and Dartmouth still have a game remaining vs. the Warriors: Keene @ Eastern and Dartmouth at home.  Of these 4, only Dartmouth I think is safely out, but 3 of these 4 can pick up huge wins against NESCAC teams on Tuesday: RIC plays Amherst, Dartmouth plays Tufts, and Keene plays @ Middlebury.  I think Eastern will show up somewhere around #5, RIC probably around #8 and Keene around #10 or #11.  I think Dartmouth will miss the cut at least for the first week.

MASCAC:
Likely a 1 bid league.  All tournament games take place at the higher seed: Westfield State (13-5, 7-0) and Bridgewater State (13-6, 6-1) are the front runners.  Westfield plays @ Bridgewater tomorrow night, they can pretty much put the conference away with a win since they already beat the Bears once.

NEWMAC:
Babson (17-2, 7-1), MIT (14-4, 7-1) and WPI (16-3, 6-2) are probably 3 of the top 4 (or potentially all top 3) and aside from a major collapse all should be in the tournament.  Springfield (13-6, 5-3) isn't getting a pool C bid, but could be a darkhorse in the conference tournament picture.

NECC:
Southern Vermont (16-3, 10-0) is 16-2 against division 3 schools.  They could be this years Albertus Magnus, I wouldn't want to lose in the conference tournament if I were them!  Them and Regis (11-7, 6-3) are the only 2 schools that have a winning record in that conference.

NESCAC:
What a mess!  Likely the conference tournament winner is the only team out of here that gets in.  Trinity (16-5, 6-1) currently leads the conference while Bates (14-4, 4-2) and Tufts (9-9, 4-2) are 1.5 games back with Tufts & Bates having 4 games left while Trinity only has 3 games left.  Trinity beat Bates and lost to Tufts, while Bates beat Tufts.  Amherst (14-5, 4-3) finishes with 4 of 5 on the road (and all 3 conference games) and loses the tiebreaker to Trinity & Tufts since they lost to both in season, but beat Bates, so they'll win the tiebreaker against them.  Amherst is probably out now but they still have @ Rhode Island and @ Middlebury left to help them.  NESCAC1 or one of the other NESCAC posters can talk more about this.

North Atlantic:
Husson (15-3, 11-1) leads the way with Colby-Sawyer (12-5, 10-2) nipping at their heels. A 1 bid league, but Husson may sneak in at 11 or 12, but not going to be enough to get them a pool C bid should they lose in the conference tournament.

[sac]

I'll do a New England breakdown:

NESCAC:
What a mess!  Likely the conference tournament winner is the only team out of here that gets in.  Trinity (16-5, 6-1) currently leads the conference while Bates (14-4, 4-2) and Tufts (9-9, 4-2) are 1.5 games back with Tufts & Bates having 4 games left while Trinity only has 3 games left.  Trinity beat Bates and lost to Tufts, while Bates beat Tufts.  Amherst (14-5, 4-3) finishes with 4 of 5 on the road (and all 3 conference games) and loses the tiebreaker to Trinity & Tufts since they lost to both in season, but beat Bates, so they'll win the tiebreaker against them.  Amherst is probably out now but they still have @ Rhode Island and @ Middlebury left to help them.  NESCAC1 or one of the other NESCAC posters can talk more about this.

knightslappy's regional rankings: http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/p/division-iii-mens-regional-rankings.html

At least right now his rankings have 4 NESCAC teams in decent Pool C position (he lists no 'A' rep. from the NESCAC this week).  Obviously some will accumulate losses but so will everyone else on the Pool C side of things.  The NESCAC will still be in good shape to get its customary 3 bids, 2 for sure.

We might be looking at going pretty deep into the 7 and 8 loss teams barring a lot of upsets for the Pool A bids.

Top 19 Pool C teams this week
According to KS' national rankings as 'C' teams

4.  Bates
6.  Stevens Point
7.  William Patterson
9.  Illinois Wesleyan
10.  Dickinson
11.  Bowdoin
12.  Virginia Wesleyan
13.  Washington U
14.  Williams
23.  Dubuque
24.  St. John's
25.  Trinity
26.  Elmhurst
27.  Wooster
28.  Rutgers-Newark
29.  Emory
30.  Colby
31.  Howard Payne
32.  North Central

I'd draw a line after Williams and call below that 'bubble'.   There are at least 3 conferences where the best 'C' candidate is not leading the conference and the current 'A' leader wouldn't make this list.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I love that he does all these numbers for us, but the rankings leave something to be desired.  I can't see a 7 loss Bowdoin, 8 loss Williams or a 10 loss Colby team sniffing a Pool C bid, no matter how good the SOS looks.

I think Bates (and maybe Trinity) are the only legitimate Pool C threats from the NESCAC - and that's only if Trinity loses in the final.

[Greek Tragedy]

The season is so weird that I do think an 8-loss team gets in. It may not be Williams, but someone with a 19-8 record or something like that gets in.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The season is so weird that I do think an 8-loss team gets in. It may not be Williams, but someone with a 19-8 record or something like that gets in.

There will be so many teams sitting there with 4-5-6 losses.  An 8 loss team will need like a .700 SOS get in.

[Greek Tragedy]

Emory was 17-7 last year and we know what happened.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Well... Emory had the best SOS in the entire country (or at least all of the Pool C teams) by far... and that certainly helped them get into the tournament. We are going to have a lot more 7, 8, 9, and more loss teams this year... not all of them are going to have incredible SOS numbers like Emory did last year.

It is going to be a challenge this year to work through lower than usual WP% with SOS numbers that are probably going to be on par or slightly lower than in years past. The conversation with Jeff Burns the other day on Hoopsville (www.d3hoops.com/hoopsville/archives/2014-15/jan29 - go below the video player for a link to the specific interview) was telling in terms of how they may work their way through the criteria. Trust me, the committees know they have a very interested in year before them right now.

[AO]

UMAC
Northwestern is the one and done representative.

Who knows how many games we would have won if the bracketers hadn't put us in the de facto title game in the first round in 2011, 12 and 14.

[KnightSlappy]

The season is so weird that I do think an 8-loss team gets in. It may not be Williams, but someone with a 19-8 record or something like that gets in.

There will be so many teams sitting there with 4-5-6 losses.  An 8 loss team will need like a .700 SOS get in.

If Williams finishes 19-8, that's a .704 WP. I have their SOS right now at .620, which is tied for 4th in D3. That's absolutely a tournament team, unless their RvRRO ends up looking awful or something.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The season is so weird that I do think an 8-loss team gets in. It may not be Williams, but someone with a 19-8 record or something like that gets in.

There will be so many teams sitting there with 4-5-6 losses.  An 8 loss team will need like a .700 SOS get in.

If Williams finishes 19-8, that's a .704 WP. I have their SOS right now at .620, which is tied for 4th in D3. That's absolutely a tournament team, unless their RvRRO ends up looking awful or something.

Well, there you go - certainly valid, then.  I wouldn't have thought the SOS would get up quite that high.  They do have to make the finals, though.

[AO]

The season is so weird that I do think an 8-loss team gets in. It may not be Williams, but someone with a 19-8 record or something like that gets in.

There will be so many teams sitting there with 4-5-6 losses.  An 8 loss team will need like a .700 SOS get in.

If Williams finishes 19-8, that's a .704 WP. I have their SOS right now at .620, which is tied for 4th in D3. That's absolutely a tournament team, unless their RvRRO ends up looking awful or something.

Well, there you go - certainly valid, then.  I wouldn't have thought the SOS would get up quite that high.  They do have to make the finals, though.

Keep in mind that's their SOS before they get docked .2 for not playing the minimum number of conference games.

[gordonmann]

Who knows how many games we would have won if the bracketers hadn't put us in the de facto title game in the first round in 2011, 12 and 14.

Playing UW-Whitewater and St. Thomas in those years certainly wasn't a great draw. But we don't have much evidence that the UMAC would do any better against another conferences' title winner.

In 2014 the UMAC went 16-49 out of conference, second worse among 43 Division III conferences, and the eventual title winner went 5-8 out of conference before the NCAA tournament.

In 2012 , the UMAC went 13-51 and the eventual title winner was 7-6 out of conference before the NCAA tournament.

In 2011, the UMAC went 17-47 and the eventual title winner was 8-5 out of conference.  If the best team in the conference is hovering around .500 out of conference, then first round exits are likely.

[AO]

Who knows how many games we would have won if the bracketers hadn't put us in the de facto title game in the first round in 2011, 12 and 14.

Playing UW-Whitewater and St. Thomas in those years certainly wasn't a great draw. But we don't have much evidence that the UMAC would do any better against another conferences' title winner.

In 2014 the UMAC went 16-49 out of conference, second worse among 43 Division III conferences, and the eventual title winner went 5-8 out of conference before the NCAA tournament.

In 2012 , the UMAC went 13-51 and the eventual title winner was 7-6 out of conference before the NCAA tournament.

In 2011, the UMAC went 17-47 and the eventual title winner was 8-5 out of conference.  If the best team in the conference is hovering around .500 out of conference, then first round exits are likely.

Appreciate the research.  Who is this mystery "eventual title winner"?

My Formal Rebuttal:
Agree to disagree!  West is Best!  Also, the Central!   Give the UMAC a typical NE non-con slate and see if they're hovering around .500!  Keep doubting us!  You'll never see us coming!  If we played em 10 times they might win 9!  Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor!??!!!!

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Of course, there is nothing stopping UMAC schools from heading to the Northeast and playing their non-conf schedule there if they want.

As for Williams SOS, that number is most likely going to come down slightly - but certainly that is a worthy number. The problem is, they have to keep winning to maintain their position. Another loss, two, or not making the title game (i.e. another loss) will kill their chances no matter the SOS.