Pool C

[Ralph Turner]

So they fixed the problem without actually fixing the problem and Calvin/Wheaton is still not in-region, but Wheaton/Whitworth is.

Right, Calvin gets to play in-region games with Mississippi College, but not with 5 of the 12 closest non-conference D3 shools. 

Facts I love: 20 of Calvin's closest 25 non-conference-D3 opponents are in the Midwest Region, 4 are in the GL Region, and 1 is in the West Region. 11 of those 25 schools are out-of-region.

Well, the solution is clear. Calvin needs to move itself! 

I was trying to cast about for answers on why the current situation evolved. But I wonder if there's more of an issue in other sports? I think the sensible thing would be at least to have an 'adjoining state' codicil attached to the administrative region, and a common-sense rule about holiday tournaments (and spring break trips).

Obviously, the regional records don't bother some teams, otherwise Hope wouldn't have just two D-3 games right now. (Teams on an "island' don't really count in that observation. You do what you can with what you gots...)

NO! Calvin was pre-destined to be where it is!

[smedindy]

Bill,

Again, maybe it's different for other sports. Not that NC Wesleyan would play Becker in the regular season, but that wouldn't be a regional game.

[smedindy]

So they fixed the problem without actually fixing the problem and Calvin/Wheaton is still not in-region, but Wheaton/Whitworth is.

Right, Calvin gets to play in-region games with Mississippi College, but not with 5 of the 12 closest non-conference D3 shools. 

Facts I love: 20 of Calvin's closest 25 non-conference-D3 opponents are in the Midwest Region, 4 are in the GL Region, and 1 is in the West Region. 11 of those 25 schools are out-of-region.

Well, the solution is clear. Calvin needs to move itself! 

I was trying to cast about for answers on why the current situation evolved. But I wonder if there's more of an issue in other sports? I think the sensible thing would be at least to have an 'adjoining state' codicil attached to the administrative region, and a common-sense rule about holiday tournaments (and spring break trips).

Obviously, the regional records don't bother some teams, otherwise Hope wouldn't have just two D-3 games right now. (Teams on an "island' don't really count in that observation. You do what you can with what you gots...)

NO! Calvin was pre-destined to be where it is!

HAH!

What is Calvin's record against any of the Wesleyan schools?

[Gregory Sager]

It's more an evolution of the tournament selection process than a rule to fix an anticipated problem.

When D-III first started the national tournament was made up of regional brackets and you knew exactly how many teams from each region would be in it (ie, 6 teams from each of 8 regions). Because the regional brackets were all little islands that you couldn't move off of, it made sense to only use a strict regional games policy to compare teams.

Of couse, some regions were good and some regions sucked were not so good. Eventually the membership wanted bigger brackets, more flexibility in bracketing, elimination of the x number of teams per region restrictions. So the NCAA slowly moved that way, but for a while the regional definition and emphasis didn't change. Now the regional definition has become more flexible to be more consistent with the more flexible selection process (200-mile rule, administrative regions). All that was good.

I just think we've reached the point now where it's not really necessary anymore. Let all D-III games count. It's particularily silly in baseball when teams from all over the country travel to Florida and then request the tournament organizers to only give them regional games. Isn't part of the reason for these trips to play across regions so we can play someone we ordinarily couldn't play and have some data to make comparisions across regions?

I think some schools have feared a wealthy school flying all over and using that as part of their recruting pitch, but I just don't think it's very likely to be a problem. The UAA has been flying everywhere for years and while that's a good league, it doesn't automatically make them national title shoe-ins.

What he said.

The D3 tournament also moved to Automatic Qualifiers, which gave a whole bunch of conferences who always had difficulty making the tournament a way in (Presidents, AMCC) for example.  The tournament became about access not quality.  I believe the emergence of the AQ's brought about the pool system along with a move to unify the tournament selection process across all sports using a ratio system.

Automatic qualifiers for member conferences have been around pretty much from the beginning of D3, sac. The access-first tournament philosophy has been true across all NCAA divisions for decades. The only reason why certain conferences such as the Presidents and AMCC had trouble getting bids in the past was because they didn't meet the seven-full-members criterion for NCAA recognition of the conference as meriting an autobid.

[Ralph Turner]

HAH!

What is Calvin's record against any of the Wesleyan schools?

I cannot find the Media Guide that lists Calvin's all-time records against D3 schools.

Methodist schools include Illinois Wesleyan, Baldwin Wallace, Mount Union, Ohio Wesleyan, Nebraska Wesleyan, and

Adrian, Albion, Allegheny, Birmingham-Southern, Cornell, DePauw, Emory & Henry, Emory, Ferrum, Green Mountain, Greensboro, Hamline, Hendrix, Huntingdon, Lebanon Valley, LaGrange, Lycoming, MacMurray, McMurry, Methodist, Millsaps, North Central IL, NCWC, Ohio Northern, Otterbein, Randolph, Randolph-Macon, Shenandoah, Simpson, Southwestern, Puget Sound, VWC, and Willamette.

[Gregory Sager]

HAH!

What is Calvin's record against any of the Wesleyan schools?

I cannot find the Media Guide that lists Calvin's all-time records against D3 schools.

Methodist schools include Illinois Wesleyan, Baldwin Wallace, Mount Union, Ohio Wesleyan, Nebraska Wesleyan, and

Adrian, Albion, Allegheny, Birmingham-Southern, Cornell, DePauw, Emory & Henry, Emory, Ferrum, Green Mountain, Greensboro, Hamline, Hendrix, Huntingdon, Lebanon Valley, LaGrange, Lycoming, MacMurray, McMurry, Methodist, Millsaps, North Central IL, NCWC, Ohio Northern, Otterbein, Randolph, Randolph-Macon, Shenandoah, Simpson, Southwestern, Puget Sound, VWC, and Willamette.

Those are all schools affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Another D3 school, Greenville, is affiliated with the Free Methodist Church. Other D3 institutions that are affiliated with denominations rooted in the Holiness movement (i.e., Wesleyan in theology and practice) are Anderson (Church of God, Anderson, IN), Eastern Nazarene (Church of the Nazarene), and Crown (Christian & Missionary Alliance).

[smedindy]

I hope people got the joke...

[Ralph Turner]

I hope people got the joke...

I was, too.

The fun thing about these boards is that many of the readers have a traditional liberal arts education that gave them a foundation in history, philosophy and theology to understand many of the sidemarks that we make.

[smedindy]

It is a quite literate board.

Now I must go get my tweed jacket with elbow patches, stoke up my pipe, and begin my annual re-read of The Decameron! 

[Ralph Turner]

It is a quite literate board.

Now I must go get my tweed jacket with elbow patches, stoke up my pipe, and begin my annual re-read of The Decameron! 

If you start today, you should have it done by Christmas Eve!

[thebear]

I agree with the posters regarding adjoining state vs. Administrative region.  The three D-III schools here in the North Country have to travel 90 miles to play any other Division III school other than each other.  There are exactly 7 Vermont schools outside of the administrative region that are less than 200 miles from us.

I think it's ludicrous that a NY team can play a regional game against a team from Pennsylvania (our three North Country Schools are 235 miles from the closest Pennsylvania Border), but not from New Jersey, Massachusetts or Connecticut, the borders of which are closer than two of our conference opponents (Buff State and Fredonia) in the same state.

We played at Williams, and neither of the games count.  Williams is 206 miles from Potsdam.   However we play at the Desales tournament (Allentown - about 350 miles) and both games count because the schools are from Pennsylvania & NY.

I say let all fully initiated Division III opponents count.  I really would like to see an RPI for Division III, I think the massey ratings data base could generate one pretty easily.  Reward teams for playing difficult non-conference schedules and for doing well against the better teams in their conference.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I say let all fully initiated Division III opponents count.  I really would like to see an RPI for Division III, I think the massey ratings data base could generate one pretty easily.  Reward teams for playing difficult non-conference schedules and for doing well against the better teams in their conference.

We've been over this before.  Those sorts of ratings would be great, but they only work if teams are playing national schedules and getting way out of region on a regular basis.  It penalizes conferences with lots of in-conference games - and the NE region gets much stronger numbers because of how many teams are in such a close proximity.

I'm not a huge fan of how things are done now, but I've spent a decade thinking about this and I'm not sure how they could do it much better.

Adjoining states makes some sense, especially for those schools near the edge of their region.

[Ralph Turner]

I agree with the posters regarding adjoining state vs. Administrative region.  The three D-III schools here in the North Country have to travel 90 miles to play any other Division III school other than each other.  There are exactly 7 Vermont schools outside of the administrative region that are less than 200 miles from us.

I think it's ludicrous that a NY team can play a regional game against a team from Pennsylvania (our three North Country Schools are 235 miles from the closest Pennsylvania Border), but not from New Jersey, Massachusetts or Connecticut, the borders of which are closer than two of our conference opponents (Buff State and Fredonia) in the same state.

We played at Williams, and neither of the games count.  Williams is 206 miles from Potsdam.   However we play at the Desales tournament (Allentown - about 350 miles) and both games count because the schools are from Pennsylvania & NY.

I say let all fully initiated Division III opponents count.  I really would like to see an RPI for Division III, I think the massey ratings data base could generate one pretty easily.  Reward teams for playing difficult non-conference schedules and for doing well against the better teams in their conference.

The effect of having a game that is "not counted as in-region" now might become a game "not played" under a new system.

In the case of baseball, we get to see plenty of "non-region" games thruout the season as northern teams go south.

Good examples include Marietta which used to come to Texas to play mid-season teams on its spring break.

The NJAC schools make a Carolina run to play "non-region" games as part of spring training.

Illinois Wesleyan comes to Mississippi College for "non-region" games in March.

I concede that there are anecdotal pockets where the mileage falls just short.  Upstate NY, Calvin-Wheaton and a few others.

For the most part, I think that the value of the "non-region" game, which falls to "secondary criteria", is not appreciated by most fans.

[KnightSlappy]

I agree with the posters regarding adjoining state vs. Administrative region.  The three D-III schools here in the North Country have to travel 90 miles to play any other Division III school other than each other.  There are exactly 7 Vermont schools outside of the administrative region that are less than 200 miles from us.

I think it's ludicrous that a NY team can play a regional game against a team from Pennsylvania (our three North Country Schools are 235 miles from the closest Pennsylvania Border), but not from New Jersey, Massachusetts or Connecticut, the borders of which are closer than two of our conference opponents (Buff State and Fredonia) in the same state.

We played at Williams, and neither of the games count.  Williams is 206 miles from Potsdam.   However we play at the Desales tournament (Allentown - about 350 miles) and both games count because the schools are from Pennsylvania & NY.

I say let all fully initiated Division III opponents count.  I really would like to see an RPI for Division III, I think the massey ratings data base could generate one pretty easily.  Reward teams for playing difficult non-conference schedules and for doing well against the better teams in their conference.

The effect of having a game that is "not counted as in-region" now might become a game "not played" under a new system.

In the case of baseball, we get to see plenty of "non-region" games thruout the season as northern teams go south.

Good examples include Marietta which used to come to Texas to play mid-season teams on its spring break.

The NJAC schools make a Carolina run to play "non-region" games as part of spring training.

Illinois Wesleyan comes to Mississippi College for "non-region" games in March.

I concede that there are anecdotal pockets where the mileage falls just short.  Upstate NY, Calvin-Wheaton and a few others.

For the most part, I think that the value of the "non-region" game, which falls to "secondary criteria", is not appreciated by most fans.

It's not quite as anecdotal when it's your school.

[Ralph Turner]

I say let all fully initiated Division III opponents count.  I really would like to see an RPI for Division III, I think the massey ratings data base could generate one pretty easily.  Reward teams for playing difficult non-conference schedules and for doing well against the better teams in their conference.

We've been over this before.  Those sorts of ratings would be great, but they only work if teams are playing national schedules and getting way out of region on a regular basis.  It penalizes conferences with lots of in-conference games - and the NE region gets much stronger numbers because of how many teams are in such a close proximity.

I'm not a huge fan of how things are done now, but I've spent a decade thinking about this and I'm not sure how they could do it much better.

Adjoining states makes some sense, especially for those schools near the edge of their region.

But what schools in adjoining states are not covered by the Administrative Region rule and the 200-mile radius rule?