Pool C

[Ralph Turner]

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.

And I completely agree with this too.  I know where they were trying to go with the regional thing in the beginning...but I think it's time to step back and realize that it is now kind of silly.

Illinois Wesleyan played @ Cal Lutheran (2000+ miles away) last season -- that game was in-region.  But when the Titans play Hope (260 miles away) the next 3 seasons, those games will be out-of-region.

We need to get a point where every D3 game counts.  Schools that have the budget and institutional support to travel can travel...those that don't can stay close to home.

We could see a point where a game is not played because it would be in-region.

This is especially the case in baseball.  The New Jersey teams go to southern California for spring training. Other cold weather teams do spring training trips to non-region locales such as IWU's annual trip to Mississippi in March.  MIssissippi College and Millsaps are already 15-20 games into the season when IWU comes south in mid March.

I can only think of one more modification to the rules defining "in-region" that needs to be made to handle the special cases.  Others have mentioned it, but the adjacent state modification should be adopted.  These would be those cases where the 200-mile radius rule does not benefit those schools who want to access the schools in adjacent Administrative Regions.

New York picks up Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey.

Michigan picks up Wisconsin and Illinois.

Pennsylvania would pick up Maryland and Ohio.  That may not impact that many schools, but it might help in selected cases.

Illinois getting Indiana might help in baseball.

Okay, as I caught up, I saw the adjacent states comment by KnightSlappy.

[Ralph Turner]

What will replace the Regional Evaluation committees which send the committee chair to the national committee?

You have to delegate the evaluation work to knowledgeable people who "know the landscape"  "in the region where they live and compete". The process is either semantically what we have now or it will be a handful of people in sitting in Indianapolis divvying out the bids.

"Regional" everything defines D-III (and D-II for that matter).  We did not even get rid of the Region concept in the D-III/D-IV debates back in 2006-07.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Something that I know most of you know, but may be worth reminding people... this regional set-up is not going away any time soon.

Why? Because this isn't just a basketball issue. Division III has mandated a regional mentality when it comes to not only ranking and selecting teams, but in scheduling (if they didn't care about teams traveling around the country, they wouldn't have regional criteria - they want teams to stay a bit more at "home" for whatever their reasons are - i think of many).

If the decision to abandon regional criteria and go with a national scope is made... it has to be made with every since Division III sport sponsored by the NCAA, not just basketball.. not just football... every sport. I just don't see that happening in a division that prides itself more about the student then making sure their teams are playing the very best at their best in the national spotlight - that's Division I.

The system has come a LONG way since the days of the Old Boys Network (my alma mater fell prey to that system). We have also come a long way since they started putting what we have in place now... into effect. I am not defending the committee, but I do know they work hard and I know a few of them personally and they bleed as much D3 blood as the rest of us... so they aren't going to steer wrong... and they aren't going to circumvent the rules... and they aren't going to do whatever they want, "willy-nilly" to do their job.

Did this year's bracket not live up to last years? Probably in some areas like a lot of regional teams playing one another when in the last two years we saw less of that. But it also has some more creativeness like the Texas pod... the CMS pod... etc. As Pat and I said, we are probably nit-picking details here because we are so used to having to find fault in the system.

We will always argue that some teams should have gotten in when others shouldn't have. We will always find numbers that work in the favor of our argument. We will also always point to ways to tweak things to make them better... but please remember it will never be perfect. Even the D1's don't get it perfect in everyone's eyes and they have a more inclusive system (for some).

Also, sometimes we see changes in the brackets and such because there is always change in the committees. I know the national committee has tried hard to keep the efforts of years past moving forward, but it doesn't always work. I think we saw that the loss of two committee members this season may have played a factor - just my opinion. But we can't expect humans, like ourselves, to get it right every time. That being said, I think this year's tournament is a very good one in many, many ways.

Finally, the transparency issue seems to be an NCAA one. Every time we take a step forward... we seem to take one backwards later on. I am working to figure out what happened... if I do find out, I will let you know. I don't think it is the committees that are holding back the transparency... I think they understand why there should be more. Why we have lost some of that this year is something we need to get to the bottom of, to be honest.

And some food for thought... if we went to a national scope and got rid of regional criteria... we would never have regional rankings to talk about or project based on... we would have nothing. Remember, there really isn't anything the NCAA produces for D1 in the weeks leading up to their tournament selections. We might actually be in a situation of LESS information.

Thanks for reading... I will head to bed now!

[Ralph Turner]

+1! Dave! 

[KnightSlappy]

If the decision to abandon regional criteria and go with a national scope is made... it has to be made with every since Division III sport sponsored by the NCAA, not just basketball.. not just football... every sport.

While we've been squibbling in here, the NCAA has announced this very change (sort of).

http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/2012/02/big-changes-coming-for-division-iii.html

[ziggy]

If the decision to abandon regional criteria and go with a national scope is made... it has to be made with every since Division III sport sponsored by the NCAA, not just basketball.. not just football... every sport.

While we've been squibbling in here, the NCAA has announced this very change (sort of).

http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/2012/02/big-changes-coming-for-division-iii.html

Wow, that is huge and I fully support the decision.

[KnightSlappy]

The original article also states that the Championships Committee also considered increasing the 200-mile rule to 500 miles, but ultimately decided against that. 

[Pat Coleman]

Hope this passes, but sometimes these things fail at the end.

There isn't as much of a need for a 200-mile rule or a 500-mile rule if we do get to count all D3 games as part of the primary criteria. I would have preferred to see D2's "adjacent states" rule but I wonder if, if this passes, 200-300-500 miles becomes less important.

[sac]

The original article also states that the Championships Committee also considered increasing the 200-mile rule to 500 miles, but ultimately decided against that. 

This would have been a massive help to a number of schools.

[ziggy]

The original article also states that the Championships Committee also considered increasing the 200-mile rule to 500 miles, but ultimately decided against that. 

My disappointment in that is minimized by the decision to include all d3 games in the primary criteria. The 70% in-region games mandate acts as a tether to keep the d3 philosophy intact without brick-walling certain things that seem reasonable, i.e. a Calvin-Wheaton game should count for more than secondary criteria.

[sac]

Hope this passes, but sometimes these things fail at the end.

There isn't as much of a need for a 200-mile rule or a 500-mile rule if we do get to count all D3 games as part of the primary criteria. I would have preferred to see D2's "adjacent states" rule but I wonder if, if this passes, 200-300-500 miles becomes less important.

I'm reading this potential change as you have to play 70% of your schedule using the "in-region" definition, but all D3 games will count in the primary criteria.  So the 200 mile rule is still very much needed.

So even if you play a D3 team out of region, it doesn't count towards your 70% target.

[ziggy]

Hope this passes, but sometimes these things fail at the end.

There isn't as much of a need for a 200-mile rule or a 500-mile rule if we do get to count all D3 games as part of the primary criteria. I would have preferred to see D2's "adjacent states" rule but I wonder if, if this passes, 200-300-500 miles becomes less important.

I'm reading this potential change as you have to play 70% of your schedule using the "in-region" definition, but all D3 games will count in the primary criteria.  So the 200 mile rule is still very much needed.

So even if you play a D3 team out of region, it doesn't count towards your 70% target.

It's needed to define the area from which 70% of a team's games come from but not in limiting a team's tournament resume. 30% of a 26-game schedule leaves 7.8 games to play out of region games. That doesn't seem overly restrictive for anyone. MIAA play alone takes those teams up to 53.8%.

[sac]

What the heck does Nebraska Wesleyan do now?

[Pat Coleman]

What the heck does Nebraska Wesleyan do now?

Perhaps they can continue to seek waivers, as they have when they didn't meet the 50% criteria either.

[ziggy]

What the heck does Nebraska Wesleyan do now?

Perhaps they can continue to seek waivers, as they have when they didn't meet the 50% criteria either.

Plus, they already have a de facto 500-mile rule based on their location within Administrative Region Four. Lincoln to Chicago is 524 miles but in-region. Sweep that arc across the map and I don't believe you'll find a d3 school within 500 miles of Lincoln that isn't in-region based on admin region four.

That's an institutional problem, not an NCAA problem.