Pool C

[smedindy]

NESCAC doesn't play an official 'double round robin'. Conferences with divisions normally play each team in their division twice and the teams in the other division once. (See ASC and SCAC). That's not 'balanced'.

The NCAC has a 'double round robin minus two'. The powers that be decided that when Wabash was added they (and first Earlham and now DPU) would only play Allegheny and Hiram once. Of course, that causes other issues since other teams need to play just one conference game against certain teams and Denison, it was said, capitalized on that this year by not playing Witt and Wooster twice. Of course they shut people's yaps about that by beating Witt in the conference tourney.

When it was a nine-team league last year that concern went out the window.

[AO]

Solution: to account for unbalanced schedules, give greater weight in the conference strength caclulation to the teams that play twice.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Team A would not be penalized for playing in a good league that plays a lot of conference games and Team B would not be helped by playing in a very poor league that plays a lot of conference games.

But this year we saw teams with good records and weak conferences already hurt by their bad SOS.  The regional rankings took SOS into more account for teams from bad conferences.

I'm not sure there's a way to mathematically adjust for that because it does happen the opposite way in some years.

You'd really need to figure the regional strength into the equation.  Cabrini plays in a relatively weak conference when compared nationally, but it's not that weak when compared to the MA region.  They benefit from a better SOS because the teams in their conference have a better SOS.

I saw somewhere someone had done regional comparisons for relative strength.  I think you'd do better factoring those in rather than conference strength - which would be included somewhat in the regional number.

[Just Bill]

NathCon also plays an imbalanced schedule.

[smedindy]

The last thing you want to do is double-penalize teams for their schedule. They may have some control of their at-large schedule but none for their conference schedule.

[AO]

Maybe what we really need is a national ranking by coaches, the press or the committee to factor into the selections.  Clearly we do have voters using the secondary criteria to differentiate IWU, Gustavus and NYU from Wesleyan or WPI, but we don't have any transparent way of signaling to teams before selection about where those votes place them.  A top 50 national poll would help us understand the committee better before they select.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The last thing you want to do is double-penalize teams for their schedule. They may have some control of their at-large schedule but none for their conference schedule.

That's why I thought those regional numbers would work well, they don't diverge to radically, but they would make some real difference in judging regional criteria nationally. I forget what board it was on or who came up with them, but they made a lot of sense and should be able to be worked into an SOS figure somewhere.  I think it would go a long way towards correlating the differences in overall strength between regions.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

ODAC plays and unbalanced schedule as well.

[Ralph Turner]

Maybe what we really need is a national ranking by coaches, the press or the committee to factor into the selections.  Clearly we do have voters using the secondary criteria to differentiate IWU, Gustavus and NYU from Wesleyan or WPI, but we don't have any transparent way of signaling to teams before selection about where those votes place them.  A top 50 national poll would help us understand the committee better before they select.

IMHO, there is little difference between #15 and #35 and not much more difference between #30 and #70.

[AO]

Maybe what we really need is a national ranking by coaches, the press or the committee to factor into the selections.  Clearly we do have voters using the secondary criteria to differentiate IWU, Gustavus and NYU from Wesleyan or WPI, but we don't have any transparent way of signaling to teams before selection about where those votes place them.  A top 50 national poll would help us understand the committee better before they select.

IMHO, there is little difference between #15 and #35 and not much more difference between #30 and #70.

Illinois Wesleyan might just be showing that there is a gap between them and some of the East Coast teams who might have similar numbers via inferior competition. 

[smedindy]

Depends on the metrics. IWU's non-conference schedule wasn't that great on some fronts (but they were Illinois teams) and Millikin's awful season drags down a lot of the calculations.

But their power ratings were pretty strong in Massey and their Massey SOS is currently #2.

[KnightSlappy]

The NCAA never did release the final Men's Regional Rankings, did they? Even thought the handbook said they would?

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

That was cleared up back in March, I thought. While we were told by the men's committee chair at the time that he never indicated the rankings would be released (he indicated to me he thought we were talking about the regional rankings released the Wednesday prior - up to your interpretation), I was later told the NCAA basically said the final regional rankings would not be released in accordance to the fact other sports had not done so (i.e. football and others). So in keeping with consistency, no final regional rankings were released.

Now, I have been told by a few people that this has become a bone-of-contention for them and they didn't agree with this "step backwards" perse by the NCAA. I am not sure what next year will bring... but I wouldn't bet on those regional rankings being released unless there is a change overall in how the NCAA deals with regional rankings in all sports.

There is more to discuss with changes coming to next year's selections, tournament, etc. I hope to have a special Hoopsville On Demand podcast in the coming weeks with the new head(s) of the basketball committee(s). Stay tuned!

[KnightSlappy]

Way too early for any of these numbers to mean anything, but here's the link to where I'll be running in-region RPI regional rankings (ignore the 2010-11 in the URL):

http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/p/2010-2011-d3-mens-regional-rankings.html

And I'm also running D3 wide RPI numbers this year:

http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/p/d3-rpi.html

[Greek Tragedy]

Well, the 1st Regional Rankings come out next Wednesday, Feb. 6th. That means results through this weekend will count. 

Here's my quick view of what the West Rankings might look like, going into this week's games.  I may try to update my thoughts this weekend. 

Of course, I don't pretend to be an expert like some of you guys!

1. St. Thomas 18-1: Wins over Whitworth and Stevens Point
2. Stevens Point 18-2: Wins over Buena Vista, Augustana, Whitewater (2), Stout, La Crosse. Losses to St. Thomas and Concordia (TX)
3. Whitworth 18-1: Win over MHB.  Loss to St. Thomas
4. Whitewater 15-4: Wins over Aurora, La Crosse, IWU, Northwestern (MN). Losses to St. Norbert and Stevens Point (2)
5. Stout 15-4: Win over La Crosse. Losses to Whitewater (2) and Stevens Point.
6. Augsburg 15-4: Loss to St. Thomas

In contention 7-9

Northwestern (MN) 14-5: Win over Wheaton (IL). Losses to Buena Vista, Luther and Whitewater.
Buena Vista 14-5: Win over Northestern (MN). Loss to Stevens Point and Luther.
Luther 13-5: Win against Northwestern (MN) and Buena Vista. Losses to La Crosse, Stout.
Redlands 13-5: Losses to Whitworth and Buena Vista.
Platteville 14-6
La Crosse 13-6



Anyone else got some thoughts on this region or their guesses on other regions?