Pool C

[HOPEful]

I don't see Carthage getting snubbed as one of the major blunders (or even a blunder at all) of this bracket...

Carthage's resume doesn't screem "should have been in!" to me... It screems, "good enough to make a strong case for but not be too upset if we don't get in"

That being said, Carthage's snub stings when compared to Bowdoin. Massey puts Carthage 34th between Centre and OWU and Bowdoin 50th between Ohio Northern and Dubuque. But if you gave me the power to remove Bowdoin, I don't know if I replace them with Carthage. Christopher Newport, DePauw,  William Patterson, and Stevenson would be on my "consider" list...

Still trying to grasp how an 8 loss, non-conference winner gets a BYE...

[Titan Q]

I had Carthage in.  I always figured the Red Men would get the nod over Emory as low WP/high SOS & RRO options because of Carthage's win over Wash U, while Emory was 0-2 vs Wash U.

- Carthage (CCIW) - .625/.599/4-7   Midwest #6
- Emory (UAA) - .680/.591/4-5  South #2

I thought that Wash U result was going to be the deciding factor in getting Carthage in.

But I feel the same about the Carthage men as I do the Illinois Wesleyan women -- the resumes were not strong enough for any type of cry of outrage.  I definitely get why they ended up on the wrong side of the bubble. 

Like others, I just feel frustrated with the lack of clarity around how the numbers were interpreted by the committee throughout the entire process.  Seems like so much inconsistency.  That Hoopsville interview with national committee chair Steve Ulrich was pretty disheartening.

[ziggy]

Look at it this way; there was fuss over Carthage but not North Central, despite North Central having a very similar resume in the SOS and RvRRO columns. No one had a problem leaving North Central well off the bubble because of a poor winning percentage so we all accept there is a line to be drawn somewhere as far as winning percentage is concerned. The committee obviously wasn't willing to move the line to a historical low and I don't see how that can be much of a surprise at all.

I'm not surprised that Carthage didn't get in, but comparing them to North Central, who they beat twice this season and who didn't even make the conference tourney is kinda silly isn't it?  North Central has two wins against teams in the tournament.  Carthage has 4.

To be honest, this isn't even Carthage's worst tournament snub...that came back in 2003 when they tied for the conference championship at 11-3 and were 19-6 overall and got passed over for an Aurora team that got blown out in the first round.

All I was saying is that at some point you just don't have enough wins to get considered even though you have a stellar SOS and a lot of results against regionally ranked opponents. Carthage is certainly better than North Central, but in the last set of numbers that KnightSlappy posted on this board the difference in SOS between the two was not significant and Carthage was 4-7 against regionally ranked opponents while North Central was 3-8.

[KnightSlappy]

Look at it this way; there was fuss over Carthage but not North Central, despite North Central having a very similar resume in the SOS and RvRRO columns. No one had a problem leaving North Central well off the bubble because of a poor winning percentage so we all accept there is a line to be drawn somewhere as far as winning percentage is concerned. The committee obviously wasn't willing to move the line to a historical low and I don't see how that can be much of a surprise at all.

I'm not surprised that Carthage didn't get in, but comparing them to North Central, who they beat twice this season and who didn't even make the conference tourney is kinda silly isn't it?  North Central has two wins against teams in the tournament.  Carthage has 4.

To be honest, this isn't even Carthage's worst tournament snub...that came back in 2003 when they tied for the conference championship at 11-3 and were 19-6 overall and got passed over for an Aurora team that got blown out in the first round.

All I was saying is that at some point you just don't have enough wins to get considered even though you have a stellar SOS and a lot of results against regionally ranked opponents. Carthage is certainly better than North Central, but in the last set of numbers that KnightSlappy posted on this board the difference in SOS between the two was not significant and Carthage was 4-7 against regionally ranked opponents while North Central was 3-8.

The difference in wins was quite significant. Carthage won 4 more games than North Central did. If you use something like RPI, you see they're not close.

Why should this (bold) be the case though? If you go .500 and your schedule is full of UWSPs Wash Us and Amhersts, you could be a dang good team, one of the best in the country.

[AO]

But I feel the same about the Carthage men as I do the Illinois Wesleyan women -- the resumes were not strong enough for any type of cry of outrage.  I definitely get why they ended up on the wrong side of the bubble. 

It sounded like Bosko wasn't outraged, just disappointed after believing the the committee was going to evaluate the criteria somewhat predictably. 

To me, big wins are a big criteria.  Carthage had better losses and better wins.  It was just preposterous when Ulrich was trying to say Carthage didn't beat enough good teams.

[kiko]

The reason nobody is talking about North Central the way they are about Carthage is that, given the two Carthage wins in H2H games, you *can't* really talk about the Red Birds before you talk about the Red Men.

I have no issue if the committee emphasizes different criteria from year to year.  If a rep who prioritizes strength of schedule rolls off and is replaced by an individual who believes quality of wins vs RRO (i.e. "results" against RRO) is more important, then the new dude on the block should have the latitude to influence the way the committee weighs and prioritizes the criteria.

But that's not what happened here.  If the comments from the committee chair accurately capture the process, then the committee made up new criteria out of whole cloth.  And that is really disappointing.  Weigh the stated criteria however you want, but a couple hundred schools went into the season expecting to be judged on 'x', not on a new criteria introduced after everyone has crossed the finish line.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Ultimately, though, with 19 Pool C spots - no one who got left out completed the season the way they planned.  Even if you come in with a set schedule and a plan to line up for the stated selection criteria, the teams that got left out - Carthage, Stevenson, William Patterson - none of them executed the plan in the way they wanted to.

When we had less Pool C spots, there were teams who did everything right and still missed out.  At least we don't have that anymore.  Ten years ago we would all have been ecstatic to be arguing over the minutia of criteria application as opposed to blatant snubs.

It's a step back from the last few years, but it's not a big step back.  They can get it fixed next year.  I hope they do.

Maybe, in the end, Mike DeWitt was just ahead of his time.  He's coming out of this thing looking freakin amazing.

[ziggy]

The reason nobody is talking about North Central the way they are about Carthage is that, given the two Carthage wins in H2H games, you *can't* really talk about the Red Birds before you talk about the Red Men.

My point is being missed. I apologize for not presenting it clearly enough.

[sac]

I kind of wonder if all the great work some of our posters do isn't giving a false impression of where teams actually stand in the process.  I mean, I think we're close most of the time but none of our opinions are really the committee's opinions or interpretations of the criteria.

Best example is Carthage.  TitanQ, Bopal and Knightslappy all had them in, while I never posted any list I really didn't think Carthage was in the good position everyone else thought they were.  The win% wasn't going to stack up well.

If we hadn't been reading posts about how Carthage was in for two weeks, would it matter to any of us that Carthage was out on Monday afternoon?

[ziggy]

I kind of wonder if all the great work some of our posters do isn't giving a false impression of where teams actually stand in the process.  I mean, I think we're close most of the time but none of our opinions are really the committee's opinions or interpretations of the criteria.

Best example is Carthage.  TitanQ, Bopal and Knightslappy all had them in, while I never posted any list I really didn't think Carthage was in the good position everyone else thought they were.  The win% wasn't going to stack up well.

If we hadn't been reading posts about how Carthage was in for two weeks, would it matter to any of us that Carthage was out on Monday afternoon?

I think it would because of the way Carthage was treated during the regional ranking process. I think most of our prognosticators were tuning their predictions in based on the signals that were being sent through observing the regional rankings.

Perhaps it is time to seriously consider removing WP and SOS as individual criteria in favor of RPI. The committees clearly have a number of factors to consider and starting with RPI turns two numbers into one. At least that way we know WP and SOS is balanced equally between the RACs and the Nat'l committee and no time has to be spent trying to reconcile differences like weak SOS but strong WP and vice versa. Take the RPI and move on to results versus regionally ranked and the secondary criteria to sort it out from there.

[Greek Tragedy]

I always thought 9 losses might be too much, deapite the SOS and the vRRO. I wasnt surprised they didn't make it and I guess I wouldn't have been completely surprised if they did.

[bopol]

I kind of wonder if all the great work some of our posters do isn't giving a false impression of where teams actually stand in the process.  I mean, I think we're close most of the time but none of our opinions are really the committee's opinions or interpretations of the criteria.

Best example is Carthage.  TitanQ, Bopal and Knightslappy all had them in, while I never posted any list I really didn't think Carthage was in the good position everyone else thought they were.  The win% wasn't going to stack up well.

If we hadn't been reading posts about how Carthage was in for two weeks, would it matter to any of us that Carthage was out on Monday afternoon?

I'll freely admit that I am a Carthage fan, so I was probably biased in my thinking.  But, in the end, I started having a lot of trouble when I made my last four picks (Carthage, OWU, Wittenberg, Stevenson) over a few others (Dickinson, Springfield, Staten Island, DePauw).  Any 4 of those eight would have been acceptable.

So, I can't complain too much on the actual picks except for Bowdoin having no business being in and William Paterson should have been in.

My bigger issue is that the committee chair couldn't explain the logic of the picks in a coherent way.  If they had said, well, Carthage had a great SOS, but a .080 difference in SOS doesn't overcome a .170 difference in winning percentage as we generally employed a 2 x difference in SOS need to overcome the different in WP and you can see how we employed that ratio here, here and here as well and by the way, that is in line with the regionally rankings, etc. etc.  If it was within this amount,, then we considered RRO by looking at it this way.

That is, they had a process.  But they didn't have a process.  If you go by the process used in the regionally rankings, then Carthage should have been in.  Or maybe that was an illusion of a process as well.


EDIT: should have included DePauw in above.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

By the way, I think Stevenson should have been ahead of Dickinson for the following reasons: SU's SOS was higher (slightly, but still), they ended up having a 4-4 or 5-5 vRRO (according to what they were told by a RAC member today) compared to Dickinson's 2-1, they had played at least one team regionally ranked in the final week and Dickinson played none.

I was told today, but not first-hand, that the vRRO was considered like a winning percentage and not as "results" which meant Stevenson's .500 in eight or ten games was looked down at compared to Dickinson's .667 in three games. Dickinson was basically rewarded for playing in a less challenging conference and playing enough teams to boost their SOS but not hurt their vRRO. Stevenson is now questioning how they schedule (as are many teams, I suspect), because the overriding message over the years is play better opponents (see Staten Island, Albertus Magnus, etc.), but when Stevenson does do that compared to Dickinson... they are punished for it. The interview I had with Dickinson's head coach was eye-opening and disturbing... it was the interview right before Steve Ulrich's on Monday.

I understand why Dickinson probably made the tournament, but I think the Mid-Atlantic Region screwed up... and from what I am gathering it is a mess on the RAC. If the RAC had been smart, they would have put Stevenson or even Christopher Newport ahead of Dickinson... from the stand-point that if Dickinson's resume was good enough to get into the tournament - even late - then the other team's resume (which is arguable better) could have gotten that team in first. Imagine if CNU or Stevenson is on the board and is selected and then Dickinson enters the fray and gets the selection at arguable the same spot late in the process. They didn't give themselves the best opportunity to get multiple teams in because I promise you while the RAC rewarded Dickinson's 2-1 vRRO... the national committee probably got stuck on that criteria and would have looked differently at a 4-4 or whatever Stevenson and CNU brought to the table. They also may have looked at the "results" instead of the winning percentage.

By the way, we probably saw this in the Atlantic Region as well, because I bet Staten Island was the first team to the table and blocked William Paterson from ever having a chance (arguable who had the better resume - at least WP played regionally ranked teams).

And by the way, I see that across the board. This is a conversation I plan to dive into even more with some people... because I think some voices are not preaching the right argument and some voices are being quiet because they have no clue - and I think the Mid-Atlantic region and each conference has some soul searching to be done and raise some hard questions with their RAC members.

[Titan Q]

I kind of wonder if all the great work some of our posters do isn't giving a false impression of where teams actually stand in the process.  I mean, I think we're close most of the time but none of our opinions are really the committee's opinions or interpretations of the criteria.

Best example is Carthage.  TitanQ, Bopal and Knightslappy all had them in, while I never posted any list I really didn't think Carthage was in the good position everyone else thought they were.  The win% wasn't going to stack up well.

If we hadn't been reading posts about how Carthage was in for two weeks, would it matter to any of us that Carthage was out on Monday afternoon?

Regardless of Pool C prognostications from posters, I'm guessing there would be a lot of chatter about any team D3hoops.com projected in that got left out.  (They had Carthage in.)

[Bucket]

I was told today, but not first-hand, that the vRRO was considered like a winning percentage and not as "results" which meant Stevenson's .500 in eight or ten games was looked down at compared to Dickinson's .667 in three games. Dickinson was basically rewarded for playing in a less challenging conference and playing enough teams to boost their SOS but not hurt their vRRO. Stevenson is now questioning how they schedule (as are many teams, I suspect), because the overriding message over the years is play better opponents (see Staten Island, Albertus Magnus, etc.), but when Stevenson does do that compared to Dickinson... they are punished for it. The interview I had with Dickinson's head coach was eye-opening and disturbing... it was the interview right before Steve Ulrich's on Monday.

Wow, placing a greater emphasis on winning percentage as opposed to results when looking at vRRO. That's ridiculous, and I agree--it's rewarding a team for playing a less challenging schedule. And the Dickinson-Stephenson comparison isn't isolated. Take Middlebury and Bowdoin.

My seven-year-old articulated it perfectly at the dinner table last night: "This doesn't make sense, Dad. Middlebury and Bowdoin had the same conference record (and Middlebury finished ahead of Bowdoin in the conference), Middlebury beat Bowdoin, and Bowdoin lost in the conference quarterfinals while Middlebury advanced to the semi-finals and lost to a ranked team."

"Right, but Bowdoin lost four fewer games this year than Middlebury did."

"But, Middlebury played tougher teams--Plattsburgh, Alvernia, Stevenson, St. Mary's. If we switched schedules with Bowdoin, I bet we'd have the better record."

And there's the rub. If we had switched schedules. I'm not arguing that Middlebury should have gotten a bid this year. With a 17-9 record, the Panthers had plenty of opportunities (Williams twice, Amherst once, games we led at the half) to get that signature win (or two), which could have earned a trip to the tournament. It didn't happen. Ok. But when the difference is the out-of-conference schedule that is played, that sends a message, and I think it's an unfortunate one. I love the jamboree tournaments that Hoopsville and D3hoops puts on. I would much prefer to see Middlebury play a competitive game against Plattsburgh than a snoozer of a win over whomever. But the NCAA is sending a different message, and I think that's unfortunate.

And as much as I'm happy for the Bowdoin program to experience an NCAA tournament, as much as I like the respect that signals for the NESCAC, I can't honestly say that Bowdoin deserves a selection over Middlebury (or over any of the other teams that might deserve it over the Panthers--Stevenson(!), William Patterson--I just use Midd as a comparison because there is such a strong baseline by which to do so). Maybe one can argue criteria and say, it is what it is. And I can accept that. But this seems to be a case where even the criteria is not applied correctly, and the message that is received through the bids granted (as opposed to the lip service we hear) is that it pays to play it safe. If you're in a tough conference, load up on cupcakes before January.