Pool C

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I think there's a pretty good chance Emory gets into the tournament, which often gives a driveable locale for the SAA (although not always) - plus, there's a good chance Centre will be in this year, also creating some better distances for some teams.  Things change so quickly, though, there's no real reason to speculate on geography this far out.  Last year, for example, we didn't include Letourneau in our mock; the NCAA did.  That changed everything in terms of bracketing and it was, essentially, a last minute decision.

[WW]

There was one of those last year when we were doing the mock bracket.  One way was under 500 and the other way was over.  The driveable direction was not the right one for the seedings.  Very frustrating.

A few things.

1. Google has like 493 between Wooster and Augustana. I refuse to believe Google is off by 7 miles. I doubt it's off by .7 miles.
2. If teams that are over 500 miles are like "nah, we'll just drive", then to me that means that 500 mile limit is too low. The limit should be at a number where no one would prefer to drive. So maybe this is the real problem we have, the 500 miles doesn't accurately reflect the point at which it would be a clear impediment to ask a team to drive. Maybe it's 600, or 750. 
3. Does it matter that Fort Wayne is going to be in driving distance for more teams than Salem was? Very good chance of saving at least a flight if not two there.

I think 500 is a perfectly fine set point.  That's about an 8.5 to 9 hour bus ride.  The reason a lot of these teams choose to bus instead is because either:
A) they aren't close to any airports so it's just easier to drive to the destination
B) The airports they are close to are only regionals, so they'd have to take a connecting flight or flights, in which case it is just easier to bus.

Take Maine-Presque Isle for example: Let's say for hypothetical case they made the tournament and got sent to a pod at Western Connecticut.  The NCAA milage chart shows the schools at being 541 miles away from each other which means Presque Isle would be entitled to a flight.  But there's a pretty good chance Presque Isle wouldn't take it, and would just bus the 10 hours or so down to Danbury, Connecticut.  Why??  Because the airport in Presque Isle only has flights to Boston I believe, and than from Boston you'd have to connect to either New York's JFK or LaGuardia airport, so with the connecting flights, and than the inevitable traffic not only on the airport grounds, but once you get onto the New York roads it would just be easier for them to bus down from Maine. 
Or take the other end of the spectrum: St. Mary's of Maryland in a pod at Plattsburgh State.  St. Mary's is about as far south in Maryland as you can go without ending up in the Chesapeake Bay, and Plattsburgh is about as far north in New York you can get without ending up in Canada.  Even though that's over the 500 mile distance, and St. Mary's would be entitled to a flight they'd probably bus as well because there is no major or even regional airport close to either of those 2 cities, so it would be probably just be faster for them to drive.  That's why a lot of these schools end up bussing instead, even at 550 or 560 or 600 miles.

Wooster to Augustana would likely result in a longer trip by air than bus when you consider you'll have to board and unboard a bus to get to CLE, connect at ORD, then fly to MLI, the board another bus to reach your destination. Throw in delay potential and it's a no-brainer to bus a lot of these +500-mile trips. Say you're sending Wooster to St. John's, for example, with a nonstop to MSP, and a flight makes more sense. Gotta view these on a case-specific basis, not arbitrarily

[wally_wabash]

There was one of those last year when we were doing the mock bracket.  One way was under 500 and the other way was over.  The driveable direction was not the right one for the seedings.  Very frustrating.

A few things.

1. Google has like 493 between Wooster and Augustana. I refuse to believe Google is off by 7 miles. I doubt it's off by .7 miles.
2. If teams that are over 500 miles are like "nah, we'll just drive", then to me that means that 500 mile limit is too low. The limit should be at a number where no one would prefer to drive. So maybe this is the real problem we have, the 500 miles doesn't accurately reflect the point at which it would be a clear impediment to ask a team to drive. Maybe it's 600, or 750. 
3. Does it matter that Fort Wayne is going to be in driving distance for more teams than Salem was? Very good chance of saving at least a flight if not two there.

I think 500 is a perfectly fine set point.  That's about an 8.5 to 9 hour bus ride.  The reason a lot of these teams choose to bus instead is because either:
A) they aren't close to any airports so it's just easier to drive to the destination
B) The airports they are close to are only regionals, so they'd have to take a connecting flight or flights, in which case it is just easier to bus.

Take Maine-Presque Isle for example: Let's say for hypothetical case they made the tournament and got sent to a pod at Western Connecticut.  The NCAA milage chart shows the schools at being 541 miles away from each other which means Presque Isle would be entitled to a flight.  But there's a pretty good chance Presque Isle wouldn't take it, and would just bus the 10 hours or so down to Danbury, Connecticut.  Why??  Because the airport in Presque Isle only has flights to Boston I believe, and than from Boston you'd have to connect to either New York's JFK or LaGuardia airport, so with the connecting flights, and than the inevitable traffic not only on the airport grounds, but once you get onto the New York roads it would just be easier for them to bus down from Maine. 
Or take the other end of the spectrum: St. Mary's of Maryland in a pod at Plattsburgh State.  St. Mary's is about as far south in Maryland as you can go without ending up in the Chesapeake Bay, and Plattsburgh is about as far north in New York you can get without ending up in Canada.  Even though that's over the 500 mile distance, and St. Mary's would be entitled to a flight they'd probably bus as well because there is no major or even regional airport close to either of those 2 cities, so it would be probably just be faster for them to drive.  That's why a lot of these schools end up bussing instead, even at 550 or 560 or 600 miles.

Wooster to Augustana would likely result in a longer trip by air than bus when you consider you'll have to board and unboard a bus to get to CLE, connect at ORD, then fly to MLI, the board another bus to reach your destination. Throw in delay potential and it's a no-brainer to bus a lot of these +500-mile trips. Say you're sending Wooster to St. John's, for example, with a nonstop to MSP, and a flight makes more sense. Gotta view these on a case-specific basis, not arbitrarily

Definitely not an expert on how NCAA tournament travel works - but do they all fly commercial?  Or would they be chartered and be able to skip the hypothetical connection in Chicago? 

Also not saying that in some cases taking a bus 503 miles is easier than flying, but it may be that some of this headache isn't actually in play. 

[BobbyO]

There was one of those last year when we were doing the mock bracket.  One way was under 500 and the other way was over.  The driveable direction was not the right one for the seedings.  Very frustrating.

A few things.

1. Google has like 493 between Wooster and Augustana. I refuse to believe Google is off by 7 miles. I doubt it's off by .7 miles.
2. If teams that are over 500 miles are like "nah, we'll just drive", then to me that means that 500 mile limit is too low. The limit should be at a number where no one would prefer to drive. So maybe this is the real problem we have, the 500 miles doesn't accurately reflect the point at which it would be a clear impediment to ask a team to drive. Maybe it's 600, or 750. 
3. Does it matter that Fort Wayne is going to be in driving distance for more teams than Salem was? Very good chance of saving at least a flight if not two there.

I think 500 is a perfectly fine set point.  That's about an 8.5 to 9 hour bus ride.  The reason a lot of these teams choose to bus instead is because either:
A) they aren't close to any airports so it's just easier to drive to the destination
B) The airports they are close to are only regionals, so they'd have to take a connecting flight or flights, in which case it is just easier to bus.

Take Maine-Presque Isle for example: Let's say for hypothetical case they made the tournament and got sent to a pod at Western Connecticut.  The NCAA milage chart shows the schools at being 541 miles away from each other which means Presque Isle would be entitled to a flight.  But there's a pretty good chance Presque Isle wouldn't take it, and would just bus the 10 hours or so down to Danbury, Connecticut.  Why??  Because the airport in Presque Isle only has flights to Boston I believe, and than from Boston you'd have to connect to either New York's JFK or LaGuardia airport, so with the connecting flights, and than the inevitable traffic not only on the airport grounds, but once you get onto the New York roads it would just be easier for them to bus down from Maine. 
Or take the other end of the spectrum: St. Mary's of Maryland in a pod at Plattsburgh State.  St. Mary's is about as far south in Maryland as you can go without ending up in the Chesapeake Bay, and Plattsburgh is about as far north in New York you can get without ending up in Canada.  Even though that's over the 500 mile distance, and St. Mary's would be entitled to a flight they'd probably bus as well because there is no major or even regional airport close to either of those 2 cities, so it would be probably just be faster for them to drive.  That's why a lot of these schools end up bussing instead, even at 550 or 560 or 600 miles.

Wooster to Augustana would likely result in a longer trip by air than bus when you consider you'll have to board and unboard a bus to get to CLE, connect at ORD, then fly to MLI, the board another bus to reach your destination. Throw in delay potential and it's a no-brainer to bus a lot of these +500-mile trips. Say you're sending Wooster to St. John's, for example, with a nonstop to MSP, and a flight makes more sense. Gotta view these on a case-specific basis, not arbitrarily

Definitely not an expert on how NCAA tournament travel works - but do they all fly commercial?  Or would they be chartered and be able to skip the hypothetical connection in Chicago? 

Also not saying that in some cases taking a bus 503 miles is easier than flying, but it may be that some of this headache isn't actually in play.

In 2017 Augie took a bus to Salem.  Coach G thought it would be better for them.  He was able to get the old SID from my time at Augie, wish I could remember his name, set up a practice at Butler to break up the trip.  Thought it was a good break for them.  Perhaps others teams could take this in mind when deciding bus versus plane.

[augie77]

Jim McGrath was the previous SID at Augustana.

[Pat Coleman]

For basketball teams fly commercial. For sports with larger rosters, they fly commercial for short distances (last I heard, that radius was 900 miles) and charter for longer distances. But, also, commercial air travel has changed so much in the last few years that it's hard to book 60 seats commercially for football. Even in basketball, sometimes the ~20-person traveling party is split between a couple of flights.

[Gregory Sager]

We have no way of knowing how many island teams there will be. There will be a minimum of four (Whitman, Pomona-Pitzer, ASC rep, SAA rep) that would make for a nice portable pod that could be shipped anywhere after the first weekend (which would either be spent in Texas or, if the committee has saved on flights, in Walla Walla) -- or there could be as many as seven island teams, which would gum up everything. All of which is to say that there's no guarantee that Whitman can be shipped to the northeastern corner of the country to balance out the top four teams.

Um...yes there is. Like you said, there's a minimum of 4. a pod has 4 teams, all of which are going to have to fly for the second weekend anyway, wherever they go. Where they go, doesn't matter. Put the pod in the Randolph-Macon or Amherst or MIT or whoever side of the bracket and there you go.

... and then you're possibly stuck with as many as six excess island teams, none of which will have earned a #1 or #2 seed in the South or West regions. Ryan points out that Emory and Centre are possible pod sites, but there aren't any teams near the top of the ASC and SCAC standings that are within 500 miles of either Atlanta or Danville.

Same as like someone else said about them going to Marietta in the past.

Yes, of course the NWC rep has been shipped out on opening weekend before. But the point is that, if Whitman remains deserving of a #1 sectional seed -- and it will be very hard to dislodge the Blues from that perch, according to the numbers -- the case becomes compelling to reward the Blues by giving them a Walla Walla pod made up of other island teams. This becomes even more compelling if there's a second NWC team in the field and there's five or more island teams, because it would allow the committee to follow the split-them-up-whenever-possible rule by shipping that second NWC team somewhere else.

And I don't think it's possible to have 7 island teams, as long as Centre is a viable pod location.

Um ... yes it is. You could get two NWC reps (Whitman and somebody else, presumably Whitworth), two SCIAC reps (Pomona-Pitzer is edging closer to the point where it'll get a Pool C berth if it loses the SCIAC tourney title game), two ASC reps (Mary Hardin-Baylor could continue ascending the South Region ranking ladder and then lose the ASC tourney title game, giving the Cru a Pool C berth), and the SCAC rep. That's seven island teams -- not a one of which can reach Danville, KY without a flight.

They can pretty much clean up the south, and possibly bring in a Wooster or Marietta as well if needed to strengthen it up.

No, they can't. Centre's Alumni Gym is a handy place to hold a pod in terms of bridging leagues such as the ODAC and the USA South with the teams in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and even UW-Whitewater (an unlikely candidate for a tourney appearance this season). But it doesn't do you a bit of good as far as the two Texas-based leagues are concerned. According to the NCAA's mileage calculator, the closest ASC or SCAC team to Centre is Belhaven ... and the calculator says that it's 603 miles from Jackson, MS to Danville, KY.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

For basketball teams fly commercial. For sports with larger rosters, they fly commercial for short distances (last I heard, that radius was 900 miles) and charter for longer distances. But, also, commercial air travel has changed so much in the last few years that it's hard to book 60 seats commercially for football. Even in basketball, sometimes the ~20-person traveling party is split between a couple of flights.

I was told it's 1000 for basketball to go commercial, but I imagine the price difference also factors in.

[Gregory Sager]

There was one of those last year when we were doing the mock bracket.  One way was under 500 and the other way was over.  The driveable direction was not the right one for the seedings.  Very frustrating.

A few things.

1. Google has like 493 between Wooster and Augustana. I refuse to believe Google is off by 7 miles. I doubt it's off by .7 miles.
2. If teams that are over 500 miles are like "nah, we'll just drive", then to me that means that 500 mile limit is too low. The limit should be at a number where no one would prefer to drive. So maybe this is the real problem we have, the 500 miles doesn't accurately reflect the point at which it would be a clear impediment to ask a team to drive. Maybe it's 600, or 750. 
3. Does it matter that Fort Wayne is going to be in driving distance for more teams than Salem was? Very good chance of saving at least a flight if not two there.

I think 500 is a perfectly fine set point.  That's about an 8.5 to 9 hour bus ride.  The reason a lot of these teams choose to bus instead is because either:
A) they aren't close to any airports so it's just easier to drive to the destination
B) The airports they are close to are only regionals, so they'd have to take a connecting flight or flights, in which case it is just easier to bus.

Take Maine-Presque Isle for example: Let's say for hypothetical case they made the tournament and got sent to a pod at Western Connecticut.  The NCAA milage chart shows the schools at being 541 miles away from each other which means Presque Isle would be entitled to a flight.  But there's a pretty good chance Presque Isle wouldn't take it, and would just bus the 10 hours or so down to Danbury, Connecticut.  Why??  Because the airport in Presque Isle only has flights to Boston I believe, and than from Boston you'd have to connect to either New York's JFK or LaGuardia airport, so with the connecting flights, and than the inevitable traffic not only on the airport grounds, but once you get onto the New York roads it would just be easier for them to bus down from Maine. 
Or take the other end of the spectrum: St. Mary's of Maryland in a pod at Plattsburgh State.  St. Mary's is about as far south in Maryland as you can go without ending up in the Chesapeake Bay, and Plattsburgh is about as far north in New York you can get without ending up in Canada.  Even though that's over the 500 mile distance, and St. Mary's would be entitled to a flight they'd probably bus as well because there is no major or even regional airport close to either of those 2 cities, so it would be probably just be faster for them to drive.  That's why a lot of these schools end up bussing instead, even at 550 or 560 or 600 miles.

Can I just say that I love any hypothetical that involves UMPI getting a bid to the tourney?

[SaintPaulite]

I think there's a pretty good chance Emory gets into the tournament, which often gives a driveable locale for the SAA (although not always) - plus, there's a good chance Centre will be in this year, also creating some better distances for some teams.  Things change so quickly, though, there's no real reason to speculate on geography this far out.  Last year, for example, we didn't include Letourneau in our mock; the NCAA did.  That changed everything in terms of bracketing and it was, essentially, a last minute decision.

Yeah, I imagine knowing what teams are in the tournament is a real advantage in bracketing.

[SaintPaulite]

We have no way of knowing how many island teams there will be. There will be a minimum of four (Whitman, Pomona-Pitzer, ASC rep, SAA rep) that would make for a nice portable pod that could be shipped anywhere after the first weekend (which would either be spent in Texas or, if the committee has saved on flights, in Walla Walla) -- or there could be as many as seven island teams, which would gum up everything. All of which is to say that there's no guarantee that Whitman can be shipped to the northeastern corner of the country to balance out the top four teams.

Um...yes there is. Like you said, there's a minimum of 4. a pod has 4 teams, all of which are going to have to fly for the second weekend anyway, wherever they go. Where they go, doesn't matter. Put the pod in the Randolph-Macon or Amherst or MIT or whoever side of the bracket and there you go.

... and then you're possibly stuck with as many as six excess island teams, none of which will have earned a #1 or #2 seed in the South or West regions. Ryan points out that Emory and Centre are possible pod sites, but there aren't any teams near the top of the ASC and SCAC standings that are within 500 miles of either Atlanta or Danville.

Same as like someone else said about them going to Marietta in the past.

Yes, of course the NWC rep has been shipped out on opening weekend before. But the point is that, if Whitman remains deserving of a #1 sectional seed -- and it will be very hard to dislodge the Blues from that perch, according to the numbers -- the case becomes compelling to reward the Blues by giving them a Walla Walla pod made up of other island teams. This becomes even more compelling if there's a second NWC team in the field and there's five or more island teams, because it would allow the committee to follow the split-them-up-whenever-possible rule by shipping that second NWC team somewhere else.

And I don't think it's possible to have 7 island teams, as long as Centre is a viable pod location.

Um ... yes it is. You could get two NWC reps (Whitman and somebody else, presumably Whitworth), two SCIAC reps (Pomona-Pitzer is edging closer to the point where it'll get a Pool C berth if it loses the SCIAC tourney title game), two ASC reps (Mary Hardin-Baylor could continue ascending the South Region ranking ladder and then lose the ASC tourney title game, giving the Cru a Pool C berth), and the SCAC rep. That's seven island teams -- not a one of which can reach Danville, KY without a flight.

They can pretty much clean up the south, and possibly bring in a Wooster or Marietta as well if needed to strengthen it up.

No, they can't. Centre's Alumni Gym is a handy place to hold a pod in terms of bridging leagues such as the ODAC and the USA South with the teams in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and even UW-Whitewater (an unlikely candidate for a tourney appearance this season). But it doesn't do you a bit of good as far as the two Texas-based leagues are concerned. According to the NCAA's mileage calculator, the closest ASC or SCAC team to Centre is Belhaven ... and the calculator says that it's 603 miles from Jackson, MS to Danville, KY.

OK I guess maybe we're not referring to the same thing by island team. But really I don't care. Ain't nobody got time for that.

If you want to be a pedant, no Centre doesn't cover the entire south, but the cover the part of the south that is likely to need covering.

The Texas-ish schools (I know not all of the SCAC or ASC are in TX) are going west, in all likelihood, unless there's actually a regional in TX (which would almost certainly be TXish, TXish, SCIAC and Whitman). So it doesn't matter how far away from Centre they are.

But I've decided none of this makes sense.
USAS bid is going to be within 500 miles of Atlanta. I thought NC Wesleyan wouldn't be but apparently it is.
Very good chance the SAA bid is within 500 miles of Atlanta. The top 5 teams in the conference are all a drive.
Very good chance Emory gets a bid.

Very good chance there's a pod in the non-Virginia south.

Yes, other possibilities exist.

I await the debate on whether Kentucky is the south. 

[Greek Tragedy]

Curious if they would actually ship a possible #1 seed in Whitman to "Texas-ish" to save a flight. Stranger things have happened, I guess.

[Gregory Sager]

My attempts at trying to read between the lines whenever Dave has a national committee member on Hoopsville lead me to believe that they value the criteria and the regional rankings right up to the last dollar available to them ... but no further. They value them enough, in fact, to try to reward an obvious #1 seed such as Whitman whenever possible, so that if there's a couple of flights available within the budget they wouldn't hesitate to fly two Texas teams to Walla Walla. At the same time, though, there's no guarantees that bracketing requirements won't use up whatever extra flights are available, so if there aren't any extra flights the Blues will be on a plane to the Lone Star State even though they deserve better.

Is that a fair reading of what I keep hearing on Hoopsville, Dave?

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

My attempts at trying to read between the lines whenever Dave has a national committee member on Hoopsville lead me to believe that they value the criteria and the regional rankings right up to the last dollar available to them ... but no further. They value them enough, in fact, to try to reward an obvious #1 seed such as Whitman whenever possible, so that if there's a couple of flights available within the budget they wouldn't hesitate to fly two Texas teams to Walla Walla. At the same time, though, there's no guarantees that bracketing requirements won't use up whatever extra flights are available, so if there aren't any extra flights the Blues will be on a plane to the Lone Star State even though they deserve better.

Is that a fair reading of what I keep hearing on Hoopsville, Dave?

Last year we discovered none of the Texas teams bid to host, so that changed the landscape quite a bit.  Right now, it's not a lock that Whitworth will get into the tournament.  If there are two Texas teams within driving distance of one another and one bids to host, it's very conceivable Whitman would end up there.  Of course a lot will depend on how many other flights might be needed.

The one thing I hope they're willing to do this time around is to put Whitman's pod into one of the eastern brackets.  With Whitman, Oshkosh, Augustana, and NWU the likely top seeds, it's going to be tough (and darn near impossible) to get them all in separate brackets without a flight.  I'll do my best to do it in the mock, but geography often trumps those attempts.  Getting Whitman to Virginia or even Massachusetts would be a wonderful way to diversify the tournament with a team that's going to have to fly the second weekend regardless.

[Ralph Turner]

Early in the season, an ASC coach said that ASC teams would file to host this year.

I have not spoken with him since then, so... who knows?