Pool C

[gordonmann]

Ralph:

Wow.  Very impressive.

The Clamorin' Clucks of Trinity lead the NESCAC at the moment with an undefeated conference record.  So if the playoffs started today, they'd be a Pool A bid.

Baruch comfortably leads the CUNYAC so you can strike them.

And it looks like Baptist Bible is aiming for the NCCAA II Tournament, or at least that's what their schedule projects.

[Ralph Turner]

I count 39 teams that seem to have a pretty good chance at 18 Pool C slots.  If you are not winning 70% of your in-region games, are really that much better to consider yourself dissed, if you don't get picked?  You lost 3 out of 10 games!  Yeah, the NESCAC plays the game the way that it does, but that doesn't change things in the Northeast Region.  {Norwich lost to ASC-West Texas Lutheran (6-12/5-11/5-11) at a neutral site, so I know how really good they must be.}

The listing also suggests the 4-6 teams that have a chance at the 4 Pool B bids.

[Ralph Turner]

Thanks Gordon!  The Handbook talks about the In-Region percentage, and you and Pat do a very diligent job to keep those current, so I wanted to provide some facts to our discussants.

[John Gleich]

If you are not winning 70% of your in-region games, are really that much better to consider yourself dissed, if you don't get picked?  You lost 3 out of 10 games!s.

What's interesting Ralph is that whenever there's expansion, there are teams who think they "deserve" the bid, and many times they really don't.

In Illinois High School football, when I was in HS, there were 6 classes.  Out of 9 games, if you won 6 games, that was going to be enough to make the playoffs.  Well, after I graduated, they expanded from 6 classes to 8.  Now, teams that are 5-4 make the playoffs, and there have even been (I believe) a couple of 4-5 teams!  For the most part in IL, a team plays two non-conference games and 7 conference games.  This means, in the first case, that a team can win their two non-con and go 3-4 in conference and STILL MAKE THE PLAYOFFS!  It's really ludacris and watered down... if they were going to water it down, why not just increase it to everyone... they'd only need to add a few more weeks to the season, and then run it like the basketball tournament!

Oops, back to basketball...  Being that there are more bids this year, we'll have to see what the "cutoff" point is.  In years past, it was 5 games... if you lost 5 in-region games, you weren't going to make it (probably, I don't have the exact stats on this).  4 was a maybe, 3 was pretty much a lock, 2 and 1 were locks.  We don't have history to let us know what's "good enough" so it will kind of be exciting to see what happens!

[Ralph Turner]

I count 15 teams with in-region percentages >.799.

[Pat Coleman]

And I was able to clean up the missing scores and run QOWI before tonight's games started, so I'll be able to present that report to you tonight at some point.

[Mr. Ypsi]

If a weaker conference (lets say CCC) has an upset in the conference tourney will they get two bids? I hope that's not the case.

Some conferences should get 1 bid no matter what.  Please tell me that is the case.

Don't forget that it is teams who get bids, not conferences.  While it it often the case that a team in a lousy conference with a gaudy record is still not worthy, I'm certainly open to entertaining exceptions.  If, say, WPI were to win out but get upset in the conference tourney, it would not bother me at all if they still got a bid.

[Mr. Ypsi]

TheFence,

Just reviewed the posts from this discussion and see that I picked a very poor example - you had already noted WPI as a team deserving of a spot if they got upset! 

The underlying point remains - even a weak conference can have a strong team who does deserve a spot.  And (at least hypothetically), that would apply even to the NE conferences you named, the SLIAC, whomever.

[hugenerd]

East Region--I am stopping at an In-region percentage of .700.

NYU has the best in-region record in the UAA.

Doesn't Pool A mean that you win the conference, not you have the best in-region record.  Thus NYU would not get the Pool A bid but at the moment be second due to the tiebreaker with CMU. ALthough I may be wrong, I am not that good with the NCAA rules for the DIII tourney.

[smedindy]

Point Special -

What's ludicrous is that in high school you have to have some arcane formulas for the playoffs. Let 'em all in, sort 'em out that way like Indiana does.

I would almost advocate that for the NCAA as well. It would add only one more week to the D-1 tourney and perhaps only for D-3. The key is to get it to 64 in a short order.

The conference winners all get the top seeds (1 - whatever) and the rest fall after them. That way no one is 'hosed' and they can go about the regular season getting the best record possible for seeding for the tourney.

Pipe dream? Sure, but it beats this system by a mile.

[David Collinge]

East Region--I am stopping at an In-region percentage of .700.

NYU has the best in-region record in the UAA.

Doesn't Pool A mean that you win the conference, not you have the best in-region record.  Thus NYU would not get the Pool A bid but at the moment be second due to the tiebreaker with CMU. ALthough I may be wrong, I am not that good with the NCAA rules for the DIII tourney.

Yes, Pool A is for the champions.  In the UAA, and perhaps one or two other conferences, that means the regular season champ.  Otherwise it is the conference tourney champ.  Since that's impossible to predict, using the team with the highest in-region winning percentage (when that's the list you are making) or the team with the highest QoWI (when that's the list you are making) is a reasonable substitute for predicting the Pool A.  To actually predict all of the Pool A bids at a stage like this is both enormously time-consuming and ridiculously error-prone; I know, because I tried to keep track of Pool C combatants using QoWI (or SOSI, as it was then) last season.

[Ralph Turner]

East Region--I am stopping at an In-region percentage of .700.

NYU has the best in-region record in the UAA.

Doesn't Pool A mean that you win the conference, not you have the best in-region record.  Thus NYU would not get the Pool A bid but at the moment be second due to the tiebreaker with CMU. ALthough I may be wrong, I am not that good with the NCAA rules for the DIII tourney.

Yes, Pool A is for the champions.... 

Thank you, counselor!    

[hugenerd]

Thanks for the explanation.

[Greek Tragedy]

All I want to say is THAT was very impressive, Ralph.  Very nice work.

[Knightstalker]

Point Special -

What's ludicrous is that in high school you have to have some arcane formulas for the playoffs. Let 'em all in, sort 'em out that way like Indiana does.

I would almost advocate that for the NCAA as well. It would add only one more week to the D-1 tourney and perhaps only for D-3. The key is to get it to 64 in a short order.

The conference winners all get the top seeds (1 - whatever) and the rest fall after them. That way no one is 'hosed' and they can go about the regular season getting the best record possible for seeding for the tourney.

Pipe dream? Sure, but it beats this system by a mile.

Smed, NJ does it almost the same way, if you are over .500 by the cutoff date you qualify for the state tourney.  I like it, you always get a couple of sleepers knocking off powerhouse schools, Kind of like HS Bucknells.

The NJAC is going back to the two division format next year.  They will play the other four teams in their division twice and the five in the other division once for a total of 13 conference games instead of 18.  I hate to say it but they are playing the system like the NESCAC, but not as bad in my eyes.