MBB: Conference of New England

[24/7/365]

Nothn' but props for CSC.  They had the leadership, capabilities and desire to be victorious tonight, and it showed.  It came down to youth vs. experience, and experience more often than not wins out.  I wish CSC the best of luck on Saturday.  Please don't let GC's loss be in vein.

But to every GC player, fan, hater, etc.  What an amazing year.  This team went far and beyond what people expected from them.  They have broken and set so many records this season.  It's hard to focus on the positive amongst the negative times, but I, as well as hundreds of others, were taken on a magnificent ride all year.  I thank you guys for allowing me to be part of something memorable.  Thanks to the guys on this board for keeping things fresh and lively.  I hope GC has one more stop before the tank runs out.  Lets hope the conference call to Schauer is a promising one Sunday.

05-06 was phenomenal.  And it's not even done yet.

[cstrike]

Couple of thoughts....

Somehow, I wasn't shocked by roy_williams' response - typical of most fanboy homers.  (YAY!  LOOK AT US, WE'RE THE BEST!  EVERYONE ELSE IS CRAP!!)  I do give credit to the diesel and to Gordon and 24/7 for their mature handling of the loss, though.  Y'all gots a good team over there, any any time you can get 20 wins, you have to admit it's been a good year.

Still, I hope you enjoy the ECAC, fellas, cuz there's no way you're getting into the NCAA.  Yea, you might be 23-4 overall and 22-3 in the region, but those games against traditional powerhouses Johnson State, Newbury, Framingham State, Mount Ida and Piedmont aren't gonna help you out too much.  I mean, come on, in-region, Gordon's got a total of one non-league win against a team from a better conference than the CCC - MIT.  

Look at it this way:  There's seven AQs from NE (CCC, GNAC, LEC, MASCAC, NESCAC, NEWMAC, NAC).  The region most likely paired with the northeast would be the east, since there's only three AQs from there (Empire 8, Liberty League, SUNYAC).  There's 10 teams getting in there.  Between the two regions, you might get a total of 16 teams TOPS.  So you've got six pool C teams (I've also left out teams like NYU, Brandeis, and Rochester, which would count in that group even though their conference is spread among several regions).  Frankly, who'd you rather have, a Trinity or Hamilton, or a Gordon team that really hasn't played anyone?  Simply put, there's no way that the NE region gets more than three C bids.  

The fact of the matter is that the CCC isn't a good conference.  It's too big for its own good.  The fact that the top tier teams have to play ENC, AMC, Nichols, NEC, takes away from opportunities they could play real competition.  Add into that the fact you've got teams like Endicott and CSC that are willing to take their lumps and play better teams, and it makes Gordon's record look bad.

Look at the numbers, folks.  Gordon's Massey rating is 63rd in the nation.  Even if they just went straight down that list, that's not good enough to get in.  That's not to discredit their season, because Endicott's second in the league, but still 100 spots farther down.  As a league, the CCC North is the 35th-best league in the country, while factoring in the south, the CCC as a whole is 40th.  We're talking the D3 equivalent of the SWAC here, folks.

Don't believe me?  Check it out for yourself.

http://www.mratings.com/rate.php?lg=cb&sub=III&mid=6

NESCAC gets three bids (Trinity, Tufts, Amherst).  If WPI gets upset in their tourney, they get in.  My guess is that's it from NE.  I see 5/6 bids from the East paired with 10/11 from NE.

Now, before you jump down my throat on this, keep this in mind:  this represents more than 1/4 of the teams in the national tournament.  You won't see more than 16 teams come from these two regions, especially not when the midwest and great lakes are so strong.

Do I like it?  Not really.  But I'm not that much of a looooser fanboy to allow conference pride to mask facts.

[broke_ya_ankles]

I dunno if anyone else noticed but st clair got his 2000th on a 2 on 1 dunk....nice way to get it...congrats to him and the CSC team...

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Congrats to Andy St. Clair, nice to his his mug on the front page of d3hoops.com.  Only 13 more boards to reach 1,000.  Who would have thought the CCC would be there TWICE this week??  Wow, things are looking up.

No need for much of a recap, Roy did a mighty fine job.  I'll just make a few comments.  The CCC AQ rests in the hands of the winner of the EC-CSC playoff matchup once again.  The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.  I think its important to note that St Clair had 13 boards (his first time into double digits in quite a while) and 5 assists as well.  He really played his most complete game of the year, even with the foul trouble.  Bray had 12 points and 7 assists.  Logan led GC in rebounds with 7; I told you it would be a little bit harder for Marstaller to perform with two CSC big guys on top of their games.  Rebounding is where its really tough, even Marstaller can only box out one guy at a time.  I think this one was a good game, even if GC got off to the rough start.  WIT missed a lot of tthrees in their game, but EC still had trouble with turnovers, which does not bode well for tomorrow.  However, EC did shoot really well.  I'm interested to see how Marinkovic does against two really good big men.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

cstrike,

I do love how you've encapsulated the entire bredth of discussion from the whole year into one post (your first, I might add).

You're right, the CCC is too big for the top teams to get enough recognition, but the league is improving and I think with two teams in the tournament, there is an outside chance we can show our stuff this year (depending on pairings).

Gordon will get in, because, well the NCAA doesn't use any of those measures.  They don't care about Massey and they don't care which opponents you've played unless they are regionally ranked at the end of the year.  They go by the QOWI number, which, for Gordon is still decent.  They also go by regional record, which is also in GC's favor.  It doesn't work like the d1 selection does.  Gordon is almost assured of a bid with their record and regional ranking.

I would also direct your attention to the d3hoops.com front page where they admit that Gordon is probably a shoe-in for the tournament despite the loss.

[cstrike]

Think it through, Hoops.... Trinity may be behind Gordon in the rankings, but can you honestly see the committee taking Gordon over Trinity?

If I'm a Gordon fan, I'm not feeling really happy about my chances right now, and I'm really not liking them if WPI gets upset.

[the_cru]

Hey Hoops

What are the chances of ENC getting an at large bid?  I really think their three wins this season were huge wins!...




and anyone who takes me seriously right now needs to go on vacation.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Strike,

They don't look at it thay way, they can't.  The NCAA has set basic criteria they have to use to evaluate teams.  Basically, when they do the final rankings, if Gordon is ahead of Trinity, they will get in first.  Now how those rankings pan out may depend on Trintiy winning its next game, but that's neither here nor there.

The national selection committee doesn't get to say, "Do we think Trinity is better than Gordon."  They have to look at the numbers and when it comes to Pool C, two teams from the same region actually are never compared to each other.

You're new, so I can go over the selection procedure again for you.  The regional committees do a final ranking on Sunday.  Then the national committee takes the first team on each regional list that isn't already in via Pools A or B and compares them to each other (so they are looking at eight teams).  When they select a team, the next team on that regional list moves into the debate, keeping eight teams on the table at all times.  They keep doing it like this until all 18 spots are filled.

If things pan out the rest of the way as they are expected to (again, not a guarantee, but what we have to work with right now), the regional C teams will get ranked:

Tufts
Gordon
Trinity
Bates
RIC
Salem
Williams

If that is the case, Tufts and Gordon get in first, then Trinity has a shot.  If Trinity can upset Tufts, things might get changed around.  The way things exist now, this is how it looks.

[roy_williams]

frankly i didn't think CSC could do it, but they did. all the credit to them.

congrats to them, they clearly earned it tonight, and they are on to the championship.

i guess it wasn't clear.  jsut was trying to give a game breakdown for those who couldn't listen/see the game. as for WIT, i don't know how you sugarcoat those stats, but again just trying to give a gamebreak.

counterstrike, thanks for showing up last game of the year. it's been real! typical of a no take. are you the CCC's loe lunardi? YAY, awesome dude!

saturday: I like CSC, though i expect EC to be ready. It will be tough to win on their floor, as usually the place packs out for this one game. i look for st.clair and thorpe to neutralize Darko, and i don't think Sullivan can give him much help besides 5 fouls. I think George will have a big game, but the keys could come down to how Ellis shoots from three and what kind of minutes sixth man Corbett can give. I think Endicott will need to have a good plus/minus on their A/TO, and that CSC, much like the Gordon game, needs to control the perimeter. It is vital CSC gets out to start, not only to temper the crowd, but i think they play better with lead. they are more ball control on offense, whereas EC has the quick strike capabilites.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I think CSC matches up better against Endicott than GC, so I like Colby-Sawyer in this one as well.  Marinkovic has improved this year, but he's yet to show he can defend or score on big post players.  CSC has two good ones.  George will carry a lot of the scoring load, which means the CSC guards will know where the attack is coming from.  It's true, a lot will depend on how the other 'gulls step up.  The EC scoring from guys other than George will make the difference.

[cstrike]

Hoops,

I'm not as "new" as you might think, pal....

You keep forgetting that the D3 mentality isn't to provide for the best teams in the tournament, regardless of travel, missed class time and expense.  From the NCAA Championship handbook....

Division III Philosophy
The Division III championships philosophy is to field the most competitive teams
possible while minimizing missed class time; to emphasize regional competition in
regular-season scheduling; and to provide representation in NCAA championship
competition by allocating berths to eligible conferences, independent institutions and a limited number of at-large teams, realizing that this may be done at the expense of leaving out some championship-caliber teams.

Having said that, keep in mind the regional numbers and the tournament size.  With keeping essentially pods of four, I can't see the northeast getting three full pods - it'll be more like two and having two teams shipped to New York (Colby-Sawyer's women were sent to Ithaca last year - you can get to close to Rochester before you run out of the 400 mile mark).

This isn't a sure thing.  If Gordon does get in, I'll at least be man enough, unlike some of the Gordon fans who showed up on here in droves after knocking off all-powerful and traditional powerhouse Nichols, to come on here after the fact and admit I was wrong.

If I'm right, though.....

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I just meant new to posting up.  It's a 500 mile limit and they tend to mix quite a few teams up.

Honestly, the whole thing seems moot to me.  Unless Bates wins or WPI loses, it seems like Tufts, Trinity and Gordon will be Pool C teams from the NE.  I think they'll all get in.

They don't have to keep teams just in the NE/E.  They often will move teams to the A/MA bracket, like they did with WPI last year.

Among teams in the NE/E regions, you have the ten AQ's and probably 3-4 Pool C bids.  That doesn't mean they won't move some teams out to other regions or bring teams in.  Barring losses, NYU is the only team with an outisde shot at Pool C from the East.

You never know what they will do, but I think the whole Gordon/Trinity debate is premature.  I think they are competing for a spot only if WPI loses or Bates wins the NESCAC.

[Maq Diesel]

Division III Philosophy
The Division III championships philosophy is to field the most competitive teams
possible while minimizing missed class time; to emphasize regional competition in
regular-season scheduling; and to provide representation in NCAA championship
competition by allocating berths to eligible conferences, independent institutions and a limited number of at-large teams, realizing that this may be done at the expense of leaving out some championship-caliber teams.

Counterstrike, quite frankly you are an idiot and you should think things through before you comment.  I am not saying Gordon is defiantly in, but when the people at D3 have them on the front page as a virtual lock for a bid, that to me sounds like a pretty good indicator, as opposed to someone who has three posts all year, all coming within the last 24 hours.  Hoops knows way more about this process than you so you should shut it and wait until Sunday like the rest of us.  And as for your research skills in the NCAA DIII handbook, nice job finding the info, but you should learn to think critically about the material before commenting, they teach that to us here at Gordon.

There is no doubt in my mind that Gordon is not going to win a national championship, and there are probably 20 teams in the Midwest that have a better shot than anyone in NE, but the tournament is done regionally and the tournament committee is not going to be sending Midwest teams out to play in an eastern regional.  There probably are no championship caliber teams in the NE region but they aren't going to send all the pool C bids else where.  To me that quote is as strong as a case for Gordon as anything else out there.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Thanks for the support Maq, although I don't endorse the harshness of the response, I appreciate the senitment.

Division III Philosophy
The Division III championships philosophy is to field the most competitive teams
possible while minimizing missed class time; to emphasize regional competition in
regular-season scheduling; and to provide representation in NCAA championship
competition by allocating berths to eligible conferences, independent institutions and a limited number of at-large teams, realizing that this may be done at the expense of leaving out some championship-caliber teams.

It is true that if you are going to use this as support for your opinion, then you would have to say Trinity is not as "championship-caliber" as Gordon.  I feel it is the other way around, but because of the system, Gordon has a better chance of getting in because of this very same philosophy.

But, like I stated before, their cases will be quite similar if Trinity can get the win over Tufts.  This whole thing probably depends on that game.

[john]

 i just want to add a little to the gc-csc game.....if you look hard at the stats.bray was 8-8 at the line,he had 7ast.  by far his best game the way he handled the ball.thorpe had 19 points along with 8 rebounds.andrew had 14 points and 13 rebounds 11 were on defense.you put those three togeather and thats where the win came from with the added support and hustle from the rest of the team...if this is the same way they play sat. night they will beat ec buy the same amt if not more................oh ya,hoops fane,,ive got the 2000 point ball home...