WBB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Ron Boerger]

Unfortunately for the Tigers, none of that mattered tonight as they lost to TLU in Seguin, 54-48, in a game where they were held to 34% from the floor.  TLU actually came within 3 when the two teams played in the Springs.

CC continues to underperform away from home; earlier in the season they had to stage a fourth-quarter comeback to beat UDallas by 2 on the road - after destroying the Crusaders by 49 points on their own court.

Trinity got back on track with their own pasting of Dallas tonight, 109-47, led by Claire Hale's 18 points in as many minutes.  Nearly half of the visitors' scoring (21 points on 39 attempts) came from the stripe as they were held to 31% shooting on 38 attempts while Trinity forced 42 turnovers.

[D3Navy]

Trinity with SIX plyers in double figures.  This seemed to be a statement game following the loss in Colorado Springs last weekend.  I note that Ashlyn Milton and Maggie Shipley, typically big scoring contributors, combined for 6 points.  This team is very deep.

[Ralph Turner]

Unfortunately for the Tigers, none of that mattered tonight as they lost to TLU in Seguin, 54-48, in a game where they were held to 34% from the floor.  TLU actually came within 3 when the two teams played in the Springs.

CC continues to underperform away from home; earlier in the season they had to stage a fourth-quarter comeback to beat UDallas by 2 on the road - after destroying the Crusaders by 49 points on their own court.

Trinity got back on track with their own pasting of Dallas tonight, 109-47, led by Claire Hale's 18 points in as many minutes.  Nearly half of the visitors' scoring (21 points on 39 attempts) came from the stripe as they were held to 31% shooting on 38 attempts while Trinity forced 42 turnovers.

It has got to be "too much oxygen" in the air. It is like playing in a Hyperbaric Chamber.

[Ron Boerger]

Somehow I was not surprised by the top 16 seeds just announced, as Trinity fell below both a four-loss UWW (last night's loss too late to be included) and a four-loss Babson (with three double-digit losses including a 21-point blowout at home to a regionally-ranked opponent that didn't make the top 16) to be ranked eighth.  Once again, the almighty SOS drives rankings almost to the exclusion of all else; if 22-1 / 5-1 isn't considered better than 19-4 / 9-4 when three of those four losses were by ten or more, I don't know what is.

Another sign of the focus on SOS is Hardin-Simmons, 21-2/3-2 (with the two losses to Trinity)/.536, not cracking the top 16.  And this focus hurts the teams west of the Mississippi who don't have a lot of opportunity to schedule teams outside their conference (or in a wide range of other conferences) due to the costs involved.  No Region 10 men's team made the top 16 despite St. Thomas' 19-2 / 3-0 / .565.

1. Smith (22-1)
2. Scranton (23-0)
3. CNU (22-0)
4. NYU (19-2)
5. Transylvania (23-0)
6. UW-W (19-5 [19-4 when rankings determined])
7. Babson (19-4)
8. Trinity TX (22-1)
9. Ohio Northern (20-3)
10. Tufts (18-6)
11. Wash U (16-6)
12. Trinity CT (20-4)
13. Baldwin-Wallace (20-3)
14. Ithaca (21-1)
15. Hope (20-2)
16. U Chicago (18-4)

[Ralph Turner]

+1!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

It's very clear the one loss did them in.  They've got a better resume than Transylvania otherwise, so it makes little sense to have Transy so high - a real bonus for being undefeated, I guess.

[Ron Boerger]

It's very clear the one loss did them in.  They've got a better resume than Transylvania otherwise, so it makes little sense to have Transy so high - a real bonus for being undefeated, I guess.

And those top 16 seeds give us a potential CNU-Hope third-round matchup, with the winner of the Texas death match having a very good chance to meet that winner.  Terribly unfair to Hope who is much better than #15. 

It'll be the master vs. the student when Trinity and UT-D face off in the opening game Friday in San Antonio, with the winner to face the winner of HSU-Redlands on Saturday.  Pretty sure we can figure that one out before the game gets played; Trinity would have drawn Redlands absent the "no conference rematches in the opening round" rule.   

[Ron Boerger]

The schedule is out and in their infinite wisdom (?) the NCAA has made the better teams play the late game in the first round, giving them several hours less to recover for second.  This is consistent throughout. 

First round, 3/3:
- HSU - Redlands 5:30pm
- UTD - Trinity 8:00pm

Second round 3/4
- Regional final, 8pm

[scottiedawg]

It's very clear the one loss did them in.  They've got a better resume than Transylvania otherwise, so it makes little sense to have Transy so high - a real bonus for being undefeated, I guess.

But a bonus that doesn't seem to have been applied to CNU and Scranton.

[nescac nostradamus]

If chalk holds, and if CNU men win and host the second weekend, I'm not sure Trinity Tx will be the host for second weekend as most are currently discussing.  It appears the way the bracket was constructed, Tufts is the 7 seed and Trinity is the 9th.  I'm not sure if the hosting has to fall to the next highest seed, just pointing out Tufts is the higher seed.

[scottiedawg]

I was trying to figure this out myself. I was finding it difficult to see any pattern in placement in the bracket.

For example, Scranton is bottom of their quadrant, but is definitely the top seed in that quadrant.

NYU is bottom in theirs, but not sure if NYU or Transylvania is considered the highest seed in that quadrant.

Smith and CNU are obviously top seeds in their quadrant and placed at the top.

In the bottom two quadrants the top 2 seeds are definitely top top and bottom bottom, so it would follow that Tufts and Whitewater are the 2nd highest seeds in their quadrants.

Tufts was 10th in the Top 16 reveal, Trinity (Texas) was 8th. Both have gone undefeated since then. I count 3 additional wins vRRO for Tufts and 1 for Trinity, so absolutely possible Tufts could've passed them.

Looking at placement between Tufts and Trinity Tx and Whitewater and Trinity Conn doesn't give me a resolution either. I do have Tufts ahead of Trinity Tx in my model which attempts to approximate what the committee is doing.  But I have Trinity Conn ahead of Whitewater. Yet Whitewater and Tufts are lined up.

[nescac nostradamus]

Good points.  I guess you can make the argument that it doesn't matter if the top seed in a quadrant is at the top or the bottom of the bracket.  It does appear as if Whitewater is ahead of Trinity (Conn) and the top 8 seeds are at either the top or bottom of each quadrant.

[Ron Boerger]

Maggie Shipley had her best back-to-back games of the season, showing increased comfort on drives to the basket in playoff wins over UT-Dallas and Hardin-Simmons.  In the first-round win, she started taking the ball inside much more in the second half with all but one of her shots in the paint, scoring 14 of her 18 points in the second half.  In tonight's game she was a dominant force offensively, scoring 30 points on 13-of-18; 10 layups, two jumpers on drives to the hoop, and one three (in her only attempt) to put an exclamation point on the final result.  Trinity found the Cowgirls' interior defense welcoming tonight as 50 of their points in the 88-69 win came from inside the paint.

[Ron Boerger]

And no surprise, despite everyone having to fly because CNU can't host and Trinity by far having the superior resume of the three remaining teams, they have to fly to ONE OF THREE PODS TO BE HOSTED IN ****ING MASSACHUSETTS.   I'm writing my school's president and SID to ask them to protest the NCAA's continuous unfavorable treatment given to Division III schools west of the Mississippi.  I get having to travel when three other schools don't, even when you're the best school in a pod to save money, but today's decision is by far the most egregious misuse of the criteria to deprive the team that should be hosting of that right.  This year the national committee apparently decided that SOS is the most important criteria despite your record or how many losses you had.  Here is the tale of the tape, before the championships began:

Trinity:
Record: 28-1 (.966)
vs RRO: 6-1 (.857, net +5)
SOS: .521
Losses to non-regionally ranked opponents:  Zero
Home losses: Zero
Average margin in one defeat: -7.0
MOV, all games:  25.8

Tufts:
Record:  21-6 (.793)
vs RRO:  9-5 (.642; net +4)
SOS:  .643
Losses to non-regionally ranked opponents:  ONE (shouldn't this count for something?  Of course not)
Home losses: Two
Average Margin in six defeats: -12.0
MOV, all games:  7.5 

Tufts wins exactly ONE thing, SOS, but they lost to five of the teams that got them that SOS *and* lost to someone else who wasn't regionally ranked.  If you are going to use SOS as a primary criterion, you need to discount it for the teams you don't beat!  And when you look at the first two rounds:

Trinity:  2-0 vs RROs, average margin +18.0
Tufts:  1-0 vs RROs/1-0 vs non-RRO, average margin +12.0

So great job, national committee, focusing on SOS to the exclusion of all else to determine seeding.  And yes, before Dave chimes in here, I know that much of the above aren't official criteria.  But when you lose an eye test this badly, maybe it's time to adjust them.

[D3Navy]

And no surprise, despite everyone having to fly because CNU can't host and Trinity by far having the superior resume of the three remaining teams, they have to fly to ONE OF THREE PODS TO BE HOSTED IN ****ING MASSACHUSETTS.   I'm writing my school's president and SID to ask them to protest the NCAA's continuous unfavorable treatment given to Division III schools west of the Mississippi.  I get having to travel when three other schools don't, even when you're the best school in a pod to save money, but today's decision is by far the most egregious misuse of the criteria to deprive the team that should be hosting of that right.  This year the national committee apparently decided that SOS is the most important criteria despite your record or how many losses you had.  Here is the tale of the tape, before the championships began:

Trinity:
Record: 28-1 (.966)
vs RRO: 6-1 (.857, net +5)
SOS: .521
Losses to non-regionally ranked opponents:  Zero
Home losses: Zero
Average margin in one defeat: -7.0
MOV, all games:  25.8

Tufts:
Record:  21-6 (.793)
vs RRO:  9-5 (.642; net +4)
SOS:  .643
Losses to non-regionally ranked opponents:  ONE (shouldn't this count for something?  Of course not)
Home losses: Two
Average Margin in six defeats: -12.0
MOV, all games:  7.5 

Tufts wins exactly ONE thing, SOS, but they lost to five of the teams that got them that SOS *and* lost to someone else who wasn't regionally ranked.  If you are going to use SOS as a primary criterion, you need to discount it for the teams you don't beat!  And when you look at the first two rounds:

Trinity:  2-0 vs RROs, average margin +18.0
Tufts:  1-0 vs RROs/1-0 vs non-RRO, average margin +12.0

So great job, national committee, focusing on SOS to the exclusion of all else to determine seeding.  And yes, before Dave chimes in here, I know that much of the above aren't official criteria.  But when you lose an eye test this badly, maybe it's time to adjust them.

I could not agree more.