MBB: NESCAC

[madzillagd]

I merely responded to a post which made a total non sequitur point: no other conference (to the best of my knowledge) has ever had the opportunity to have three teams in the Elite Eight. 

NEWMAC 2013. 


To that point, there were at least a dozen or so conferences in the NE/E/Atl/Mid-Atl regions that had the same opportunity as the NESCAC did to get 3 teams in the tournament with the potential to all get to the Elite Eight. But many of those conferences couldn't get two teams in the tournament let alone three.  NEWMAC did and had their teams won they could have all been in the Elite Eight together.

[Gregory Sager]

(1) You have to address the teams that Amherst and Midd COULD HAVE faced, who they did is totally irrelevant.  This was a discussion of BRACKETING.

No, I don't have to address them. No, who they did face is not totally irrelevant. And, yes, this was a discussion of bracketing -- but that's not my discussion. I'm simply describing how each team got to the Elite Eight. Your post said that the three NESCAC teams would have, and I quote, "kicked butt in any bracket." The point is that Amherst and Middlebury have faced considerably easier paths to the Elite Eight, and your thesis is therefore unsupportable conjecture.

Had Amherst faced WPI and Midd faced Rochester as expected, the paths to the Elite 8 would have looked a LOT stronger.

This is an idle counterfactual on your part, since neither team was good enough to even reach the Sweet Sixteen, but I'll bite and play the "what if" game with you for a moment. WPI (Massey #35) was badly overrated in the d3hoops.com poll, IMO. The Engineers were a classic case of the "trickle-up" concept, by which a team from a not-particularly-strong league continues moving up in the rankings simply because it isn't incurring any losses, regardless of strength of schedule. As for Rochester -- well, I saw the Yellowjackets in person a few weeks ago, and they most certainly did not look like a Top 25 team at the end of the season. They staggered to the finish line, going 3-4 to end the regular season, and it was pretty clear to anyone who saw them that they would only pose a threat as long as John DiBartolomeo continued his torrid scoring pace. When he slowed down, Rochester ground to a halt. So, no, the Amherst and Middlebury paths to the Elite Eight wouldn't have looked a lot stronger. They would've improved statistically, for sure, but they still wouldn't have been comparable to the paths of the other schools.

(2) No one has impugned the caliber of play in the Midwest (and by the way, last I checked, most of the recent past champions have actually come from the West region, not the Midwest)

Six of one, half-dozen of the other. The WIAC and MIAC are midwestern conferences that're grouped into the West Region because D3 geography dictates that there's no other choice. The WIAC plays against, and in many cases recruits against, the CCIW. And, more importantly, the four midwestern leagues within the West Region (WIAC, MIAC, UMAC, and IIAC) always knock heads with the westernmost Midwest Region leagues (CCIW, MWC, and NAthC) in March. It's inevitable that the CCIW and WIAC will meet somewhere in the early rounds, and it's usually inevitable as well that Wash U will get thrown into the mix, too. Hence, the "Bracket of Death" -- a term that's been used of this particular grouping of leagues/teams more than once over the past several seasons.

, NO ONE!!!

Nobody's said that you (or anyone else, for that matter) have impugned the caliber of play in the midwest. So why are you shouting?

We've just defended the caliber of NESCAC teams in the tourney, saying that those who have advanced, have clearly belonged in the Final Four.  No one has said anything here to counter that, by the way.

I just did, a few minutes ago. Of course, if you were to restate your original argument to confine it to the last ten Final Fours only, then I'd be happy to agree with you.

I'm not sure how Salem State tanking proves that Williams or Amherst were not teams that proved they were among the very best in D-3 every year they made the Final Four.

If you're not sure of it, it's probably because that was never an argument that I was making. I was addressing a WPI fan's protest that the NESCAC was being compared to whole regions, by stating that, for all intents and purposes, the NESCAC is the only game in town as far as Northeast Region powerhouses are concerned. It's a discussion that has absolutely nothing to do with the strength of NESCAC Final Four teams per se.

Overall, I'd say the Midwest and West are the two strongest regions.  I think New England is probably third, South fourth, and tourney results more or less bear that out.

I think that the Great Lakes has to be mentioned in this picture, too, and I think that the order between the Great Lakes, South, and Northeast is up for debate.

And saying, hey, if you take NESCAC out of the picture, New England looks a lot weaker is pretty unfair.  If you take WIAC, CCIW, NJAC or ODAC out of their regions, suddenly, those regions are a lot less successful, too.

Again, you've completely missed the point of my post that replied to that WPI fan. He was complaining that the NESCAC was being held up against entire regions. My point in reply was that the NESCAC is the whole shooting match, or very close to it, as far as deep D3 tourney runs from Northeast Region teams are concerned over the past two decades. And, by the way, if you discounted the CCIW from the Midwest Region, you're still forced to explain the success of Wash U over the past decade in terms of the Final Four.

NESCAC squads have in recent years knocked off a bunch of good New England teams (Brandeis comes to mind) who I think would have fared well in the Final Four had they not hit a NESCAC stumbling block.

Unsupportable conjecture.

Also, when you talk about the success of New England in the tourney, going back into the 1980's really isn't very fair.

It's more than fair. New England has been the most heavily-populated area of the country as far as D3 schools are concerned since the inception of the division back in the mid-'70s. The NESCAC has held it up over the past two decades, but historically the success rate of the Northeast Region in the tourney has been below par, and without the NESCAC in the picture it's practically a disgrace.

The caliber of New England basketball has improved immensely over the years,

As compared to whom? Again, this is a subjective and unsupportable argument.

and of course, NESCAC wasn't even ELIGIBLE to play in the NCAA's until 1993, so that seems like a fair starting point to judge this topic.

... and, again, you've missed the point of that reply to the WPI fan, which is that the NESCAC's pretty much the only thing that's kept the Northeast Region's head above water in the D3 tourney, and that's only since 1993.

(3) Saying that Midd, Amherst, and Williams are only among the top 25 or so national D-3 programs right now, rather than the top 10, just seems ridiculous.  Over the past five years, when you combine tourney and regular season success, all-Americans produced, and prognosis for the future based on current talent, coaching, and recruiting, all three are clearly towards the very top of the D-3, period.  In no particular order, I see the dozen top D-3 power programs right now as certainly including Illinois Wesleyan, Stevens Point, Whitewater, Wooster, Cabrini, Wash U., W/M/A, St. Thomas, Virginia Wesleyan, Whitworth.  That group, outside of VWU, will all be highly ranked to start next season, and all had great seasons this year and in most of the prior years.  Maybe Augustana, Hope, F&M, Wittenberg, Calvin and Hampden Sydney can make a case (although I'd put all clearly behind the NESCAC trio, and most from that group won't be especially highly ranked to start next season), and perhaps there are another few who belong in that group, but an additional five to ten before you get to at least one of W/A/M?  Get serious.

Wow. This is all subjective.

Since we're just going by opinions in this section, I'll offer mine: You're badly underestimating Calvin and Hope, for starters. You're not giving any credit to Rochester, which, in spite of a brief dip in the latter part of the last decade, has been a top-tier program for a long time now. And St. Mary's (MD) has been good for quite awhile now, too.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Mr. Ypsi, you might want to check this year's bracket.  I'm pretty sure at least three and possibly four ODAC teams could have made it to Salem. 

I stand corrected - this year the NEWMAC could have had 3 and the ODAC could have had FOUR in the E8.  To the best of my knowledge, NO (geographically) midwestern region has ever had that opportunity.  I know the CCIW has not and strongly suspect the WIAC has not.  Few others have ever had three or more teams (the one time I recall that the MIAA did, they were not bracketed to allow it).

So I guess dcahill's post DOES permit the NESCAC bragging rights over the NEWMAC and ODAC, but is still a non sequitur for 'Toughest in the Country'!

[Gregory Sager]

Mr. Ypsi, you might want to check this year's bracket.  I'm pretty sure at least three and possibly four ODAC teams could have made it to Salem. 

I stand corrected - this year the NEWMAC could have had 3 and the ODAC could have had FOUR in the E8.  To the best of my knowledge, NO (geographically) midwestern region has ever had that opportunity.  I know the CCIW has not and strongly suspect the WIAC has not.  Few others have ever had three or more teams (the one time I recall that the MIAA did, they were not bracketed to allow it).

So I guess dcahill's post DOES permit the NESCAC bragging rights over the NEWMAC and ODAC, but is still a non sequitur for 'Toughest in the Country'!

The WIAC has never had the chance, either. There's been as many as four WIAC teams in the tourney at a time (1997), but that year followed the typical m.o. of the D3 tourney prior to the turn of the millennium. The '90s always featured brackets that were particularly cruel to the WIAC in that the league's teams were almost always forced to face each other in the first two rounds. The WIAC's D3 tourney history can be found here.

Incidentally, the ODAC has to be collectively kicking itself. As nescac1 noted, four different ODAC teams could've made it to the Elite Eight. None of them did. The league went 4-4, and is unrepresented in the Elite Eight in a year in which the round of eight takes place right in their backyard, as Salem hosts the tourney a round earlier than usual in 2013.

[frank uible]

If only your correspondent had the human weakness of being a bettor, he would bet a large sum that we as a group (accepting that at this point everything worth saying has been said several times) couldn't sit patiently and silently like a mature kindergarten for a few days until the games resumed.

[middhoops]

Is this the NESCAC board?  Where are all the guys joking with each other?
You guys make Panthernation seem brief.  Can we get some levity back, soon?  This is supposed to be fun.

[Panthernation]

Is this the NESCAC board?  Where are all the guys joking with each other?
You guys make Panthernation seem brief.  Can we get some levity back, soon?  This is supposed to be fun.

Whoa whoa whoa our last game preview was too big to fit in a single post; in these guys' defense, we're way worse. 

[nescac1]

I really wanted to be done with this (and I apologize to the NESCAC fans having a FAR more fun discussion about comparing players to NBA guys for bringing the periodic Midwest-is-best-and-the-rest-of-D3-doesn't-deserve-to-step-onto-the-same-court cavalcade down upon this board at this juncture, my bad), but Sager's last post was so full of ridiculousness that I can't help myself.

(1) Greg, if you want to address straw men, as your entire post did, go ahead, but then don't turn around and, ummm, bash me for addressing straw men.  You are getting way, way, way, wayyyyyy off course.  This entire discussion was about a complaint (initially by Dave, but one that echoes many others which have been made in the past, and which others have dropped by to adopt -- other than Pat, who, again, seems to have no complaints about NESCAC's path to this year's Elite Eight) which was, indeed, about bracketing.  You are making an entirely different argument, based on a stray comment of mine which you misconstrued and took out of context.  And of course when discussing bracketing it's irrelevant who people end up playing.  If a 16 seed lost in the NCAA tourney, and an 8 played a 16 in the second round, you'd be laughed out of the room if you said, this bracket was "protecting" the eight seed, and I'll prove it -- they didn't even have to face a top-5 seed in the first two rounds!!!  But that is essentially what someone (I've lost track who) did when they focused on who Midd and Amherst actually PLAYED, as opposed to who they COULD have played sans upsets, in attacking the balance in the brackets, which is all that is relevant when discussing how fair BRACKETS are.  I trust you'll agree with me on that.  You simply can't assess the strengths of the Midd/Amherst brackets while ignoring WPI and Rochester simply because they were upset. 

(2) Regarding the kicking butt comment I made, you've totally misconstrued it.  If you see, I was talking primarily about PAST NESCAC teams which have purportedly all had such easy roads to Salem.  I've explained here in painstaking detail how the 2003-04, 07-08 Amherst, 10-11 Williams, and 11 Midd teams ALL proved they belonged in Salem via their ACTUAL play there.  Ask anyone objective who watched those teams and they will tell you that they all passed the eye test, as well.  You instead have chosen to focus on teams from the 1990's (I'll get to that later) and from this year.  So I guess you are implicitly admitted that I'm correct and that all those teams belonged in Salem.  Thanks, appreciate that.  The point is, the implication (or sometimes more than mere implication) that those teams were unworthy of Salem because of an easy path has been disproven, again and again, and simply isn't fair to the players and coaches of those squads.  These were loaded, dominant teams which were all easily capable of winning titles, or in fact did win titles.  I also said that a few of this year's NESCACs squads could have made it through any bracket (although I was if you noticed less definitive on that point).  That is also true.  Williams played a very, very tough group of teams to get to this point, and now has to face Number 1 just to get into the Final Four.  If you don't think Amherst would have been favored vs. practically any team in this year's tourney, you haven't watched much of Amherst this year.  Midd is the only question mark, but even they have proven again and again that they rise to the occasion repeatedly and confound their critics.  But in all events, it is you who are knocking down a straw man because if you read my commentary I was making a claim which you haven't even addressed.

(3) Please don't patronize me by snarkily asking why I am "shouting" about someone claiming the Midwest has been impuged, when someone did get all defensive on that front.  Midwest folks apparently love to come to NESCAC boards to attack NESCAC teams. NESCAC fans (other than one crazy dude who based on his karma you'll see is quite unpopular on the NESCAC boards) have no beef whatsoever with Midwest programs, on the other hand, contrary to what miacmiac said, who felt the need to crow about all the titles the Midwest teams have won and complain about an imagined insult to the Midwest which ummm, didn't actually occur.  A common theme here. 

(4) Turning back to Final Four performance. It's telling that you have to go back nearly 20 years to find a NESCAC team that didn't perform well in the Final Four ... you just completely ignore the far larger number of teams, and the far more recent and relevant history, in which NESCAC teams have performed per expectations, which eviscerates the argument pushed by some that they don't belong.  But EVEN three of the four teams you cited finished in THIRD, not fourth.  Consolation games are imperfect exercises, but the best evidence we have shows that three of those four teams weren't even the worst team in those Final Fours!!!  Moreover, if you want to start playing the "what if" game,  Williams in 1996 had the bracketing misfortune of playing -- and losing a close game -- to basically a D-1 Rowan team which is one of the most talented I've ever seen in D-3, which ended up beating an absolutely loaded team from IWU for the title.  Williams 96 was the best Eph team until the title year (at least, arguably it was just as good or better) and I think one of the very best teams in the country that year, better for sure than the subsequent two teams who each finished third.  Wiliams in 1998 lost to the Plattesville juggernaut and played them pretty tough, no shame there, before winning the consolation game.  So yeah, some elite NESCAC teams haven't had a chance to show what they can do in Salem, too.  2003 Amherst is another example.  It doesn't only happen to the almighty Midwest / West teams, believe it or not.  Although I will grant, and I've ALWAYS granted, that it has happened with more frequency to teams from those regions.  Which is why y'all should be happy that now NESCAC teams have to face West/Midwest teams to make it to the Final Four, rather than beating up on New England teams ... which, again, was my whole original point!!!!

(5) Next, please don't start going off on insupportable conjectures and then turning around and complaining about how WPI was overrated in your view.  Well, VWU, Ithaca, and Wesley were both underrated in my view (and the view of many others I'm sure).  So there.  We can either go by the D3hoops.com ratings, which have proven over the years to be a pretty solid ranking system, or we can go by subjective impression of teams. I'll stick with the former.  And based on the D3hoops.com ratings, the brackets, while hardly perfect, resulted in a pretty darn good distribution of teams in the Elite 8, and had Whitworth won, it would have been damn near perfect, since Cabrini is a pretty unusual team which added several key pieces in the mid-season and had to knock off three high seeds to get here.  In the end, an Elite 8 which features five of the top eight teams in the country, and at least two undeniably talented teams in the other slots (I know nothing about the Texas team, but presumably they are pretty darn good if they beat Whitworth at Whitworth), is about as good as you can ask for. 

(6) Finally, regarding rating the best programs right now, there are plenty of criteria you can look to.  You can look to historical success over the past 10-15 years.  You can look to the team's record over the past 5 years.  You can look to the team's average ranking / number of years making the top 10 over the past whatever number of years.  You can ask whether they've ever won a title.  You can look to how the program is positioned going forward.  You can ask how many Final Fours they've made, or how many tourneys they've participated in in recent years.  How many all-Americans they've produced.  You can judge success of coaching alumni in securing higher-level jobs or players in joining pro leagues.  By virtually any combination of criteria, Williams and Amherst are two of the very top programs in the NCAA over the past 5, 10, 15, 20 years, and are both positioned to remain that way for the foreseeable future.  Only Midd is questionable because the Panthers' success has been relatively recent, but enough years have gone by now, with enough consistent success (and not just success, overwhelming success over the past five years), and with a team that is positioned to keep that success going, that in my view they clearly belong.  I'm not saying Rochester, for example, is not a powerful program.  On a few criteria however, they fall short, and part of the issue was a legendary coach leaving without (yet) matching the prior success.  Williams, on the other hand, replaces coaches with other coaches who experience even more success.  Rochester (which also graduates a first-team all-American with no obvious replacement) isn't right now a more powerful program than the three elite NESCAC teams.  I can't remember now who scoffed at the idea that those three teams were three of the top 10 programs, instead knocking them down to three of the top 25-30 or whatever, but to me that is laughable.  I'd love to see a list of 20 programs in better shape than M/W/A, if only so that I could put the Midd analytics crew to work shooting that list down . 

[Panthernation]

I'd love to see a list of 20 programs in better shape than M/W/A, if only so that I could put the Midd analytics crew to work shooting that list down . 

It is too bad, only one top midwest team has only matched up with Middlebury during their run with the elites: in the Final Four in Salem, when St. Thomas beat Middlebury by 2 points, before winning the national title by 14 points. Middlebury was up 50-43 with seven minutes to go. Could have gone either way, looked like two great teams who both belonged. It is exciting that more of these matchups are looming this weekend: St. Thomas v. Williams, Middlebury v. North Central, chance of Amherst v. North Central, (then a chance of Williams v. North Central). It should tell us something (though not that much) about how the regions compared this year.

As far as programs in better shape, it is hard to imagine there are many. One of the biggest problems for M/W/A going forward is that they will have to face a fourth potentially elite team, Tufts. But that only helps Nescac1's argument.

[middhoops]

PN, are you late for class?  You are remarkably concise this morning.  Good points all, however.

[Panthernation]

PN, are you late for class?  You are remarkably concise this morning.  Good points all, however.

Close... two papers due today, taking breaks on the boards. (as a general rule, if either of us are posting in the morning, it usually means we are still up from the night before)

[nescac1]

Ahhhh ... college.  Back when you could start working at 4:00 A.M. on a paper due at noon, play hoops in the afternoon, and not be physically debilitated for the remainder of the week. 

[grabtherim]

The bottom line is 3/4 of the games in the Elite 8 have a NESCAC team in them.  For whatever reason D-Mac not only looks for reasons to minimize the NESCAC in general and Middlebury in particular at every opportunity.  What I think galls many who read and post here is a haughtiness and unwillingness to ever accept anything other than his holier than though views and attitude.  The most insulting and absolute proof that while you may have been an athlete once upon a time, but don't get it now was to lecture on the last 6 seconds of the Ithaca game.  Things are moving at 100 mph for those on the floor, Kizel is driving to what at the very least will be a good look from 8-12 feet, and the kid reflexively gets him.  Did he want to?  Of course not.  Had there been a timeout after the Ithaca basket, the coach or his own experience would have probably precluded it from happening, but to call this kid to task and minimize a win in the heat of a Sweet 16 final seconds battle as "gift wrapping" is not an insult to the players, but rather one to Dave himself for not getting or forgetting what it was like to be an athlete in a moment of extreme pressure. In his zeal to find a reason to once again not give Middlebury the credit everyone but him reasonably affords them, he proves that his days of understanding athletes in the heat of battle are in the rear view mirror.  If you want to know the rules, why the NCAA puts teams where they do in the tournament or Coach Hixons cell phone number, reach out to Dave.  If you want real world analysis based on seeing and understanding games and the players in them, I'm afraid you have to look elsewhere.  Now you and your toadies can push some stupid button and change my karma from whatever to whatever.  I don't give a darn. Channeling Lloyd Bentsen, I know journalists and your no journalist.  Go look up that reference, you may learn something.   

[madzillagd]

I'm so confused by this discussion. Tell me again why Gonzaga doesn't deserve to have a #1 seed 

[grabtherim]

I'm so confused by this discussion. Tell me again why Gonzaga doesn't deserve to have a #1 seed 

On paper, Gonzaga does not deserve it.