MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, which was one of MY main points, once the AC/EC game is over and you get a chance to respond!

The difference is that you and IWUM are presuming bad faith on the part of the committee, while I am presuming that it is doing its job in balancing the criteria according to established precedent. As I've said on CCIW Chat before, I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories.

[Gregory Sager]

Like committees in the past have not gone off in the twlight zone before? Right!  The only thing the committee has done consistantly in the past is to administer the criteria inconsistently!  Otherwise, my guess would be a certain CCIW coach would still be on the committee; and, all lot of posters would not having been complaining in recent years about a certain past chair of the Midwest Region.

The committee to which you refer is the Midwest Region committee, not the national selection committee -- and the dispute with Steve Larson that led to Bill Harris resigning from the regional committee took place with a different set of criteria.

Bill Harris, by his own admission, is not one to tailor his schedule to meet the specifications of the D3 selection committee. He said this to me again this past December when I asked him why he had put IIT on the sked for this season (and after I had teased him about Wheaton going out west to play "archrival" Rivier for the second season in a row).

[Mr. Ypsi]

Greg, which was one of MY main points, once the AC/EC game is over and you get a chance to respond!

The difference is that you and IWUM are presuming bad faith on the part of the committee, while I am presuming that it is doing its job in balancing the criteria according to established precedent. As I've said on CCIW Chat before, I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories.

Nor am I.  I specifically said they may not even consciously introduce other criteria, but they are a HUMAN committee.  (If the decision is totally by 5 co-equal criteria [with co-equal secondary criteria backup], why waste money on humans?  Computers could spit that out much more quickly and cheaply.)  I am not presuming bad faith, unless you wish to get into theological arguments concerning the nature of the human condition?!

[Gregory Sager]

That's one of the big reasons why the selections are done by a committee of eight people, rather than by one person. It helps filter out any subjective impulses, whether conscious or unconscious.

[Mr. Ypsi]

As a sociologist, I'm a firm believer that a camel is a horse designed by a committee!   (Though, in a desert area, perhaps a horse is a camel designed by a committee?  Oh, nevermind! )

I find it intriguing that you are more optimistic about a human committee adhering to stated criteria than I, yet I am less troubled by the possibility that they ARE subjective (to a limited degree).  Our (hypothetical) shrinks could have a field day with this one!

[Naperick]

Congrats to IWU and AUG on their wins today.

I feel bad for Wheaton & Elmhurst.  Both are among the best 58 D3 teams in the nation.

[Naperick]

Is it safe to say that the CCIW will only get one team in the D3 tourney unless the Titans win in Rock Island tomorrow night?

[Gregory Sager]

Chuck, I think that my reason for doing so is because I see the philosophy behind what D3 has tried to do with the selection process. Because there has always been such a hue-and-cry over who gets at-large bids and who doesn't in the past (as there still is on the D1 level), the division has attempted to mechanically lock in the selection process as much as it can via the use of formulae and took out as much of the human element as possible by instituting the now-famous primary and secondary criteria. While the division hasn't gone so far as to tell the committee which criteria take precedent -- because, as IWUM astutely noted with his numerator/denominator example vis-a-vis Augie and Lawrence over in the MWC room, the data in each criteria don't always correspond one-to-one between different teams -- I think that the committee understands the driving philosophy behind why D3 has instituted those criteria.

The division wants the process to be as neat and rational and to have as much of an aura of mechanical impartiality as is possible, and I think that the committee understands that it's being asked to abide by that philosophy as well when it adjudicates the respective values of those criteria.

[Gregory Sager]

Congrats to IWU and AUG on their wins today.

I feel bad for Wheaton & Elmhurst.  Both are among the best 58 D3 teams in the nation.

Or 59, even.

Is it safe to say that the CCIW will only get one team in the D3 tourney unless the Titans win in Rock Island tomorrow night?

Yes, that's a pretty safe thing to say. The bottom of the Pool C list with regard to regional winning percentage in terms of teams that have made it into the field in past seasons is somewhere in the .725 range. After tonight Wheaton's is .682 and Elmhurst's is .680, and with a loss tomorrow Illinois Wesleyan's would be .625. Those numbers aren't even close to bubble territory.

[Naperick]

Congrats to IWU and AUG on their wins today.

I feel bad for Wheaton & Elmhurst.  Both are among the best 58 D3 teams in the nation.

Or 59, even.

Is it safe to say that the CCIW will only get one team in the D3 tourney unless the Titans win in Rock Island tomorrow night?

Yes, that's a pretty safe thing to say. The bottom of the Pool C list with regard to regional winning percentage in terms of teams that have made it into the field in past seasons is somewhere in the .725 range. After tonight Wheaton's is .682 and Elmhurst's is .680, and with a loss tomorrow Illinois Wesleyan's would be .625. Those numbers aren't even close to bubble territory.

I forgot it's 59 teams.

It's a crime if only 1 team from the CCIW makes it in.  I'm hoping for a Titans win.  My team [Elmhurst] is done so I want the conference to get two bids.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Naperick, yes, I think that is now a safe conclusion.

Greg, I don't disagree with you, except in how committees ultimately reach conclusions (whatever guidelines they are to fulfill).  For a variety of reasons (and I won't drag out old lecture notes to put everyone to sleep! ), groups almost never reach a consensus which is even particularly close to the average of the participants acting alone.  Group dynamics nearly always propel them off one direction or the other.  This can be very bad (e.g., Bay of Pigs, or attacking Iraq with no notion of what to do after you take Baghdad), but it can also be more 'human' than applying rules by rote.

I am in no way impugning the motives of the selection committee(s); I am suggesting they are human, which may not be all bad!   Their conclusions may not be the same as a computer would have reached, which will understandably drive crazy those omitted, but which (arguably) may be 'correct' on a different level.

[Gregory Sager]

I'm not disagreeing with the proposition that committees can veer off in one direction or another, but that proposition does not allow for independent variables. The philosophy that I described that's behind the process; the idea of precedent; and the fact that each of the eight members of the committee represents a different region in a heavily regionalized process, represent independent variables that mitigate the tendency of which you speak.

[Gregory Sager]

It's a crime if only 1 team from the CCIW makes it in.

As Bob and I have been saying over the past couple of days, if it happens it'll be a crime that the CCIW has perpetrated upon itself. How can you blame the D3 selection committee if you put your four top teams in a gym over a weekend and turn them into a circular firing squad?

[Mr. Ypsi]

Greg, we've both stated that we don't disagree, so I guess we'll just have to agree to diagree!

I still believe that unofficial criteria end up entering the equation (which I don't feel is necessarily bad).  You disagree.  Unfortunately, the selection committee(s) will probably never allow us to resolve it.  I sure wish we could see those final regional rankings!)  So be it.

I must go to bed.  My older son is being baptized a Mormon in the morning.  I have nothing further - good night all.   

[petemcb]

Wow, Ypsi.  As if a couple of pages of ongoing disagreement and agreeing to disagree, or disagreeing about whether or not you agree with Greg, now you bring the two forbidden party discussion topics onto the same page: religion and politics.  It sounds like you're already stoking the off-season fire for non-basketball-related debates.............and your team is not even eliminated yet!  You muckraker, you.