MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[almcguirejr]

It seems to me that the MIAA should be considering moving the Men's quarterfinals from Wednesday to Tuesday.  The weather forecast looks poor for Wednesday.  If games can't be played Wednesday a team could be looking at playing 3 games in 3 days.

[goodknight]

Sam Lewis, a 6-6 forward at Milford High School, announced his commitment to attend Calvin University on his Twitter account today.
https://twitter.com/samlew32/followers_you_follow

[sac]

It seems to me that the MIAA should be considering moving the Men's quarterfinals from Wednesday to Tuesday.  The weather forecast looks poor for Wednesday.  If games can't be played Wednesday a team could be looking at playing 3 games in 3 days.

I would think that ship has sailed.

So far it looks like the worst part of the storm for road conditions occurs late afternoon Wed to overnight Wed/Thurs morning.
It looks like getting to Olivet won't be to much trouble for Albion, getting to Holland might be just a longer trip for Adrian.  Getting home could be very difficult for Adrian. 

[ziggy]

Sam Lewis, a 6-6 forward at Milford High School, announced his commitment to attend Calvin University on his Twitter account today.
https://twitter.com/samlew32/followers_you_follow

Seems like a good get but he might have been a bit under-recruited. Not sure what his offer list looked like but a write-up I saw said he had offers from DIII and NAIA.

[sac]

Don't remember if this was posted.

Eddie Millington 6-4 Brighton will attend Trine

AAU teammate of Sam Lewis, at least one other is considering MIAA schools

[TUAngola]

Don't remember if this was posted.

Eddie Millington 6-4 Brighton will attend Trine

AAU teammate of Sam Lewis, at least one other is considering MIAA schools

Yes I posted this on Jan 25th.

"Trine commit:

Eddie Millington, 6'4 G/F, Brighton HS, MI"

[TUAngola]

New Regional Rankings are out:

Region 7       
1   Case Western Reserve   20-3   20-3
2   John Carroll   22-3   22-3
3   Mount Union   23-2   23-2
4   Wooster   19-5   19-5
5   Heidelberg   18-7   18-7
6   Carnegie Mellon   15-9   15-9
7   Wabash   18-7   18-7

I don't understand why Wabash is still regionally ranked ahead of Calvin.  And maybe even Carnegie Mellon, although I do realize the merits of playing in the toughest conference in D3. But if your winning percentage is barely above .600, well I just don't get it.  Winning games just doesn't seem have much importance.  Wabash has one good win over WashU, but other than a conference win against Wooster I am not getting why they have all this love over Calvin.  They have a really bad loss at home against Earlham who is ranked in the 300's, and they've lost 3 or their last 4 games.  Why are Calvin and Trine ranked in the top 25 nationally but can't get a ranking in their own region?  Only Case, Mount and JCU are ranked nationally out of the top 7.  There seems to be a disconnect somewhere.  If Calvin and Trine aren't regionally ranked then they most certainly should not be nationally ranked, correct? 

[pointlem]

New Regional Rankings are out:

Region 7       
1   Case Western Reserve   20-3   20-3
2   John Carroll   22-3   22-3
3   Mount Union   23-2   23-2
4   Wooster   19-5   19-5
5   Heidelberg   18-7   18-7
6   Carnegie Mellon   15-9   15-9
7   Wabash   18-7   18-7

I don't understand why Wabash is still regionally ranked ahead of Calvin.  And maybe even Carnegie Mellon, although I do realize the merits of playing in the toughest conference in D3. But if your winning percentage is barely above .600, well I just don't get it.  Winning games just doesn't seem have much importance.  Wabash has one good win over WashU, but other than a conference win against Wooster I am not getting why they have all this love over Calvin.  They have a really bad loss at home against Earlham who is ranked in the 300's, and they've lost 3 or their last 4 games.  Why are Calvin and Trine ranked in the top 25 nationally but can't get a ranking in their own region?  Only Case, Mount and JCU are ranked nationally out of the top 7.  There seems to be a disconnect somewhere.  If Calvin and Trine aren't regionally ranked then they most certainly should not be nationally ranked, correct?

Do I presume correctly that the D3 formula gives Calvin no credit for losing to, say, Wheaton by 1 rather than by 30 (perhaps to discourage teams from running up scores)? But the thoughtful humans who make poll rankings, and the Massey computer power ranking, do make sensible use of all the available information. Even as a Hope fan I will empathize with Calvin and its fans if Calvin finishes the season 22-5 and a top 25 ranking, yet isn't selected as one of 64 tournament teams. To my wee brain it seems like, regardless of this week's outcomes, Calvin has earned a chance to play on.

[Grutte Dirk]

Sam Lewis, Milford HS, committed to Calvin University

Seems like a good get... I saw [Lewis] had offers from DIII...

What does offer mean these days, in this context?

[sac]

New Regional Rankings are out:

Region 7       
1   Case Western Reserve   20-3   20-3
2   John Carroll   22-3   22-3
3   Mount Union   23-2   23-2
4   Wooster   19-5   19-5
5   Heidelberg   18-7   18-7
6   Carnegie Mellon   15-9   15-9
7   Wabash   18-7   18-7

I don't understand why Wabash is still regionally ranked ahead of Calvin.  And maybe even Carnegie Mellon, although I do realize the merits of playing in the toughest conference in D3. But if your winning percentage is barely above .600, well I just don't get it.  Winning games just doesn't seem have much importance.  Wabash has one good win over WashU, but other than a conference win against Wooster I am not getting why they have all this love over Calvin.  They have a really bad loss at home against Earlham who is ranked in the 300's, and they've lost 3 or their last 4 games.  Why are Calvin and Trine ranked in the top 25 nationally but can't get a ranking in their own region?  Only Case, Mount and JCU are ranked nationally out of the top 7.  There seems to be a disconnect somewhere.  If Calvin and Trine aren't regionally ranked then they most certainly should not be nationally ranked, correct?

The top 25 poll has no bearing or relationship with the criteria used to rank teams for regional ranking or to seed or select teams for the NCAA tournament.

It is simply a poll by a website that covers D3 sports.   


The NCAA criteria is basically just a prettiest resume contest in which teams from non-power conferences (like the MIAA) have little to no chance of receiving at-large bids due to the nature of the criteria and its application.  This year the disconnect has been heightened by expanding regions which has created probably 3 weak regions dominated by one conference and one deeper region with far to few ranking slots for its size and strength(region 7). 

We've had 3 pool C (at large ) selections from this league in the close to 15 or so years we've used this current system and criteria.  Two of those 3 were conference champions that lost in the tournament, only 1, (Calvin last year) was a non-champion Pool C bid.


In the beginning we had some rough years where selections and messaging from the NCAA didn't match, but its been better the last several years but so far it looks like we've reversed back to some old ranking habits.   (for instance a 14-11 team being ranked) 


The MIAA should get together and schedule only the worst 4 or 5 teams from conferences to boost their win totals just to see what would happen.

[KnightSlappy]

The MIAA should get together and schedule only the worst 4 or 5 teams from conferences to boost their win totals just to see what would happen.

I think the MIAA's biggest problem this year is that it just wasn't a good league. Usually MIAA is around the #8-12 best conference in D3 but this year it's closer to #20. The 40-50 non-conference record is really hurting as the average league game pulls the SOS down. Compare that to the NJAC which was 43-29 (and probably not a much better league in terms of overall quality).

If the conference were to work together to increase overall Pool C bids -- and I'm not sure the bottom of the conference has incentive to do this -- the bottom of the league would be hunting wins and the top of the conference would be hunting regionally ranked wins. The bottom half of the MIAA plays a lot of games vs. NCAC and OAC schools. They'd get a lot more wins if they played the AMCC and PAC instead.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

It is also utterly ridiculous that every region gets the same number of teams ranked, despite the variation in size  (# of schools) in each region.  The MIAA is in the largest region (Region 7) with 48 teams.  The number of teams ranked in your region has a significant impact on vRRO (results versus Regional Ranked Opponents) which is one of the criteria the NCAA uses to select and rank teams. 

Last year, the number of teams ranked in each region was a percentage (I think it was 20% of each region, rounded to the nearest whole number).  Now every region gets 7 teams ranked regardless of size. 

Comparison of Region 2 (smallest) and Region 7 (largest):

Region --- # of Teams --- 21-22 ranked --- 22-23 ranked
Region 2 ----- 32  -------- 6 (20%) ---------  7 (22%)
Region 7 ----- 48  -------- 10 (20%) --------  7 (15%)

For a team like Calvin this year - going back to 10 teams, the MIAA likely gets 2 teams ranked (Calvin & Trine - heck Hope might even have an outside chance of getting ranked).  Calvin gains 2 or 3 wins vRRO, which may raise them past Wabash (or even higher) and completely changes their chances of a Pool C bid. 

[ziggy]

That's a fair synopsis from Sac. I think in most years the MIAA has a team of an actual quality worthy of at-large selection but their NCAA criteria rarely live up to it and it almost always comes down to SOS.

In general I would say Hope and Calvin do fine with their scheduling. Both go out and play a lot of good teams, though maybe they could be more strategic about trying to hunt games against teams likely to be regionally ranked and avoid games against teams that are good but might get roughed up in conference (I would shy away from scheduling WIAC, for instance).

Trine's program is at a point where they need to schedule up. The 0.483 SOS they have right now is nowhere close to being where they will get any kind of consideration.

The rest of the league is more at a point where they should be hunting wins of any kind in their non-conference schedule. Too many at the bottom of the MIAA are taking on a much more difficult schedule than they are ready for. Adrian and Kalamazoo don't need to be playing Case Western Reserve, for instance. Too many cases of the bottom of the MIAA playing games they can't be expected to be competitive in. Games against Finlandia, the SLIAC, and the weaker Ohio and in-region Pennsylvania teams would be ideal.

It is a huge problem for potential Pool C contenders in the MIAA when the bottom of the league is bringing so few non-conference wins into league play. It's an absolute tank on the SOS of the conference teams above them.

[ziggy]

It is also utterly ridiculous that every region gets the same number of teams ranked, despite the variation in size  (# of schools) in each region.  The MIAA is in the largest region (Region 7) with 48 teams.  The number of teams ranked in your region has a significant impact on vRRO (results versus Regional Ranked Opponents) which is one of the criteria the NCAA uses to select and rank teams. 

Last year, the number of teams ranked in each region was a percentage (I think it was 20% of each region, rounded to the nearest whole number).  Now every region gets 7 teams ranked regardless of size. 

Comparison of Region 2 (smallest) and Region 7 (largest):

Region --- # of Teams --- 21-22 ranked --- 22-23 ranked
Region 2 ----- 32  -------- 6 (20%) ---------  7 (22%)
Region 7 ----- 48  -------- 10 (20%) --------  7 (15%)

For a team like Calvin this year - going back to 10 teams, the MIAA likely gets 2 teams ranked (Calvin & Trine - heck Hope might even have an outside chance of getting ranked).  Calvin gains 2 or 3 wins vRRO, which may raise them past Wabash (or even higher) and completely changes their chances of a Pool C bid.

Region 2 still has just 6 ranked teams while all others have 7. For some reason they allowed for the number to be adjusted down to account for the size of the region but not up. 7 is a hard cap for no explainable reason.

[ziggy]

I should also note here that even longtime observers of the NCAA ranking and selection process are having a hard time wrapping our heads around some of what we've seen. It definitely feels like this committee is being even more heavy-handed with SOS to the point that teams that we wouldn't normally have said have an SOS problem are being treated like they have an SOS problem. It does feel to me that things have swung much too far.

And a shameless plug for anyone interested in the regional ranking/NCAA data side of things or learning more about it, we spend a lot of time bloviating about it on the D3 Datacast on YouTube (among other D3 hoops topics).