East Region Playoff Discussion

[SJFF82]

Did you miss the discussion we had on like 3 of the boards last week?  The brackets are not officially based on Geography.  They are named by the Number 1 seed (Like, the Mount Union Bracket)  -- But the brackets are also made so that they produce the least possible airplane flights, so they end up being geographically sensible. 

I saw the discussion...but that doesn't mean I agree with it.  I just think that it's bad form.  If you keep sending over Mount Union to the East...how do we necessarily know that the East is the weakest bracket?  Afterall...hardly anyone ever beats MUC...so to simply say we should beat MUC to get to the Final 4 is kind of a stupid arguement.

MUC is only 20-something miles from Pennsylvania.  We in the 'North' have had to deal with them for all but a couple of years - it's time you guys step up and take your turn!

[Besides, in 2007 when MUC went 'East", UWW replaced them in the 'North' - we were grateful for the change, until UWW won the Stagg (I believe they call that 'out of the frying pan, into the fire' ).  Most speculation is that the 'North' will again get UWW instead of MUC, in a year when HScoach and other MUC experts think UWW may be the stronger team. ]

And the 2002 John Carroll team was sent as a Pool C bid #7 seed to the "East Region" and beat Hobart, Muhlenberg and Brockport State.  This is not a new occurrence.

http://www.d3football.com/playoffs/02/bracket.htm

Yeah, and last year, the ONLY year that the 'North' had neither Mount Union (since before they became MOUNT UNION) or UWW, Pool C bid #7 seed Wheaton (of the CCIW) won the 'North' (inevitably losing in the semis to 'you-know-who').

Perfect example of why moving teams around for the sake of the perceived 4 #1's is dangerous.  Wheaton a #7 wins a watered down North bracket but ends up losing to MUC anyway.  Meanwhile an otherwise worthy #1 team in the East (certainly worthy of beating Wheaton) has to get by MUC to even get to the Final Four. 

[SJFF82]

We've heard that before...

While MUC is still very good, this isn't the offense juggernaught the East Region has seen the last couple years with Kmic at TB.  If there was ever a year the traditional east teams would be competitive and/or beat Mount, this would be it.   

If the east is a balanced and average as you guys make it out to be, you've missing a great opportunity to slay the King.

Yeah...judging by the fact that only one game was pretty much within 3 TD's...I am sure that MUC is worried.

I'm not saying the Raiders aren't the favorite in the East by a large margin this year, just that this is as vulnerable as they've been in a while.  If the '06 Fisher team was facing this MUC team the outcome might have been different as a 26-14 point loss. 

I very well could be wrong, but I don't think there is any serious competition to Mount in the East this year.

Ummm...you could probably replace that comment with "I don't think there is any serious competition to Mount in the East this year."

Some team will step up... maybe U Dub Dub.

Almost all Mount folks, myself included, feel that Mount will be hard pressed to keep up with Whitewater this season.  UWW is absolutely loaded with 21 of 22 starters back from last year's Stagg.    Anything short of national championship should be considered a major upset for UWW this season.

I don't buy it...you can't plead underdog when you are 146-5 over the past 10+ seasons...

MUC can "plead" anything they want at 146-5 over the past 10 seasons...


On behalf of the Cardinals, if by some miracle they play MUC in the NCAA this year....I enter a plea of "No Contest".

[Yanks 99]

We've heard that before...

While MUC is still very good, this isn't the offense juggernaught the East Region has seen the last couple years with Kmic at TB.  If there was ever a year the traditional east teams would be competitive and/or beat Mount, this would be it.   

If the east is a balanced and average as you guys make it out to be, you've missing a great opportunity to slay the King.

Yeah...judging by the fact that only one game was pretty much within 3 TD's...I am sure that MUC is worried.

I'm not saying the Raiders aren't the favorite in the East by a large margin this year, just that this is as vulnerable as they've been in a while.  If the '06 Fisher team was facing this MUC team the outcome might have been different as a 26-14 point loss. 

I very well could be wrong, but I don't think there is any serious competition to Mount in the East this year.

Ummm...you could probably replace that comment with "I don't think there is any serious competition to Mount in the East this year."

Some team will step up... maybe U Dub Dub.

Almost all Mount folks, myself included, feel that Mount will be hard pressed to keep up with Whitewater this season.  UWW is absolutely loaded with 21 of 22 starters back from last year's Stagg.    Anything short of national championship should be considered a major upset for UWW this season.

I don't buy it...you can't plead underdog when you are 146-5 over the past 10+ seasons...

MUC can "plead" anything they want at 146-5 over the past 10 seasons...


On behalf of the Cardinals, if by some miracle they play MUC in the NCAA this year....I enter a plea of "No Contest".

Hahaha...HScoach may be the only guy in the past ten years to call MUC an underdog...

[SaintsFAN]

Here is K-Mack's first stab at where the East teams will land (from the Pool C board):

Okay, here's a hastily assembled suggestion:

1 MUC
8 Union

4 Thomas More
5 Alfred

3 Case Western Reserve
6 MSJ

2 Wittenberg
7 Trine
------------
1 Wesley
7 LV/Albright

3 H-SC
8 NCWC/Averett

4 Kean
5 Curry

2 Del Val
6 Johns Hopkins

I'll take that 1st round match up.... but the 2nd round match up in Alliance would be a "learning experience"

Alfred can return the trip we took up there in 1995 --- by coming to Kentucky

[boobyhasgameyo]

Here is K-Mack's first stab at where the East teams will land (from the Pool C board):

Okay, here's a hastily assembled suggestion:

1 MUC
8 Union

4 Thomas More
5 Alfred

3 Case Western Reserve
6 MSJ

2 Wittenberg
7 Trine
------------
1 Wesley
7 LV/Albright

3 H-SC
8 NCWC/Averett

4 Kean
5 Curry

2 Del Val
6 Johns Hopkins

I'll take that 1st round match up.... but the 2nd round match up in Alliance would be a "learning experience"

Alfred can return the trip we took up there in 1995 --- by coming to Kentucky

The only problem with Kentucky though is that it's in Kentucky. 

[Yanks 99]

Here is K-Mack's first stab at where the East teams will land (from the Pool C board):

Okay, here's a hastily assembled suggestion:

1 MUC
8 Union

4 Thomas More
5 Alfred

3 Case Western Reserve
6 MSJ

2 Wittenberg
7 Trine
------------
1 Wesley
7 LV/Albright

3 H-SC
8 NCWC/Averett

4 Kean
5 Curry

2 Del Val
6 Johns Hopkins

I'll take that 1st round match up.... but the 2nd round match up in Alliance would be a "learning experience"

Alfred can return the trip we took up there in 1995 --- by coming to Kentucky

The only problem with Kentucky though is that it's in Kentucky. 

I can attest to that...though Louisville is pretty kick a$$...

[SaintsFAN]

The only problem with Kentucky though is that it's in Kentucky.  

sh!t son.... don't believe all you hear.  10 minutes south of the Ohio River in KY isn't that bad.  

Thats like me basing my opinoin of Upstate NY from 10 days spent in Greene, NY.


EDIT:  Its Greene NY where Raymond Corp is located... duh

[Yanks 99]

The only problem with Kentucky though is that it's in Kentucky.  

sh!t son.... don't believe all you hear.  10 minutes south of the Ohio River in KY isn't that bad.  

Thats like me basing my opinoin of Upstate NY from 10 days spent in Raymond, NY.

Louisville and Lexington are good...the rest of the state...they can have it...

[pumkinattack]

I spent a couple of days in Paduca inadvertently.  Had some surprisingly good meals, although the joint was a bit religious for me.  Trying to catch a connector to Memphis to get back to NYC, the plane (a little prop type one) had a flat, so we were stuck there for a while.  I started chatting with one of the stewardesses (either Northwest or Continental, I can't recall) and she told me that they didn't have any repair people there so someone had to drive down from Memphis.  In the meantime, one of the airport employees offered the pilot a can of fix a flat.  I'm dead serious about this.

Heading to Louisville for the Hobart - Bellarmine lacrosse game in April.  Looking forward to a lot of bourbon and there's an awesome restaraunt I've been to there a couple of times called Jack Fry's.  Phenomenal food, some of the best in my past business travels (aka on the client, so no real spending constraints). 

[HScoach]

We've heard that before...

While MUC is still very good, this isn't the offense juggernaught the East Region has seen the last couple years with Kmic at TB.  If there was ever a year the traditional east teams would be competitive and/or beat Mount, this would be it.   

If the east is a balanced and average as you guys make it out to be, you've missing a great opportunity to slay the King.

Yeah...judging by the fact that only one game was pretty much within 3 TD's...I am sure that MUC is worried.

I'm not saying the Raiders aren't the favorite in the East by a large margin this year, just that this is as vulnerable as they've been in a while.  If the '06 Fisher team was facing this MUC team the outcome might have been different as a 26-14 point loss. 

I very well could be wrong, but I don't think there is any serious competition to Mount in the East this year.

Ummm...you could probably replace that comment with "I don't think there is any serious competition to Mount in the East this year."

Some team will step up... maybe U Dub Dub.

Almost all Mount folks, myself included, feel that Mount will be hard pressed to keep up with Whitewater this season.  UWW is absolutely loaded with 21 of 22 starters back from last year's Stagg.    Anything short of national championship should be considered a major upset for UWW this season.

I don't buy it...you can't plead underdog when you are 146-5 over the past 10+ seasons...

MUC can "plead" anything they want at 146-5 over the past 10 seasons...


On behalf of the Cardinals, if by some miracle they play MUC in the NCAA this year....I enter a plea of "No Contest".

Hahaha...HScoach may be the only guy in the past ten years to call MUC an underdog...

I understand how foriegn that may sound to an outsider, but Mount hasn't always the best team on paper.  MUC was an underdog to Whitewater in 2005.  UWW had just beaten defending champion Linfield on the road and MUC had lost to Ohio Northern in the regular season.

[dlippiel]

Here is K-Mack's first stab at where the East teams will land (from the Pool C board):

Okay, here's a hastily assembled suggestion:

1 MUC
8 Union

4 Thomas More
5 Alfred

3 Case Western Reserve
6 MSJ

2 Wittenberg
7 Trine
------------
1 Wesley
7 LV/Albright

3 H-SC
8 NCWC/Averett

4 Kean
5 Curry

2 Del Val
6 Johns Hopkins

Listen, dlip has been critical of the U and the LL as a whole here in 09. Yet the ****in NEFC winner getting a seed 3 spots higher than the ****in LL winner seems ****in ludicrous to dlip. It better be about ****in mileage because it sure as **** isn't about strength of conference.

[theoriginalupstate]

Here is K-Mack's first stab at where the East teams will land (from the Pool C board):

Okay, here's a hastily assembled suggestion:

1 MUC
8 Union

4 Thomas More
5 Alfred

3 Case Western Reserve
6 MSJ

2 Wittenberg
7 Trine
------------
1 Wesley
7 LV/Albright

3 H-SC
8 NCWC/Averett

4 Kean
5 Curry

2 Del Val
6 Johns Hopkins

Listen, dlip has been critical of the U and the LL as a whole here in 09. Yet the ****in NEFC winner getting a seed 3 spots higher than the ****in LL winner seems ****in ludicrous to dlip. It better be about ****in mileage because it sure as **** isn't about strength of conference.

So you're complaining about Curry being a #5 seed in a hypothetical "South" bracket?

[Frank Rossi]

I'd heartily disagree with K-Mack's brackets here.  There's gotta be a better way to deal with the East's lacking of bracket fillers than to create a three-bracket amalgamation since the two brackets he's showing all seem to contain East, South and North teams mixed together. 

I think it's overthinking the process -- The North and South have too many teams while the East does not have enough.  The East likely has six teams.  The North team named Mount Union comes over, leaving one slot.  Some North teams are geographic fits with the West Bracket -- less so than the South.  So the overage in the North can be dealt with in the West if any overage exists.  If the South has a ninth team, then one team can shift up into the "East" bracket to complete it. 

I think K-Mack's brackets take the "distance doesn't matter in the 2nd and 3rd rounds" too far.  The NCAA still looks at Division III as more of a regional system at the bracketing level -- the problem is that the NCAA wants to ensure that the top four teams get #1 seeds (unless geographically impossible to pull off) and will work the other teams around those seeds when possible.  Then, regionalization is key to at least keep the travel scenarios sensible.  Yes, there may be a flight that occurs because of a 2nd or 3rd round situation where the teams just happen to be too far (there is not regulation per se against this).  However, I think the NCAA would frown upon being blatant about intermixing regions to THAT degree.

The reason I say this is that there is a balance between Regions and number of Pool A bids per region.  The North, West and South each have 6 Pool A bids, while the East has 5.  If this ever became out of balance because of new conferences taking new Pool A bids (or the disbandment of current Pool A conferences), I'd guess that the "Regions" would be shifted accordingly. 

Long story short -- I think the regional nature of things is still intact to a degree without the original rigidity we saw when the fields were first expanded in the 90s.  That's why I have trouble with the mixing up of teams K-Mack did.  However, we'll see for sure on Sunday what happens...

[pg04]

I hope so Frank, because K-mack's bracket looks like he just put the names in a hopper and pulled them out randomly, then seeded them.  

Edit:  I guess I Jumped the gun based on Frank's post.  My apologies. 

[PBR...]

I'd heartily disagree with K-Mack's brackets here.  There's gotta be a better way to deal with the East's lacking of bracket fillers than to create a three-bracket amalgamation since the two brackets he's showing all seem to contain East, South and North teams mixed together. 

I think it's overthinking the process -- The North and South have too many teams while the East does not have enough.  The East likely has six teams.  The North team named Mount Union comes over, leaving one slot.  Some North teams are geographic fits with the West Bracket -- less so than the South.  So the overage in the North can be dealt with in the West if any overage exists.  If the South has a ninth team, then one team can shift up into the "East" bracket to complete it. 

I think K-Mack's brackets take the "distance doesn't matter in the 2nd and 3rd rounds" too far.  The NCAA still looks at Division III as more of a regional system at the bracketing level -- the problem is that the NCAA wants to ensure that the top four teams get #1 seeds (unless geographically impossible to pull off) and will work the other teams around those seeds when possible.  Then, regionalization is key to at least keep the travel scenarios sensible.  Yes, there may be a flight that occurs because of a 2nd or 3rd round situation where the teams just happen to be too far (there is not regulation per se against this).  However, I think the NCAA would frown upon being blatant about intermixing regions to THAT degree.

The reason I say this is that there is a balance between Regions and number of Pool A bids per region.  The North, West and South each have 6 Pool A bids, while the East has 5.  If this ever became out of balance because of new conferences taking new Pool A bids (or the disbandment of current Pool A conferences), I'd guess that the "Regions" would be shifted accordingly. 

Long story short -- I think the regional nature of things is still intact to a degree without the original rigidity we saw when the fields were first expanded in the 90s.  That's why I have trouble with the mixing up of teams K-Mack did.  However, we'll see for sure on Sunday what happens...

frank not that kmack needs defending but  some people are taking his brackets out of context....did anyone read the post he did when he put these brackets out?  here is a snippet of the post...


Just for fun, since the Pool C thread seems to be doubling as this year's playoff speculation thread, I'm going to make a field of 32 with matchups I could potentially see. I don't plan to spend more than two minutes thinking about this, I just want to throw something out there that might or (more likely) might not happen.

Feel free to change one Week 11 result, one Pool C selection or both, or just re-mix and match the bracket in a way you potentially see it falling.


did anyone else read he didnt spend more than 2 minutes thinking about this? cut the guy some slack...some people are taking this bracket as the gospel and not realizing he just threw  a quick bracket  out there  WITHOUT  taking more than 2 minutes to think about it...come on peeps take it easy