Great Lakes Region

[KnightSlappy]

No... a lot of coaches that are at the top of the leagues also like the tournaments.

I'm sure the UWSP, St. Thomas, Woosters would be more in favor -- in general -- in favor of regular season champs getting the AQ's than the Albions and Hirams would be.

A reason for that may be that you can't always count on being at the top of the standings every year.

But, even if they don't win the AQ, Stevens Point, Whitewater, Illinois Wesleyan, Calvin, and Hope (for examples) stand a better chance of not getting knocked off of the Pool C bubble than they would when tournament upsets are a big possibility.

[smedindy]

And I bet it changes from year to year, too. This year, Albertus Magnus would probably not want a tourney in the GNAC.

[Titan Q]

Non-UAA fans in the Midwest would be right to be concerned about NYU getting ranked in the weak East region. Those are two more games against a regionally ranked opponent for a school like Wash U, and that has an impact on every team fighting with them in the MW.

Right.  This is the advantage I was primarily referring to.  Those extra "results vs regionally ranked" for Wash U when evaluated vs the Midwest, or Brandeis vs the Northeast, etc. can really have an impact on how teams are stacked up in the region.

[Titan Q]

I've always been anti-conference tournament just for philosophical reasons.  I think they're fun, but I just believe that the team that grinds out a title over the course of two hard months deserves the AQ.  The other teams can let their resumes speak for themselves on selection day. 

A few of the A.Ds and coaches in the CCIW feel the same way...but after 7 years now I don't see the league reversing course.

[wally_wabash]

Oh I'm so glad we brought up the scourge that is league tournaments.  I was thinking about this the other day and figured that there are about three possible outcomes of a league tournament. 

1- Your regular season champion wins and all is right with the world.  Or is it?  Let's say your regular season champion wins but you've got a 2nd or 3rd place team that sits precariously on the bubble.  Time for some math.  Maybe that team gets upset in the first round.  That team's win% takes a hit, probably takes an SOS hit, and is now out of the NCAAs because they played a game that never had to happen.  Their win% is going to take a hit no matter what (even 2-1 in tournament play hurts you).  Also, pretty much any first round game for a team seed 2nd or 3rd in a league tournament will hurt the SOS.  End result: the team that should have qualified did, another team that had a good chance to qualify is out because they had a bad game or caught a hot team or had to play teams that hurt their SOS profile.   

2- Your runner up wins.  So you've taken a team that was probably on the bubble and put them in the tournament, but now your league's best team is in the at large pool and may get knocked out entirely if scenario 2 or 3 happens enough times, which is entirely possible.  Additionally, if your league champion goes 1-1 or 2-1 in the league tournament, they've probably taken a win% hit, which hurts their at-large profile...whcih of course never had to happen if we could all agree that league tournaments are silly. 

3- Cinderella wins.  Worst case scenario.  Yes, Cinderella is a fun story.  Cinderella also keeps, potentially, a really really good team out of the tournament.  We have to remember that the Division III tournament is way more exclusive than the the Division I tournament is, so it is a bigger hit to the overall quality of the field when the plucky, hot-for-a-weekend 14-12 team wins a league tournament and gets a spot in the field.  So you've damaged the quality of the field.  You've also put your league champion at risk of not making the field and you've almost certainly wiped out any shot your league runner up may have had (again, those teams either had to go 0-1. 1-1, or 2-1, any of which damage the win% and thus your chances of being selected). 

Nothing good happens in league tournaments.  People don't make money (for the most part) and we wind up putting WAY too much emphasis on those one or two games and forget about games that happened in November and December (those games count too...at least they should).  I'd much rather see leagues forgo the conference tournaments and play 2-3 more non-league games.  I think that's far more beneficial. 

[smedindy]

Here are the teams that could really screw up the GL region if they win their conference tourney (and these are teams that do have a shot at it, unlike, say wishcasting that Oberlin makes the NCAC tourney and runs the table...)

1. Trine
2. Adrian
3. Hope
4. Wittenberg
5. Bethany

I don't think anyone except the winner of the OAC and AMCC are going to go to the field. If the favorites lose in those tourneys, they're probably done. If one of the above teams win, the league winner probably goes and that's a squeeze on the rest of the region. (OWU may fall out if Witt wins the NCAC, for instance...and if another MIAA team save Calvin wins that league it may domino so that OWU or St. Vincent are knocked out as well.)

Of course, it's early...ish.

[Gregory Sager]

btw the UAA gets 5 teams ranked, one of them is 14-7, no other conference gets to have this advantage and that's just wrong.

How is it wrong if they are deserving of being ranked? Appling to appling, maybe those 5 teams are amongst the best 40 or so. Yeah, NYU is in a weak region, but I've always thought some of the NE should move to the East.

I'm on the fence about this. If you look at NYU, they clearly deserve to be ranked since they have a crazy-high SOS and a WP that is in the ballpark of others in their region below the top two. The problem is that the rankings fit them into their region when their schedule is a-regional and really bares no resemblance to that of those they are in competition for regionally. It's really an issue with the UAA, which flies in the face of the overall D3 philosophy.

But then, having the UAA is good for D-3 as a whole. Those institutions add more to us than they take away with their national approach. And as many advantages they have in hoops, perhaps, they have none in football.

I'm not anti-UAA and I'm not necessarily against the D3 philosophy. It's just that the two are hard to reconcile.

What's the alternative? Force teams into leagues where they have nothing in common with any of the teams there?

A case could be made for C-M and Case in the NCAC academically and athletically. But where does Wash U. fit in? Chicago in the CCIW? Emory? The days of the independent are long gone...

None of those schools are a good fit in the places that you mention. The UAA schools are elite, mid-sized research universities; the NCAC and the CCIW are made up of small liberal arts colleges, very good academically but not really in the same realm when it comes to graduate programs, federal research dollars, publish-or-perish, etc.

Chicago would be a terrible fit for the CCIW. Prior to the advent of the UAA, Chicago was in the MWC ... and it was a terrible fit there, too. In fact, the reverse is true; rather than looking at how one could possibly shoehorn the UAA institutions into adjacent leagues made up of small liberal arts colleges, perhaps the UAA should look into wooing some of its sister institutions that stick out like sore thumbs in their current small-liberal-arts-colleges leagues, such as MIT in the NEWMAC, Johns Hopkins in the Centennial (and, yeah, I know that Johns Hopkins used to be an associate member of the UAA), and Caltech in the SCIAC. Those schools are elephants grazing on the savannah amongst herds of antelopes.

Well, what is the goal of "C", anyway? It's to select the best teams of the ones that weren't good enough to win their league, right? I know all y'all are hung up on seeding and hosting, but when you get to this level, you're just worried about are you good enough to make the tourney. And while I carry the banner for those that are slighted because they're not in a 'power conference' there's a difference between taking a team that is clearly one of the best at large teams to one that's on the edge and just getting rep from being in a league.

All that said, NYU is in extreme bubble-land...

Many times the best teams don't win the AQ, but that's any entirely different discussion.

Yeah, the conference tourney conundrum.

Me, I wish the actual league winner got the bid and conference tourneys went away in D-3. They're a money grab and ESPN programming for D-1, but in D-3? Not as such...

I hate 'em, too. But the NCAA can't make 'em go away. Each league still gets to determine how it chooses to assign its one automatic bid to the tourney, and in D3 only the UAA opts to give it to the regular-season champion. That's part of the NCAA's focus upon self-governance among leagues and individual schools.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Greg, agree on MIT and Johns Hopkins, but Caltech can't even compete in the SCIAC!  They would be absolutely routed in every game in the UAA.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Not that I am defending CalTech, but I do get a serious sense that their programs are improving so you never know what the future holds (i.e. MIT).

And I know there has been scuttlebutt around these parts on whether Johns Hopkins would bolt back to the UAA. They are still an affiliate member in swimming and diving and the memory of being a part member in other sports is certainly still fresh. I highly suspect there is plenty of thinking on the matter on the Homewood campus and fear or maybe worry in the Centennial they could leave and maybe start a tidal wave. Of course, I have also heard rumors the UAA has come calling many times based simply because wouldn't it be nice for that conference to have a foot in the Baltimore/Washington, DC metroplex.

But... I don't think it happens in the short term... but should someone else leave the Centennial... I bet that is the trigger.

[Pat Coleman]

Kills me that Catholic let its AAU membership lapse. Catholic and Johns Hopkins would be ideal travel partners in the UAA, but Catholic isn't eligible because it's not in that organization.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

That would have been a nice duo... I guess you will just have to stick with us Gophers in the meantime .

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, agree on MIT and Johns Hopkins, but Caltech can't even compete in the SCIAC!  They would be absolutely routed in every game in the UAA.

Yes, but Chuck, that has absolutely nothing to do with the profile of the schools, which is what this discussion is about. Caltech, like the other schools named, is an elite, mid-sized research university. The fact that it stinks at sports has nothing to do with the school's institutional profile or its resources; it has to do with the fact that the school utilizes a, shall we say, quirky admissions-gatekeeper methodology that strongly militates against the ability of Caltech coaches to get student-athletes admitted. In other words, it's a totally elective variable on Caltech's part and not an inherent athletics weakness, institutionally speaking.

[sac]

Kills me that Catholic let its AAU membership lapse. Catholic and Johns Hopkins would be ideal travel partners in the UAA, but Catholic isn't eligible because it's not in that organization.

Why would they let their AAU membership lapse?

[Pat Coleman]

Kills me that Catholic let its AAU membership lapse. Catholic and Johns Hopkins would be ideal travel partners in the UAA, but Catholic isn't eligible because it's not in that organization.

Why would they let their AAU membership lapse?

You got me. I think this is getting on close to a decade ago.

[kiltedbryan]

Kills me that Catholic let its AAU membership lapse. Catholic and Johns Hopkins would be ideal travel partners in the UAA, but Catholic isn't eligible because it's not in that organization.

Why would they let their AAU membership lapse?

You got me. I think this is getting on close to a decade ago.

This letter appears to be legitimate - it's from the CUA president at the time and is hosted on a CUA public affairs server. It doesn't answer all the questions, but indicates that he/CUA felt that CUA and the AAU were "moving forward, but on different trajectories."

An excerpt, emphasis mine:

In recent years and among other things, AAU has focused upon clarifying criteria for new and continuing membership. The approval and subsequent publication of "AAU Membership Principles" in 1999 and "AAU Membership Indicators" in 2000 provided all of us in AAU with the opportunity to reflect upon our own membership and our place within AAU. Coupled with the efforts of my own institution to engage in a serious process of strategic planning, discussions occurring within AAU have led me to review CUA's continuing membership with members of my administration, including the chief academic officer and all of the university's academic deans.

While all of us believe that CUA is well positioned to fulfill its academic research mission, it has become clear that CUA and the vast majority of AAU institutions are moving forward but on different trajectories. That becomes evident as one studies the various membership indicators that can be identified by both AAU and CUA. Our institutional emphases and energies are different than those of most of our colleague institutions in AAU. As president of CUA, I believe that the university community here must focus its attention on its mission, reflected in those emphases and energies, in a consistent, concentrated and comprehensive manner. For that reason, I write to notify you that CUA will withdraw from membership in AAU, effective October 20 of this year, the date of the beginning of the AAU Fall Membership Meeting.