Great Lakes Region

[calvinite]

This is what I find ironic. For years I've read posts on D3 Hoops arguing that MIAA teams need to play more in-region games. NOT JUST CALVIN, but MIAA teams in general. So this year Calvin does that.

In any event, from where I sit, Calvin needed to play tougher competition. Ideally, Calvin needed to play several regionally ranked teams. While I don't know much about scheduling college basketball games, I'd bet my last dollar that it's not so EASY to just call up a team and set up a game EVEN IF YOU KNOW THAT TEAM WILL BE RANKED IN A YEAR (which you can't know -- even with research). Just look at the surprises in the MIAA this year.

BUT MY POINT IS THIS..... Knowing what I know now, I would have told VandeStreek to schedule tough teams -- EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT IN-REGION TEAMS.  This year's schedule is definitely SOFTER than most other years, and it's because of the in-region games. We are better off forgetting the POOL C bids which RARELY happen help Calvin anyway, and when they do happen, the seeding is just pathetic. INSTEAD, get your team ready by playing teams like Western Michigan like Hope has done several times, play the Davneport Universties and the Cornerstones, and teams offering scholarships that are consistently better than virtually ALL of the regional teams within 300 miles of Grand Rapids (except possibly Hope, but I put Hope and Calvin about equal to Cornerstone, Aquinas, and Davenport). Play tough competition to make sure you are ready for any post season play that you might take part in.

Calvin might get into the tournament this year, but I don't think they are as ready for real tough teams as they were when they played tougher schedules with fewer in-region games.

Whether or not this changes next year, time will tell. I also watched all of the St. Vincent game last night. I see these rankings, and I just shake my head. St. Vincent might deserve the higher regional ranking, but I would LOVE to see Calvin play St. Vincent. I salivate just thinking about it.

[Pat Coleman]

Yes, it is a year where Calvin got on board. It's not always going to be like that.

[ziggy]

http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d3

Quick recap of this week's GL region conference call....

I was thinking they made macaroni necklaces or something.

Seriously though, what interest me in this the fact that Jody May is on the committee and would bring a good perspective on Calvin's conflicting resume items. Between conference play, Manchester, Wabash and North Park, he's guided a team through a very similar schedule. It seems he is either not trumpeting Calvin's WP as an accomplishment or he is getting ignored. Not to say he has to be a banner carrier, just that it's an interesting dynamic. Oh to be a fly on that wall.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Well ultimately they do vote individually online... so he could use that to push Calvin higher, potentially. Then again, the national committee could come in and say... uh... no.

[ziggy]

Well ultimately they do vote individually online... so he could use that to push Calvin higher, potentially. Then again, the national committee could come in and say... uh... no.

I didn't mean elevate Calvin in an artificial sense at all. I mean in terms of adding to a discussion regarding how to evaluate the second-best in-region win percentage in Division III vs. an SOS in the bottom 10%.

[sac]

I've always felt the criteria such as SOS and games vs RRO was supposed to separate teams that were close in winning %.

Its not being used like that, its being used to trump winning percentages, that's very frustrating.

[ziggy]

I've always felt the criteria such as SOS and games vs RRO was supposed to separate teams that were close in winning %.

Its not being used like that, its being used to trump winning percentages, that's very frustrating.

The handbook is clear that all five primary criteria are given equal consideration. The issue is that the committee is effectively considering Calvin's WP ordinary given the poor SOS and lack of RvRRO and I don't believe that to be accurate.

[Pat Coleman]

The handbook is clear that all five primary criteria are given equal consideration. The issue is that the committee is effectively considering Calvin's WP ordinary given the poor SOS and lack of RvRRO and I don't believe that to be accurate.

And there is, as always, the crux of it. It's their opinion that it is.

And the discussion continues to discount secondary criteria, which are not helpful to Calvin either.

[wally_wabash]

I've always felt the criteria such as SOS and games vs RRO was supposed to separate teams that were close in winning %.

Its not being used like that, its being used to trump winning percentages, that's very frustrating.

Yes, yes, yes.  All of this. 

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

I've always felt the criteria such as SOS and games vs RRO was supposed to separate teams that were close in winning %.

Its not being used like that, its being used to trump winning percentages, that's very frustrating.

But to be honest... no where in the criteria does it read that the SOS and the vRRO is supposed to be used to separate teams with close WPs. They are all criteria and used accordingly.

[Pat Coleman]

In football, where the limited number of games means we have a bunch of teams with similar/identical records, it does often work out that way. I'm not sure it's been that cut-and-dried in basketball, though.

A couple of final-public rankings from this region in past years:

2012
1 Hope 16-0 24-1
2 Wittenberg 18-4 20-5
3 Wooster 19-4 21-4
4 Ohio Wesleyan 18-6 19-6
5 Bethany 21-2 22-3
6 John Carroll 15-6 18-6

2011
1 Wooster 23-2 26-2
2 Marietta 22-3 25-3
3 Hope 18-2 22-6
4 Penn State-Behrend 23-3 23-4
5 Wittenberg 16-6 19-8
6 Wabash 19-6 20-6

2010 (this is the selection ranking, the one year they published it)
1. Wooster 23-4 23-5
2. Hope 16-3 21-7
3. Wilmington (Ohio) 20-6 21-7
4. John Carroll 18-6 20-6
5. Calvin 15-4 19-9
6. Wittenberg 17-7 21-7

2009
1. John Carroll 20-4 18-3
2. Capital 22-3 20-3
3. Carnegie Mellon 18-6 14-5
5. Wooster 19-6 18-4
4. Calvin 17-7 12-2
6. Ohio Wesleyan 17-7 16-6

2008 (back when I used to go back and insert OWP and OOWP)
1. Hope    21-3    15-2    .508    .494
2. Capital    21-4    20-4    .528    .524
3. Wooster    22-3    15-2    .484    .490
4. Heidelberg    20-5    18-4    .519    .521
5. Penn State-Behrend    21-4    19-3    .466    .492
6. Albion    18-5    14-3    .476    .496

2007
1. Lake Erie 23-2 19-1
2. Wooster 22-3 17-2
3. John Carroll 17-8 16-6
4. Hope 21-3 14-3
5. Ohio Northern 19-6 14-6
6. Wittenberg 21-4 16-4

I don't think there's a pattern that suggests winning percentage is a stronger primary criterion than the rest.

[realist]

The more I hear and read the NCAA defended the more it becomes apparent this is a very fallible system used by equally fallible people.  Hard to defend a system that includes criteria that are so mallable they can be used to defend whatever decsion one person or a group of people choose to make.      

[Pat Coleman]

The more I hear and read the NCAA defended the more it becomes apparent this is a very fallible system used by equally fallible people.  Hard to defend a system that includes criteria that are so mallable they can be used to defend whatever decsion one person or a group of people choose to make.      

So it's like any other tournament selection process. Not a surprise there.

[realist]

The more I hear and read the NCAA defended the more it becomes apparent this is a very fallible system used by equally fallible people.  Hard to defend a system that includes criteria that are so mallable they can be used to defend whatever decsion one person or a group of people choose to make.      

So it's like any other tournament selection process. Not a surprise there.

Perhaps it is the arrogant, holier than thou, self righteous attitude of the NCAA that insists in proclaiming it is above or beyond reproach that some of us find galling.

[Pat Coleman]

The more I hear and read the NCAA defended the more it becomes apparent this is a very fallible system used by equally fallible people.  Hard to defend a system that includes criteria that are so mallable they can be used to defend whatever decsion one person or a group of people choose to make.      

So it's like any other tournament selection process. Not a surprise there.

Perhaps it is the arrogant, holier than thou, self righteous attitude of the NCAA that insists in proclaiming it is above or beyond reproach that some of us find galling.

This process is so unbelievably far removed from the attitude you describe (you know, Division I enforcement) that it's not even funny.