Ranking D3 BBall Conferences

[smedindy]

The NCAC, unfortunately, can't get more than 3 to 5 teams that are worth a hoot in a year. If Wabash is up, someone else is down (and usually WAY down). Sure, Wooster and Witt can be counted on year over year (ok, not Witt the last two) but the other 8 are flaky or just awful every year.

And you have to really consider the depth and breadth of a conference to determine it's strength. Not just the elite, but the middle and the bottom. And for that, you need to look at the non-conference records and the strength of that schedule.

[Titan Q]

And while I certainly value teams that get it done in Salem, in terms of determing conference strength, I think you are over-valuing results of national semifinal games.  For example, if Illinois Wesleyan holds onto its lead vs Virginia Wesleyan (a game IWU led almost the entire game), does that somehow make the CCIW stronger?

http://www.iwu.edu/~iwunews/sports/mbb2006/ncaa5.htm

Or if Carthage comes out on top in that tight game vs Jeff Gibbs and Otterbein, is that supposed to mean something about the CCIW vs the OAC?

[Pat Coleman]

If I had known you had crossposted your argument here, frak, I wouldn't have responded in the NESCAC board.

[Pat Coleman]

You're dead on about the knowledge leading to bias. Being from Oregon makes the DIII News less likely to be biased towards teams from the midwest, great lakes or northeast region. I would also say that a publication dedicated to only dIII sports is likely to be pretty knowledgeable, but that's total speculation.

They also publish the D-II Bulletin.

My decades in the Washington DC area would seem to make us less biased toward the Midwest, Great Lakes or Northeast Region as well.

[Pat Coleman]

I don't believe it would have stopped Amherst '07 or Williams '03.

This is something we will never know. However, we'll almost always know whether the CCIW or WIAC could get out of the Midwest/West regional.

[Hugenerd]

I understand the sentiment, but you have to remember the source of that article: The DIII News, based out of Oregon.  How many d3 schools are there in Oregon?  I would say that the people involved with this site are more knowledgeable of the d3 landscape, but that is not to say that that knowledge does not come with some bias.  Either way, its an interesting discussion.

You're dead on about the knowledge leading to bias. Being from Oregon makes the DIII News less likely to be biased towards teams from the midwest, great lakes or northeast region. I would also say that a publication dedicated to only dIII sports is likely to be pretty knowledgeable, but that's total speculation.

Meanwhile, many posters on this site (myself included) have spent most of their time watching games in only one region, and thus tend to be biased towards teams and conferences in that area.

That is one way to look at it, but not the only way I intended the comment.  How many teams, or players, do you think they get to see in person out in Oregon?  My guess is they look at stats and maybe the RPI numbers and thats pretty much all they get (maybe they get some game tape, but I doubt they see any games in person).  Last year DIII News had some huge omissions from their All-America teams, the most glaring of which was Jeff Skemp, who was First teamm AA on this site and didnt make any of the 4 teams for DIII News.

I think Pat, and most of the guys that are involved with the site, do their best to be impartial when it comes to year end awards, etc.  Are there really any All-America picks you can argue with from last year?  Freshman of the year went to a NCAC player (Great Lakes) and a NEWMAC player (Northeast) was chosen over a player from the CCCIW, Kent Raymond, who most CCIW followers said was one of the best players to ever play in the conference.  If there was any significant bias at all, it would have been extremely easy to defend the choice of the top CCIW player.

I think the top 25 voting is not necessarily a CCIW bias, but what appears to be human nature.  Voters feel comfortable voting for those teams because they have voted for them in the past and they are on their radar (think Notre Dame in football).  You see the same thing at any level.  The teams from the top conferences get rewarded for good starts early in the season, while teams from lower conferences have to win a lot more games to get attention on the national scene until they do it consistently for many years (Gonzaga, Butler, etc. in D1). It takes a couple years of being consistently good before you starting gaining some respect on the national level as a consistently solid program.  This past week Amherst and Middlebury didnt beat any quality opponets, and they jumped a lot also.  Why was Amherst deserving of jumping 12 spots in the poll (25 ->13)?  Were Maine-Farmington or Ithaca huge wins (neither team was ranked top 35 in the country)?  They still jumped a lot.  That is just the nature of these things, it doesnt necessarily mean it is an obvious bias.

[sac]

Again a re-post:

For the record, here are all conferences with multiple Final 4 appearances in the aughts along with their results: (records do not include consolation games)

CC 0-3 (3 Finals 4s)
CCIW 0-3 (3 Final 4s)
MIAA 2-1 (2 Final 4s, One Champion)
NESCAC 6-5 (7 Final 4s, Two Runners Up, Two Champions)
NCAC 1-3 (3 Final 4s, One Runner Up)
NJAC 1-2 (2 Final 4s, One Runner Up)
OAC 2-2 (3 Final 4s, One Champion)
ODAC 3-3 (4 Final 4s, One Runner Up, One Champion)
WIAC 5-1 (3 Final 4s, One Runner Up, Two Champions)
UAA 5-3 (5 Final 4s, One Runner Up, Two Champions)

The MIAA has 3 trips to the Final Four this past decade....   Calvin 2000, Calvin 2005, Hope 2008

[Gregory Sager]

CC 0-3 (3 Finals 4s)

The CCIW is 3-3 in Final Four games this decade, not 0-3. That includes going 1-0 against the NESCAC in Salem.

Frankly, your credibility flew out the window when you put the NCAC and MIAA up there with the big boys, lefrakenstein. As you've seen here from two of the NCAC's most respected posters, the fact that Wooster and Wittenberg are national-caliber programs (as are Hope and Calvin in the MIAA) doesn't make them power conferences in the slightest.

The CCIW went 73-19 (including postseason play) in non-conference action last year, a .791 clip that set a new league record. That makes three years in a row that the CCIW has done better than .700 in non-conference play, and the league hasn't finished below the .630s in over a decade. The league has universal respect from everybody in the part of the country where the best D3 ball in the land is played (i.e., west of the Pennsylvania/Ohio border), and that includes the WIAC folks. I see absolutely nothing in any of your arguments that refutes the CCIW's commonly-held status as one of the top two or three conferences in D3 men's basketball.

[Pat Coleman]

He's not counting third-place games ... and honestly, I don't have a problem with that measure.

[Gregory Sager]

He's not counting third-place games ... and honestly, I don't have a problem with that measure.

I realize that the third-place game was the red-headed stepchild of the postseason, and that its death appears to be largely unmourned, but to not count it implies that there have been players -- or entire teams -- that weren't trying their best to win that game. And I find that very hard to believe.

[Mr. Ypsi]

He's not counting third-place games ... and honestly, I don't have a problem with that measure.

Your opinion is noted.  Personally, I'm quite proud that after the disappointment of losing in the semis, IWU has never finished 4th.

[Pat Coleman]

to not count it implies that there have been players -- or entire teams -- that weren't trying their best to win that game. And I find that very hard to believe.

I've seen enough deflated teams come back out on the floor on Saturday afternoon at my dozen Final Fours to believe this. Indeed, IWU has never finished fourth. But in some third-place games, only one team shows up.

[John Gleich]

But what about the regionality?  The Midwest/West region is the toughest, year in and year out.  I started to compile stats for how often WIAC or CCIW schools are in the same sectional as their conference foes... AND against each other, and it's a high percentage of the time.  I understand that the conferences from the same region will be matched up, (and thus the top of the NCAC, OAC, and MIAC will likely butt heads every year) but when there is such inequality in the sectionals, then teams that could legitimately make a run to Salem with even brackets ends up playing a should-be-in-Salem-quality game in one of the first three rounds.

I don't know about the OAC, MIAC, or NCAC, but the NESCAC has routinely had its teams split up between geographical regions.  Likewise, the UAA is typically split (though, ironically, every year that Wash U and Chicago made the tournament, they were in the same quadrant in the oughts, the W/MW).  They're travel partners in their league... and the NCAA sort of follows suit.

[John Gleich]

Btw Pat, I can't find the '09 Salem stuff.  It doesn't appear that it's on the Archive page, but I can't find a different direct link, either.

[Titan Q]

The pre-Salem NCAA tournament road of the CCIW entrants this decade...

The rankings noted are from the D3hoops.com Top 25 at the time of the game...in other words, from the poll before the final of the season.  I've highlighted the opponents from the Top 15.


** Wheaton, #3 (2008-09)
Round 1 - vs Fontbonne (won 85-58)
Round 2 - vs #5 UW-Platteville (won 74-69, OT)
Round 3 - vs #2 Wash U (lost 52-55) - eventual national champion

** Elmhurst, #19 (2008-09)
Round 1 - vs #8 UW-Whitewater (lost 79-81, OT)
--------------------

** Augustana, #6 (2007-08)
Round 1 – vs Aurora (won, 72-61)
Round 2 – vs #11 Wash U (lost 67-70, OT) – eventual national champion

** Wheaton, not ranked (2007-08)
Round 1 – (n) vs #15 Lawrence (won 93-83, OT)
Round 2 – (n) vs Loras (won 76-73)
Round 3 – (n) vs Whitworth (won 76-67)
Round 4 – @ #1 Hope (lost 70-83)
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** Augustana, #7 (2006-07)
Round 1 – vs Carroll (lost 69-73)
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** Illinois Wesleyan, #11 (2005-06)
Round 1 – (n) vs #17 Carroll (won 81-68)
Round 2 - @ #15 UW-Whitewater (won 76-68)
Round 3 - @ #1 Lawrence (won 63-59)
Round 4 – (n) vs #14 Puget Sound (won 89-81)

** Augustana, #13 (2005-06)
Round 1 - vs Buena Vista (won 71-66)
Round 2 - vs #19 UW-Stout (won 66-64)
Round 3 – (n) vs #14 Puget Sound (lost 81-89)

** North Central, #10 (2005-06)
Round 1 - @ #24 St. Thomas (lost 68-76)
--------------------

** Illinois Wesleyan, #6 (2004-05)
Round 1 – bye
Round 2 – vs #12 Hanover (lost 76-81)

** Wheaton, #11 (2004-05)
Round 1 vs #14 Calvin (lost 74-75)
--------------------

** Illinois Wesleyan, #19 (2003-04)
Round 1 – vs Maryville (won 82-73)
Round 2 - @ #2 Hanover (won 67-77)
Round 3 - @ #4 Wooster (lost 53-58)
--------------------

** Illinois Wesleyan, #13 (2002-03)
Round 1 – vs Blackburn (won 79-59)
Round 2 – @ #2 Wash U (won 85-73)
Round 3 – (n) vs #4 Hampden-Sydney (lost 68-76)
--------------------

** Carthage, #1 (2001-02)
Round 1 – bye
Round 2 – vs Hope (won 63-57)
Round 3 – vs #12 Gustavus Adolphus (won 71-65)
Round 4 – vs #22 Lewis & Clark (won 85-70)
--------------------
** Illinois Wesleyan, #17 (2000-01)
Round 1 – vs Grinnell (won 132-91)
Round 2 - @ #12 Wartburg (won 65-60)
Round 3 – (n) vs #9 Elmhurst (won 63-60)
Round 4 - @ #1 Chicago (won 77-68)

** Carthage, #4 (2000-01)
Round 1 – vs Marian (won 83-65)
Round 2 – @ #2 Wooster (won 88-80)
Round 3 – (n) vs UMass-Dartmouth (won 90-41)
Round 4 – @ #3 Ohio Northern (lost 64-66)

** Elmhurst, #9 (2000-01)
Round 1 – bye
Round 2 – vs #8 Wash U (won 78-77)
Round 3 – (n) vs #17 Illinois Wesleyan (lost 60-63)
--------------------

** Carthage, #12 (1999-00)
Round 1 – bye
Round 2 – vs #15 UW-Eau Claire (lost 62-74)