Pool C -- 2011

[Ralph Turner]

Just for grins I looked up the Massey Ratings:

1-loss teams:

Illinois College - Power 71, Schedule 153
Case - Power 75, Schedule 177
Endicott - Power 66, Schedule 186

Peas in a pod. Good teams playing lesser schedules.

2-loss contenders:

SJF - Power 21, Schedule 39
Wheaton - Power 17, Schedule 38
BSC - Power 51, Schedule 93
B-W - Power 62, Schedule 115
Heidelberg (!) - Power 56, Schedule 111
St. Olaf - Power 54, Schedule 92

It definitely looks like Wheaton was the one deserving team left out. According to Massey the other two loss teams weren't that far away from the one-loss teams.

But again, Case blocking Wheaton is ultimately a better problem to have than a potential issue of a 10-0 team not getting to the table.

Among Primary Criteria, Case was 9-0 in North Region games!

[HScoach]

But Case was 0-0 against decent North Region teams.

[smedindy]

Decent is in the eye of the beholder, of course! Maybe 0-0 against the elite. Wash U. was decent (6-4). Chicago was OK (5-5). Allegheny was fair to middlin' (5-5).

[wally_wabash]

Decent is in the eye of the beholder, of course! Maybe 0-0 against the elite. Wash U. was decent (6-4). Chicago was OK (5-5). Allegheny was fair to middlin' (5-5).

That's a stretch I think.  A good point was made in the podcast from yesterday about some of these SOS's and what's actually going on when you peel back the layers.  Endicott has a decent SOS, but they only play NEFC teams and when you look at more than just the bare numbers, the Endicott schedule just "doesn't pass the smell test" as Pat put it.  Same deal with CWRU's schedule.  If the backbone of your playoff case is that you didn't lose to Wash U (6-4 carrying a loss to North Park), Chicago (5-5, 0-3 vs. UAA), or Allegheny (5-5 carrying losses to Oberlin and Bethany) then you're case is really pretty weak.  Had CWRU gone 10-0 or had won even just one game against a team that had 7 or 8 wins, then they probably get to play this weekend.  There just wasn't any margin for error on that schedule. 

[smedindy]

That was kind of a poke to the phrase 'decent' Wally, not a need for a technocratic discussion! To me 'decent' means exactly the best wins that Case had, which of course, isn't really a playoff case (as it were).

[wally_wabash]

Didn't catch the tongue-in-cheek there, smeds.   

[jam40jeff]

Decent is in the eye of the beholder, of course! Maybe 0-0 against the elite. Wash U. was decent (6-4). Chicago was OK (5-5). Allegheny was fair to middlin' (5-5).

That's a stretch I think.

I'm not saying that Case's schedule was tough, but they did beat Allegheny by more than Wabash.  And you'd have to include JCU in there, who was a decent team this year.

Also, Chicago was 5-2 outside of the UAA, handing Elmhurst their only loss outside of the Big 3 of the CCIW.

Again, I know the schedule wasn't strong by any means, but I don't think it was awful either.  If the selection committee was going to selectively apply criteria this year like they seemed to do with some teams, then they should have put Wheaton in above Case (which I would have had no problem with).  But Illinois College should not have been in over both Case and Wheaton.

Obviously I can't be too upset, though, because they really should not have lost to Rochester.  If they play that game 10 times, I think Case wins 8 or 9, but the fact is that they didn't, and it was not a good blemish to have on your record considering that Rochester was a very mediocre-to-not-good team this year.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Had CWRU gone 10-0 or had won even just one game against a team that had 7 or 8 wins, then they probably get to play this weekend.  There just wasn't any margin for error on that schedule.

For the record: I agree with the bolded statement, and I agree with CWRU's exclusion from the playoffs.  In MY mind, the biggest thing that keeps them out is the loss to Rochester, regional distinctions and official criteria be damned.  As I'm about to argue...I think that their schedule was not completely "terrible" so much as it was "distinctly average."

Let's get one thing straight: I do agree, fundamentally, that using SOS numbers to point out that a team's schedule is "good" or even "OK" is a flawed system, especially in conferences like the NEFC with so much interconference play.  I view CWRU's schedule as VERY different from Endicott, because it's pretty well accepted that virtually the entire NEFC falls at or near the very bottom of Division III, and they only play vs. each other and the ECFC.  For that reason, NEFC teams can have decent SOS numbers while playing a really weak schedule.  So I'll completely avoid SOS numbers here.

I think CWRU played a bunch more "decent" teams than you think, because I agree with smedindy that "decent" is in the eye of the beholder.  CWRU's problem is really that they beat a number of "decent" teams (John Carroll, WashU, Chicago, Allegheny, CMU, Denison) but not strong enough to be GOOD.  Yes, you might squabble with my definition of "decent" but all of the teams listed finished .500 or better and with at least one respectable result that illustrates they belong safely somewhere in the wide middle of Division III.

WashU and CMU both nearly beat Wittenberg.
Allegheny led Wabash with 10 minutes to play.
Chicago beat Elmhurst, who finished 4th in the brutal CCIW.
John Carroll went 5-4 in the OAC (a break or two away from finishing 7-2).

All of that "smell test" material suggests to me that those CWRU opponents were "decent."  Even Wooster and Oberlin had a couple of respectable moments this season (don't you Wabash fans remember the horror as Oberlin pulled within a touchdown of your LG's? You remember that came one week after they played CWRU, right?).  The only opponent that CWRU beat that was truly HOPELESS was Hiram.

Put another way: line up the Wabash schedule against the CWRU schedule.  Look at me with a straight face and tell me that the 'Bash schedule is REALLY tougher than the CWRU schedule.  Heck, they're practically the same schedule!  The only possible argument is that Wabash played Wittenberg, but recall that Witt barely beat two of CWRU's conference foes.  At best, the Wabash schedule is a hair tougher because of the Witt game.

*Note: I am not arguing that CWRU is better than Wabash, because I don't believe that at all; however, I do believe that CWRU's schedule was about equivalent to Wabash's schedule.

Again: I'm not so much arguing that CWRU deserved to be IN as I am arguing against the perception that they played a really terrible schedule.  They actually played a schedule filled with average Division III teams, which really isn't THAT damning in itself.  IMHO, the reason that CWRU didn't deserve a playoff berth was the loss to Rochester, not because the schedule was really that weak.

[ExTartanPlayer]

For fun, I went digging into the archives to see what happened wtih previous UAA teams.

Our 2006 CMU team could have easily been open to the same criticism.  We beat one team with a winning record (6-4 WashU) and a bunch of crappy PAC teams, which is certainly a weaker schedule than CWRU faced this year.  By the way, we won our opening-round playoff game.

CWRU actually played an even WORSE schedule in 2007 (played the usual NCAC suspects, two first-year programs, best win over 7-4 Carnegie Mellon), and did take some flack but ultimately got in and, again, won their opening-round playoff game.

Point being: had CWRU gone 10-0, they're in with no questions asked.

[wally_wabash]

Put another way: line up the Wabash schedule against the CWRU schedule.  Look at me with a straight face and tell me that the 'Bash schedule is REALLY tougher than the CWRU schedule.  Heck, they're practically the same schedule!  The only possible argument is that Wabash played Wittenberg, but recall that Witt barely beat two of CWRU's conference foes.  At best, the Wabash schedule is a hair tougher because of the Witt game.

Oh I certainly wouldn't argue that Wabash played a tougher schedule.  I had made a point elsewhere in the last couple of days (or maybe it was in here) that one reason why I didn't project CWRU in despite their 9-1, 9-0 record is that I'm familiar enough with the teams on their schedule to know what caliber of teams they played.  As you said, we all play the same teams.  The difference between Wabash and CWRU is that 1) Wabash didn't lose against their schedule and 2) Wabash has Pool A access and doesn't need to rely on an invitation (Pool B is a really, really tough deal).  Had Wabash lost to Witt (the only "good" team on their schedule this year), it absolutely could have been Wabash jamming up the North board and not getting in instead of CWRU. 

I hadn't shared this earlier, but I was bracing myself for Wabash to be seeded behind North Central because of how brutal the NCAC was this year (much the same way 10-0 Witt got sent to 9-1 ONU last year).  Last year Wabash finished 15 in SOS.  This year, 149.  That's an enormous difference and it happens because Chicago, Wooster, Allegheny, DePauw, and Witt all lost more games than they did last year (so did WashU, but their record doesn't get factored in).  Just like that, Wabash's SOS figure went from awesome to below average. 

The SOS is a funny thing.  It's all about the non-league results.  Look at the SOS list and find the CCIW teams.  They rocked their non-league schedule (even North Park went 3-0) and all of their teams are near the top of the list.  Now find the OAC teams...they're all in the middle because they only play one non-league game so there isn't a huge efffect. Now find the HCAC teams...they were awful in their non-league games and all of their teams are down near the bottom.  That's how the SOS rolls. 

[ExTartanPlayer]

The SOS is a funny thing.  It's all about the non-league results.  Look at the SOS list and find the CCIW teams.  They rocked their non-league schedule (even North Park went 3-0) and all of their teams are near the top of the list.  Now find the OAC teams...they're all in the middle because they only play one non-league game so there isn't a huge efffect. Now find the HCAC teams...they were awful in their non-league games and all of their teams are down near the bottom.  That's how the SOS rolls.

Oh, I know - I was arguing this with a naive East Region poster a few weeks back who argued that Endicott had a decent SOS.  At the time Endicott was #53, right behind #52 UW-Oshkosh (who played Mount Union in a nonconference game plus the WIAC meatgrinder). 

Like you said, conferences with minimal OOC play will have all of their teams gravitate toward the middle (almost regardless of whether they won their OOC games or not) - that's why NEFC and OAC teams will have similar SOS figures, even though the teams at the bottom of the OAC would clean up the NEFC.

My long-winded post earlier was meant as a slight defense of CWRU's schedule, trying to point out that it was actually a schedule full of "average" teams rather than a schedule full of really BAD teams, because someone tried to point out that CWRU didn't play a single "decent" team.  Actually, they did - several, in fact.  They just didn't play any really GOOD teams.

Perhaps I feel so strongly about that because some people argued that we didn't belong in the playoffs in 2006 (even with a 10-0 record) because our schedule was so "weak" - so I tend to defend the UAA teams.

[K-Mack]

There have been three times in the last six years that Mount would have had to play a semi-final (or maybe even a regional final) game away from Alliance, but none of those teams ended up "holding serve", and Mount played a lower seed at home.  I believe the teams were Wabash (Capital beat them), Del Val (Rowan beat them), and then St. Thomas (Bethel beat them) last year. 

On another note, and this is coming late in the discussion, my only problem with Fisher getting into the play-offs is not that they were a two loss team, but more how bad they lost those two games.  I know it doesn't work this way (and probably shouldn't), but once the committee got down to a two loss team, let's compare the two loss teams out there, and not only look at who they beat, but look at how they lost.  Of course, that just enforces my argument that B-W deserved to be in as much if not more than Fisher.  I realize that the regional rankings don't support that premise, but I am just sayin'.

By that logic, Bethel probably goes, with losses to 10-0 and 8-2 teams by small margins, before anyone else, and Wheaton (high SoS b/c of the CCIW and one close loss to IWU and one bad loss to N. Central) next.

There's no doubt in my mind it's a stronger overall field with Bethel, Wheaton, B-W or St. Olaf in there. Maybe even W&L (losses to HSC, Centre) or Witt (losses to Huntingdon, Wabash) or B-SC (Centre, Trinity).

There's also the "it's not who you lost to but who you beat" argument. None of these teams have any great wins that I can think of. B-W over Heidelberg maybe? St. Olaf over Bethel.

[K-Mack]

Remember how it works people. The regional committee has to nominate a team. It's not which 8-2 team is best, it's which 8-2 team was nominated and against what other teams. The committee probably did not compare SJF to B-W, as B-W probably never made the table. The East Region took a risk by nominating an 8-2 team over a 9-1 team at some point in the process. Given the history of 8-2 teams, that means either they had a very good idea the national committee was breaking tradition, or they took a huge risk of blocking a team with what could only be considered a historically better chance of making the field.

If the other regions didn't show the same gumption, or didn't feel that it was worth a try, that is their fault for not nominating the team. Stop trying to compare if SJF deserved to get in over B-W, it's not the issue unless they were on the table at the same time. I'm thinking it was more likely SJF up against CWRU, so its not the national committee's fault that it wasn't an option to include B-W. And, to be honest, if that is what happened, the East Region had a very good strategy given the common opponent result.

Now you could argue about Montclair or Cortland, since its the same region, but the regional rankings already showed what was going to happen there and they didn't have a common opponent advantage over another team on the board. Add SJF's SOS to the common opponent, and it was conceivable that SJF would go ahead of CWRU. Given the West and South already had 2 C bids, it is reasonable to believe the committee would look elsewhere for another team. Put it all together, and you have to respect the strategy used by the East Region Committee to get that 8-2 team into the field. Very, very astute.

Think of the regional committee's as a challenge to get the most of your region's teams into the field. The East Region played a very good game to get SJF in.

I don't think I would use the word "nominate." Their job is to evaluate the teams in their region and rank them. Who better to do it since they play and watch film of all the teams? They can analyze the numbers and make sense of it.

I also wouldn't imply that each committee's job is to be a booster organization for its home region. That in fact might be the wishes of some on the committees who have a stake in the matter, but that's pretty unprofessional and definitely not the stated goal of the committees. They are to simply rank the best in their region so that the national committee has an order to go by.

Their job is not to advocate for teams from their region to get in nor is it to cleverly place them in the order they think will best favor their home region. Giving kids from one school their dream experience while screwing kids from another school, regardless of location, isn't really the role a coach or administrator should be playing.

[K-Mack]

Decent is in the eye of the beholder, of course! Maybe 0-0 against the elite. Wash U. was decent (6-4). Chicago was OK (5-5). Allegheny was fair to middlin' (5-5).

That's a stretch I think.  A good point was made in the podcast from yesterday about some of these SOS's and what's actually going on when you peel back the layers.  Endicott has a decent SOS, but they only play NEFC teams and when you look at more than just the bare numbers, the Endicott schedule just "doesn't pass the smell test" as Pat put it.  Same deal with CWRU's schedule.  If the backbone of your playoff case is that you didn't lose to Wash U (6-4 carrying a loss to North Park), Chicago (5-5, 0-3 vs. UAA), or Allegheny (5-5 carrying losses to Oberlin and Bethany) then you're case is really pretty weak.  Had CWRU gone 10-0 or had won even just one game against a team that had 7 or 8 wins, then they probably get to play this weekend.  There just wasn't any margin for error on that schedule.

A point I wanted to make about Endicott and the NEFC but didn't get to because there was no natural break in whatever Pat was trying to say is that Endicott used to play RPI -- they used to be one of the only teams who played a noncon game, and that Salve Regina lost 18-7 to Montclair State in Sept., by a field goal to Union and went 7-3 from Endicott's division.

So there is actually some fodder for comparing the NEFC to the rest of the East, just not much. I'm of the opinion that the top teams in that league are no longer so far removed from top teams of other leagues that playoff games are automatically laughers.

Also it makes sense that they play each other because there are 20 schools within a 2 hours drive, not because they're necessarily scurred.

All that said, you play better teams and beat them, then you get in.

[K-Mack]

Obviously I can't be too upset, though, because they really should not have lost to Rochester.  If they play that game 10 times, I think Case wins 8 or 9, but the fact is that they didn't, and it was not a good blemish to have on your record considering that Rochester was a very mediocre-to-not-good team this year.

As Pat pointed out, with SJF and CWRU on the board at the same time, the Rochester result -- the common opponent, primary criteria -- was the reason you had to take SJF.

I'm not sure how IC got in over CWRU or Endicott or whoever the last South Region team was, but those three are comparable. The real question is how IC was ranked ahead of St. Olaf and Bethel et. al.