Pool C -- 2011

[smedindy]

Grabbing my baseball historian hat - it does make the game better.

The game was at its worst in the 1890's, when it was one league, no playoffs, and four to six teams each year were buried by June, if not before. August games between the 10th and 11th place teams, both about 30 to 40 games behind, were sparsely attended and only fit for gamblers and drunks - and some of those were on the field.

Adding more teams to a pennant race causes more games to be relevant. It's why the D-3 playoffs are so much better at 32 teams than before. Of course, it's a balance, 8 out of 32 in baseball is pretty much right on. 32 in D-3 football is right on as well.

[K-Mack]

I think SJF, W&L & Wheaton get to the table way before Louisiana because of SOS and probably before Endicott and IC.

I'd much prefer to see the NJAC runner-up in place of Endicott (which is conceivable, as Kean & Montclair are currently #3 and #4 in the regional rankings...they might end up on the board before Endicott even with an 8-2 record

Totally agree with you Tartan, I think that the runner-up of the NJAC espescially if Montclair State losses a close game to Kean can use that they only lost by six to a good TCNJ team and Kean, who had beaten #7 Wesley. However, if Kean losses, I believe they will have a tougher time proving their case, because that loss to 2-7 Brockport State (even though Brockport State only lost by an average of 11 points in all of its 7 losses, including two 21 point losses) hurts. Nevertheless, I know Endicott has only 1-loss, but they're only going to be #3 in their conference at the end of the day and I don't think the Committee is going to allow a #3 place finisher out of a weak conference (not taking anything away from Endicott)into the playoffs. Based on how last year played out with Montclair State going to the South and the South inserting Salisbury to the "East", you can see it like this with MUC playing the #5 seed because of travel.

1) MUC (Pool A)
2) Johns Hopkins (Pool A)
3) Salisbury (Pool A)
4) Widener (Pool A)
5) NJAC Winner (Pool A)
6) Hobart (Pool A)
7) NEFC Winner (Pool A)
8) Norwich (Pool A)

To be fair, it's No. 3 out of 16. If the NEFC wanted, it could be like everyone else and have an automatic bid for every eight teams.

Montclair already beat a good NEFC team this year so we know they're probably the more deserving team. But if your logic is going to be that a No. 3 team from a conference shouldn't go, at least recognize that the NEFC is twice the size of many conferences and that No. 3 is no different than a runner up in an eight-team conference.

[smedindy]

I don't think actual placement in the conference is a big deal. The NCAC hasn't had a round-robin for a while (and won't next year) and it's possible that a team finishing third could get a "C", especially this year when teams in a nine-team conference played just six conference games that counted. (Don't get me started...)

Hypothetically:

A 6-0, 10-0
B 6-0, 8-2
C 5-1, 9-1
D 3-3, 6-4
E 3-3, 5-5
F 2-4, 4-6
G 1-5, 3-7
H 1-5, 3-7
I 0-6, 1-9

B lost the tiebreaker to "A", "C" gets the "C" because of only one loss. So the third place team gets the bid.

[wesleydad]

really surprised by the number of people that think widener wins the game with del val.  i dont see it, del val will do what they need to do to win.

[smedindy]

And pray tell, what will they do in order to win, besides score more points? 

The discussion is definitely a 'what if' not 'for sure Widener willl win'.

Massey has Del Val as 14th and Widener as 28th. It wouldn't be a colossal upset, so these diverse scenarios are in play.

[jknezek]

Grabbing my baseball historian hat - it does make the game better.

The game was at its worst in the 1890's, when it was one league, no playoffs, and four to six teams each year were buried by June, if not before. August games between the 10th and 11th place teams, both about 30 to 40 games behind, were sparsely attended and only fit for gamblers and drunks - and some of those were on the field.

Adding more teams to a pennant race causes more games to be relevant. It's why the D-3 playoffs are so much better at 32 teams than before. Of course, it's a balance, 8 out of 32 in baseball is pretty much right on. 32 in D-3 football is right on as well.

I don't think making more games relevant necessarily defines "best". Personally I've found our (American) insistence on playoffs to be ridiculous. The single bracket European soccer leagues with perfectly balanced schedules crown their champion on who the best team is over the entire season. That to me has always been the absolute best method. If baseball can't figure out who the best team is over 150 games its just ridiculous to give a whole host more teams second shots in essentially an abbreviated second season where anything can occur becomes you have fewer results to let the "best" shine through.

That being said, for sports like D3 football where it is impossible to play a balanced schedule against every team, playoffs are perfectly reasonable. Of course MLS, NHL, and the NBA make it ridiculous by allowing almost every team with a pulse into the playoffs. Football and baseball followed the same course of action when they started allowing wildcards in the interests of money. If you can't win your bracket/region/conference etc over the course of a season, it is completely beyond me why a second place team in a small pool gets a chance at winning a larger championship. Completely ridiculous logic for any rationale except... we make more money this way.

If your argument is there are too many teams to to play a balanced schedule then you set up a playoff between only the conference champions, with no stupid interleague play to unbalance the schedule, and let them play a best of several series to limit the odds of a fluke.

Logic dictates a second place team over a long schedule should not come into the playoffs with an even chance at winning during a second much shorter season. It's completely illogical, done only for the money, and something that Americans love and accept. None of that, however, makes it a better way of doing something and by any rationale thought it is a seriously flawed methodology.

[smedindy]

Well, one of the most exciting time in sports is the NCAA D-1 basketball tourney, which only grew when the field opened up to 64 teams. It makes money because there is fan interest, which makes the sport inherently more interesting. I find it ironic you're discussing this in the "Pool C" board where we are discussing the runners-up and leftovers!

[gobash83]

The single bracket European soccer leagues with perfectly balanced schedules crown their champion on who the best team is over the entire season. That to me has always been the absolute best method.

While I tend to favor the European soccer league approach as well, the fact that those leagues have promotion and relegation as well as the opportunity for inter-league play (e.g. UEFA Champions League) makes more games relevant later in the season for teams that can no longer compete for the top spot.

[jknezek]

Not ironic. It is where the discussion belongs. And I've posted many times that I wouldn't cry if Pool C went away and the tournament only consisted of conference champions and correct percentage Pool B teams. We just have different arguments. You look at this from the fan's perspective and say what makes the most exciting tournament? Well, having more teams draws in more fans. I look at it from a champions perspective. What makes the most sense for crowning a national champion? Its not the team that can get a hot streak at the right time. Its the BEST team over the entire length of the season. The odds on discovering the best team are greatly stacked in favor of playing the most number of games. It weeds out the flukes and oddballs. Therefore abbreviated winner take all "seasons", essentially a playoff, are not particularly good at crowning the best team over an entire season, simply the best team in the abbreviated season. Why play the regular season at all? The last place team could get hot those last few weeks and win the playoffs, and the equivalent of this has happened several times in the travesty that MLS calls a playoff.

I'm fine with having Pool C as the concept is part of the fabric of American sports these days. I also understand that the second place teams in the OAC and the WIAC and a lot of other conferences are going to be better than the best team in many, many other conferences, or at least it is easy to make that assumption. The fact of the matter is, however, they are already the SECOND PLACE team over the course of a season to somebody. It has been PROVEN. Why give them a second shot in a short winner take all if you are trying to find the best team over the course of a season? Completely irrational, but, as you point out, lots of fun for the fans and, in sports that make money, extremely lucrative. Not, however, a good way of finding the best team from Sept until Dec....

[jknezek]

While I tend to favor the European soccer league approach as well, the fact that those leagues have promotion and relegation as well as the opportunity for inter-league play (e.g. UEFA Champions League) makes more games relevant later in the season for teams that can no longer compete for the top spot.

I won't get into promotion/relegation because it is never going to happen in the U.S. Our professional and even big-time collegiate sports are based on franchises and the money invested by those franchises is never going to be put at risk in a promotion/relegation system. We, in the U.S., are ridiculously partial to winners. In Europe, your team is your team, whether they are the equivalent of MLB (England's Premier League) or AAA (the NPower Championship) or even lower. Americans have never been good at that kind of thought and that's why most fans of D3 teams support a D1 college program they grew up with more than their alma mater.

As someone who played in a promotion/relegation system all through middle and high school (club soccer), I can tell you the heartbreak of playing on a relegated team as well as the joy of promotion from a lower league. It is, by far, a superior system, to what Americans are stuck with. But since it isn't going to change, I don't worry about it.

As for the inter-league play, most European soccer fans outside of England, Germany, Spain and Italy hate that the Champions League allows second and even third place teams from the big leagues into the tournament. It wasn't this way in the old European Cup, as only the top league champion and national cup winner got in. In other words you needed to be a champion to play for a greater championship. However, as with American sports, money forced the inclusion of wildcards and we ended up with a situation a few years ago where Liverpool won the Champions League, bombed in their home league the same year, and petitioned to be allowed as the fourth English team into the tournament to defend their title the next. Completely ridiculous and I was thrilled when Liverpool bombed out of the tournament at the group stage that year.

[smedindy]

With football having an extremely finite series of games, a playoff is the best option to crown a champ. It's definitely better than the Bowl system.

From my experience, D3 fans support their school as passionately as their D1 team.

[Frank Rossi]

Rowan University Athletic Director and NCAA Division III Football Selection Committee Chairwoman Joy Solomen will be joining us on "In the HuddLLe" this Sunday night at http://inthehuddlle.com -- this is the fourth consecutive year that the Committee Chair will join us to discuss the brackets, seedings and process, and to answer questions concerning any surprises inside the brackets that will be released during the NCAA.com Selection Show at 6:00pm ET.

We invite you to post your questions for Director Solomen in the East Region Fan Poll Post Patterns message board before and during the show Sunday.  We will ask as many as we can during our interview of Director Solomen.  We will also review the brackets and provide our own commentary on any surprises and disappointments.

Again, join us Sunday on "In the HuddLLe" at http://inthehuddlle.com, starting at 7:30pm ET.

[wally_wabash]

Just for fun I decided to take my Pool C picks from Wednesday and push out a bracket...busted out a map and put dots down and everything so that I could visualize distances.  It was kind of fun.  In related news, it's a slow week at work.  Anyway, here we go. 

I chose four #1 seeds to start...drumroll: UWW, Mount Union, UMHB, St. Thomas (Linfield is an acceptable alternative to St. Thomas, which doesn't really change anything as far as first round matchups go)

Matchups in the UWW quadrant:
8 Albion @ 1 UWW
5 Franklin @ 4 IWU
7 Benedictine @ 2 Wabash
6 Thomas More @ 3 North Central

Seeds hold for matchups, zero flights involved.

UMU quadrant:
8 Norwich @ 1 UMU (it's really close, but I think Norwich can bus to Alliance)
5 Hobart @ 4 NJAC winner
7 SUNY Maritime @ 2 Delaware Valley
6 Endicott @ 3 Wesley

Now, if Kean wins the NJAC it would seem that they would have to be seeded ahead of Wesley, so swap the 3 and 4 seeds if that happens.  Seeds hold for matchups here as well and we have zero flights.  Rejoice.  Also, the only team here that would have to fly to Alliance is Endicott which wouldn't happen until the regional final.  I think the NCAA is safe there. 

UMHB quadrant:
5 Centre @ 1 UMHB
4 McMurry @ 2 Trinity(TX)
8 Christopher Newport @ 3 Johns Hopkins
7 Hampden Sydney @ 6 Salisbury

or

8 Christopher Newport @ 1 UMHB
4 McMurry @ 2 Trinity(TX)
6 Salisbury @ 3 Johns Hopkins
7 Hampden Sydney @ 5 Centre

So obviously the seeds won't hold here as they never do.  You're going to get a Texas sub-region.  One alternative here would be to send CNU to UMHB, have Salisbury go to Hopkins and Hampden Sydney go to Centre (or vice versa).  The rankings have Hampden Sydney ahead of Centre, but Centre seems to be a little better per the criteria.  I'll have Centre higher now...really it doesn't matter much because we're coloring outside the lines in this quadrant anyway.  Just the one flight which was unavoidalbe with the odd number of teams in Texas. 

Finally, the St. Thomas quadrant:
8 Illinois College @ 1 St. Thomas
5 Monmouth @ 4 Dubuque
7 St. Scholastica @ 2 Linfield
6 Redlands @ 3 Cal Lutheran

The seeds hold here organically, although you could debate whether or not Redlands needs to be seeded lower than Monmouth/Dubuque.  Won't quibble much here because it all fits.  We get just one flight (unavoidable with the Linfield on the island) and looking ahead to round 2, the California winner would go to Oregon which is probably the AA's preference. 

So that's what I got.  Seems like a pretty fair bracket, really. 

[BashDad]

Please tweet that map, Wally. I just want to see it.

[DanPadavona]

I don't think making more games relevant necessarily defines "best". Personally I've found our (American) insistence on playoffs to be ridiculous. The single bracket European soccer leagues with perfectly balanced schedules crown their champion on who the best team is over the entire season. That to me has always been the absolute best method. If baseball can't figure out who the best team is over 150 games its just ridiculous to give a whole host more teams second shots in essentially an abbreviated second season where anything can occur becomes you have fewer results to let the "best" shine through.

I would take that a step farther and suggest in your baseball example, that the 162 game schedule is far more indicative of a team's worth than is a 3 or 4 game playoff. Milwaukee and St Louis were very good teams. But honestly neither could match up with the Philadelphia rotation over a 162 game season. I have a hard time believing Detroit could come within 5 games of the Yankees if they played in the AL East.

And don't even get started on March Madness. It's pretty rare that the best team during the season wins the NCAA tournament. Heck, we gleefully send 10-20 teams to the NCAA tournament because they won a 3 or 4 game conference tournament, and leave out the regular season champion which won 20+ games.

Yes, we are playoff addicted.

But as was rightly stated, the playoff system in pro sports keeps interest high in more cities, for longer periods of time. Without the playoff system, we completely miss out on the Tampa-Boston and St Louis-Atlanta dramas, which were truly epic.