2013 Division III NCAA Tournament

[Mr. Ypsi]

I won't even bother with a punchline, but did they explain why Caltech is not eligible?

[KnightSlappy]

We have the Pre-Championship Manual for the 2013 NCAA tournament. Here are some key points of interest...

* The first regional rankings will be released Wednesday, February 6
* The NCAA tournament selections will be announced on Monday via the Internet, like last year
* The breakdown of bids is the same as last year: 42 conference winners + 1 Pool B + 19 Pool C = 62 teams
* Two schools declared eligibility for the NAIA or NCCAA tournament instead of the NCAA: Maranatha Baptist and Nebraska Wesleyan
* There are 13 teams eligible for the 1 Pool B bid: Birmingham-Southern, Centre, Finlandia, Hendrix, Huntingdon, Maine-Presque Isle, Millsaps, Oglethorpe, Rhodes, Rust, Sewanee, St. Joseph's (Brooklyn), UC Santa Cruz
* There are seven teams that are provisional members of the NCAA and ineligible for the tournament: Berry, Covenant, Houghton, Sarah Lawrence, Southern Virginia, SUNY Canton and Valley Forge Christian
* Caltech is also ineligible for the tournament (insert punchline here). Baldwin-Wallace isn't listed in the handbook as ineligible for the NCAA tournament, but the school administration has said their teams won't participate in the postseason.

Games against these opponents still count as in-region, but they're not counted for purposes of Pool B totals or for calculating the 62 tournament slots, corrrect?

[Just Bill]

I won't even bother with a punchline, but did they explain why Caltech is not eligible?

http://www.d3sports.com/notables/2012/07/ncaa-cites-caltech-for-institutional-control

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

To follow up, per Mike DeWitt on Thursday's Hoopsville, they will most likely still regionally rank Baldwin-Wallace despite their decision to not play in the post-season as to not punish teams that play them. If they were not to rank BW, then teams would not benefit from a regionally ranked opponent.

Now, this isn't completely official, but that is what DeWitt says he believes his committees (national and Great Lakes) will do with Baldwin-Wallace. Thus, they will actually be in a position to be put on the Pool C table, but then removed because they will not participate.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

We have the Pre-Championship Manual for the 2013 NCAA tournament. Here are some key points of interest...

* The first regional rankings will be released Wednesday, February 6
* The NCAA tournament selections will be announced on Monday via the Internet, like last year
* The breakdown of bids is the same as last year: 42 conference winners + 1 Pool B + 19 Pool C = 62 teams
* Two schools declared eligibility for the NAIA or NCCAA tournament instead of the NCAA: Maranatha Baptist and Nebraska Wesleyan
* There are 13 teams eligible for the 1 Pool B bid: Birmingham-Southern, Centre, Finlandia, Hendrix, Huntingdon, Maine-Presque Isle, Millsaps, Oglethorpe, Rhodes, Rust, Sewanee, St. Joseph's (Brooklyn), UC Santa Cruz
* There are seven teams that are provisional members of the NCAA and ineligible for the tournament: Berry, Covenant, Houghton, Sarah Lawrence, Southern Virginia, SUNY Canton and Valley Forge Christian
* Caltech is also ineligible for the tournament (insert punchline here). Baldwin-Wallace isn't listed in the handbook as ineligible for the NCAA tournament, but the school administration has said their teams won't participate in the postseason.

Games against these opponents still count as in-region, but they're not counted for purposes of Pool B totals or for calculating the 62 tournament slots, corrrect?

I believe their games will count for NCAA opponents, they have just not made themselves eligibile for NCAA post-season play. So those games should count for in-region.

As for the 62 teams in the tournament, from what I can tell from the info in the handbook, the number for the tournament is based on those eligible for post-season play - so those two not being eligible does not count towards the field.

Here is the breakdown:
There are 415 institutions sponsoring men's basketball - if we stuck to that number, the 6.5 ratio would give us a complete bracket of 64 teams (63.8 rounded up).
Remove the 7 provisional institutions not eligible and you have 408 which would give you 63 (62.7 rounded up).
Now remove Maranatha Baptist and Nebraska Wesleyan and you are down to 406 which is 62 (62.4 rounded down).
Just as a side note, the handbook has 405 eligible for post season and indicates Cal Tech is not eligible per the NCAA... but does NOT indicate Baldwin-Wallace is ineligible - though this does not affect the bracket make-up.

Another thing that jumps out to be in the handbook is that they list the dates for the tournament for the next few years - through 2016. They do NOT have it set-up to take the championship game to the D1 Final Four. So I would say we are looking at this special circumstance for only this year and it wouldn't return for quite some time.

[Pat Coleman]

I suspect the difference between Baldwin Wallace and Caltech is Caltech has been all the way through the enforcement process, while BW's punishment is self-inflicted.

[Ralph Turner]

The NCAA has historically truncated (not rounded up ) the number of bids allocated.

[ronk]

Dave,
  What and why is the directive of NJAC(NJ?) schools not hosting postseason competition. Bobby Hurley mentioned last nite that the Stevens men's soccer team would have hosted the regional that was assigned to York(they then lost to Scranton on a neutral field instead of having a home game).

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Because NJ legislators decided to legalize sports betting - especially individual game betting - which the NCAA has it its bylaws as being something they are against and will not allow states that have it to host NCAA tournament events. You will notice not one NCAA tournament event is ever hosted in Nevada. Delaware and either New Hampshire or Vermont have the same laws on the books for a very long time, but they do not have betting in the state. New Jersey now does and thus the NCAA has now banned the state from hosting tournament events.

Besides what Bobby Hurley talked about, the Div. II and III women's lacrosse final fours have been moved out of the state with Stevenson now hosting the events with four months of prep time.

In the women's tournament, this may not have a large an affect as you still have the pods every weekend. However, on the men's side with all individual games the first three weekends, there is a real chance of bracketing and scheduling hurdles to deal with. I could see a NJ team that should be hosting either going to a low-ranked team for the game OR maybe even another host actually getting a pod of games any of those weekends.

FYI - I also talked with Mike DeWitt and other NCAA people over the last few months about this and if you would like a link to those interviews, head here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC9FEE641A2DD2ED3. Mike's first interview is in that playlist and we discuss it as well in his interview a week ago on Hoopsville.

[Pat Coleman]

Here's the NCAA boilerplate:
http://www.d3sports.com/notables/2012/10/new-jersey-banned-from-hosting

[ronk]

Dave/Pat,
  Thanks for the responses. Rhetorical question: what happens when all states legislate sports betting-no more NCAA championships?

[Pat Coleman]

Great question! That isn't likely to happen, of course, but say if a couple of bordering states decided to do so, it would cost the NCAA quite a bit to move championships in D-II and D-III out of those states in any given year.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

For those of you I know what to know, there is a change in how the NCAA is calculating the SOS numbers... and it is for the better: Men's Strength of Schedule calculations changed

[Mr. Ypsi]

A thought occurred to me (it occasionally happens! ):

With the national tourney so spread out time-wise, will we still get a full traditional bracket?

After all, if match ups were juggled after seeing who made the second and third rounds, 2-3 flights might be saved, making the bean-counters ecstatically happy!

I suspect they will still do the full brackets (many would be extremely pissed if they did not), but I could sorta understand if they didn't.

Pat, Gordon, anyone - any word?

[sac]

A thought occurred to me (it occasionally happens! ):

With the national tourney so spread out time-wise, will we still get a full traditional bracket?

After all, if match ups were juggled after seeing who made the second and third rounds, 2-3 flights might be saved, making the bean-counters ecstatically happy!

I suspect they will still do the full brackets (many would be extremely pissed if they did not), but I could sorta understand if they didn't.

Pat, Gordon, anyone - any word?

I would imagine that even though they won't be using 'pods' they will still seed or group teams together in sensible travel pods to avoid flights in the 2nd round.

The opportunity is there for a wonderful national tournament but I would seriously doubt they do it.  They certainly will not reseed after the first round.