2013 Division III NCAA Tournament

[Greek Tragedy]

REGION	RECORD
Atlantic	0-4
East	7-7
Great Lakes	5-6
Mid-Atlantic	9-7
Midwest	8-8
Northeast	13-11
South	11-11
West	8-7
Pool A	40-41
Pool B	0-1
Pool C	21-19
Home record	24-6 (1st Rd.)
Home record	10-6 (2nd Rd.)
Home record	6-2 (3rd Rd.)

[Greek Tragedy]

CONF	CON TOT
NESCAC	11-2
CCIW	7-3
ASC	5-2
MIAC	4-1
ODAC	4-4
CSAC	3-1
CAC	3-2
NCAC	3-2
UAA	3-3
MIAA	2-1
NEAC	2-1
NWC	2-1
E8	2-2
SUNYAC	2-2
WIAC	2-2
CC	1-1
LAND	1-1
LEC	1-1
MACC	1-1
USAC	1-1
NEWMAC	1-3
AMCC	0-1
CCC	0-1
CUNYAC	0-1
GNAC	0-1
IIAC	0-1
LL	0-1
MACF	0-1
MASCAC	0-1
MWC	0-1
NAC	0-1
NATHCON	0-1
NECC	0-1
OAC	0-1
PrAC	0-1
SAA	0-1
SCAC	0-1
SCIAC	0-1
SKY	0-1
SLIAC	0-1
UMAC	0-1
HCAC	0-2
NJAC	0-2

[Greek Tragedy]

These teams were never regionally ranked...they didn't fair too well.

CONF	TEAM	REC
AMCC	P.S. Behrend	0-1
CUNYAC	Staten Island	0-1
IIAC	Dubuque	0-1
MACF	Delaware Valley	0-1
MASCAC	Fitchburg St.	0-1
NAC	Husson	0-1
NATHCON	Aurora	0-1
UMAC	Northwestern	0-1
NEAC	Morrisville	2-1
NECC	Elms	0-1
ODAC	RMC	2-1
SAA	Centre	0-1
SCAC	Trinity	0-1
SCIAC	Redlands	0-1
SLIAC	Spalding	0-1

These teams were the only team to represent their conference and knocked the regular season conference winner out of the NCAA tourney.

CONF	TEAM	REC
AMCC	P.S. Behrend	0-1
CC	Dickinson	1-1
GNAC	Albertus Mag.	0-1
IIAC	Dubuque	0-1
MACF	Delaware Valley	0-1
MASCAC	Fitchburg St.	0-1
NAC	Husson	0-1
OAC	Marietta	0-1
SKY	SUNY-Purchase	0-1

AMCC-Hilbert and La Roche tied for 1st.
CC-Franklin and Marshall won the league.
GNAC-Anna Maria topped the league.
IIAC-Buena Vista and Luther tied for 1st.
MACF-DeSales won the league.
MASCAC-Westfield State won the league, but Fitchburg State actually finished 4th with a losing conference record.
NAC-Maine-Farmington won the league
OAC-Capital won the league.
SKY-SUNY-Old Westbury won the league.  Purchase finished 13-4, 1/2 game behind Farmingdale and Mount St. Mary's.

[Ralph Turner]

Greatly appreciated research, Greek!

Thanks for compiling the information.

As usual, I want to remind everyone that the ASC went 4-1 against non-ASC opponents.  UMHB knocked Concordia TX (CTX) out in the second round, the earlier of the two intra-conference rematches in the playoffs.  (NCC knocked off IWU in the third round, when one might expect the rematch among foes from the same region of an 8-region tourney.)

[wally_wabash]

I've finally had a chance to listen/watch the conversation Pat, Dave, and Gordon had regarding this tournament (an excellent conversation, btw).  All made fantastic points and I'll chip in a couple here. 

First, that they entered this year's tournament and the whole Atlanta thing with some fairly serious skepticism and came away from the weekend enthusiastic about continuing this in the future tells you how exceptional the weekend was.  If it was just ok or a little better than what the Salem experience, I don't think the conversation is the same.  It had to be truly outstanding in order to get that kind of position reversal.  If those gentlemen are sold on this, then that's good enough for me. 

Obviously going forward you can't continue on with a tournament that takes a month and a half start to finish.  I couldn't stay invested in this year's tournament as a casual observer because there was just zero momentum to it.  Maybe that's a me problem, but I don't think I'm alone on that.  Whether the answer is delaying the start of the regular season by a couple of weeks or delaying the start of the tournament, getting this thing down to a 4-week event is necessary.  Realizing that doing so involves getting D-III women and the men and women of D-II on board, it seems that the overwhelming sentiment is that this needs to happen.  I think putting the D-II and D-III games in the same city on the same weekend as the D-I championship was a boon and they should probably want to be doing the same thing on the women's side at all levels.  If the event was that good for everybody involved, getting everybody on board maybe won't be as daunting as it seems. 

Selfishly, I would love to see this happen in Indy the next time around as I'm a stone's throw away.  Division III would definitely have to sacrifice a little bit of their calendar to make it happen...you're going to wind up with basketball significantly overlapping the spring sports calendar, but again, I think that's a small price to pay if the event was THAT good, which it seems to have been. 

Hopefully they can get this worked out and the D-I Final Four weekend can be an annual celebration of championship basketball for all divisions.  Again, I come back to having so many people who follow and cover D-III who went into the 2013 championship tournament skeptical and were then sold on this as a proof positive sign that this was good for our game.  It may take a couple of years to get back to it, but that planning should start ASAP so that we can make this a regular thing starting in 2015. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Not so fast on making this a 'regular' thing.  How much of the great weekend was due to its uniqueness?

Pat has expressed the opinion that this should definitely be tried again on an experimental basis, but that there is no assurance the crowds, etc., would continue once the novelty wears off - maybe, maybe not.

And it just cannot be another 6-week tourney!!   As sac expressed it, "it feels like basketball season ended a month ago."

[wally_wabash]

Very fair regarding the is it special because it is unique aspect.  With almost everything, it's hard to beat the first time.  This is a little different, IMO, because of the skepticism that a lot of people had going into it.  I think the NCAA treats the D-II and D-III games and those teams every year the way they treated them in Atlanta, the event could very well be annually awesome. 

[AO]

  Division III would definitely have to sacrifice a little bit of their calendar to make it happen...you're going to wind up with basketball significantly overlapping the spring sports calendar, but again, I think that's a small price to pay if the event was THAT good, which it seems to have been. 

What's a spring sport?  We're supposed to get a foot of snow tomorrow.

The momentum was absolutely a "you" problem.  The momentum built up a lot more for the 16 teams that would have ordinarily been eliminated after the first weekend.  The momentum also built up a lot more for Amherst and Mary-Hardin Baylor who brought great crowds to Atlanta. 

[Pat Coleman]

The momentum was not just a "you" problem. This tournament definitely dragged.

I hope the NCAA would always treat the other two title games the same way it did this year, but I am sure that cost a lot of money. If it ever started scaling back, that's when I would worry.

The distance for both teams to Atlanta was somewhat counterbalanced by the extra week. In 2015, at least, Indianapolis has a chance at being a more central location. Houston in 2016 is unlikely to be so. But ... seriously, we need to do this again.

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Yep, there was no momentum at all.

My thoughts on how to incorporate the additional 3 weeks at the end of the season from usual... first would be making the tournament 4 weeks with just the first round on Sat/Sun then 4 team pods the second weekend, then Elite Eight/Final Four in Salem for week 3 then the championship the 4th week.
Next I'd push the start of the season back a week so it overlaps less with football. I know I didn't pay attention to preseason/first few games because I was still focused on football. Also it would allow the season to start after Thanksgiving rather than play a game or two then have a holiday.
The last week schools can throw in as needed to avoid having games during finals or any other important school events. After all, this is D3 where they are truly student-athletes

[Greek Tragedy]

I think nearly everyone will agree that we need the Final Four and Championship game needs to be played on the same weekend. A lot of posters have felt the attendence suffered at Salem because it wasn't thee destination without the Final there.  Personally, I would have loved to see the quarters and semis even if it risked not seeing my team in Atlanta.

[wally_wabash]

I think nearly everyone will agree that we need the Final Four and Championship game needs to be played on the same weekend. A lot of posters have felt the attendence suffered at Salem because it wasn't thee destination without the Final there.  Personally, I would have loved to see the quarters and semis even if it risked not seeing my team in Atlanta.

Welp.  I've not been to Salem for a championship event (shame on me, I know), and while I'm sure that Salem is lovely, it's just not going to be able to offer the same experience as Atlanta or Indy or Houston or any of the other major cities that can host Final Fours (there aren't that many).  And especially if the NCAA is going to back the D-II and D-III title games in the way that they did this year.  You kind of feel bad for Salem in a way as they have done a fantastic job of sort of carving out a space as a D-III TitleTown, but they just can't compete with a large city and the backdrop of the D-I championship. 

[Ralph Turner]

The NCAA is shelling out in real dollars what Salem contributes in "sweat-equity".

Pat Coleman's comment about budget cuts is pertinent.

Thinking the unthinkable, what does happen if a court suit goes thru with the need to "pay" the players?

The Big Ten commented about contemplating the D-III model instead.

[madzillagd]

I have a very hard time believing the NCAA would not work out a model that is in their favor.  I could see them paying for the next couple of years where bids have already been completed.  However, for sites that have yet to be determined I could easily see them telling those potential cities - as part of hosting the D1 Final Four - you (the city) are responsible for picking up the tab and hosting the D2 and D3 games and/or requiring them to pay at least half of the bill.  That's not going to prevent any city from bidding.  Also, just because the games were free this year doesn't mean they have to be free in the future.  Slap a $5 ticket on a single game or $10 for both etc. and I still think you'd get about the same amount of fans as you would if it was free. 

[AO]

The NCAA is shelling out in real dollars what Salem contributes in "sweat-equity".

Pat Coleman's comment about budget cuts is pertinent.

Thinking the unthinkable, what does happen if a court suit goes thru with the need to "pay" the players?

The Big Ten commented about contemplating the D-III model instead.

The budget cuts would be taken out of each D1 athletic department.  I doubt that revenues would decrease or the portion given to D3 would decrease.   The big ten isn't going D3, that's just preposterous.  They love the TV money too much.