Top Conferences and NCAA Bids

[KICKIN95]

Ohio Northern's run to the final last year was an alignment of the planets, they were thoroughly trounced in the final. 

[Madhatter5]

The top right quadrant looks pretty tough with OWU, Wheaton, Ohio Northern, and Messiah.

Complete opposite would be that bottom right quadrant. All I see is Amherst really. Course I don't know much about Gordon or St. Lawrence.

Best teams not to get in?  DePauw, Emory, North Park, Carthage, Randolph, Wesleyan?

I don't know about putting Carthage in that list. 7 Losses is difficult to look past.

[PaulNewman]

Maybe Ohio Northern's play in the final was the aberration.  Check out their record and who they beat.

In addition to the 4 teams already mentioned, that quarter also has Franklin and Marshall, Dickinson, Salisbury and Kenyon.  I guess evening out the brackets is not a priority.

Some interesting early or possibly early matchups -- Loras v Luther, Stevens v York, Carnegie Mellon v Montclair, GAC v Carleton, Brandeis v Rutgers-N, F&M v Dickinson, Amherst v Gordon.  The Wartburg/Dominican/Wisc-Osh/Hope subsectional should be a good one.  Also could see SLU knocking out Amherst.  Very fortunate draws go to Rochester, Williams, Rutgers-Camden.

[Ron Boerger]

You should see how lopsided the women's quadrants are this year.   

[lastguyoffthebench]

The top right quadrant looks pretty tough with OWU, Wheaton, Ohio Northern, and Messiah.

Complete opposite would be that bottom right quadrant. All I see is Amherst really. Course I don't know much about Gordon or St. Lawrence.

Best teams not to get in?  DePauw, Emory, North Park, Carthage, Randolph, Wesleyan?

I don't know about putting Carthage in that list. 7 Losses is difficult to look past.

I wouldn't throw Randolph in that mix, as they didn't beat 1 regionally ranked team.   You can only beat you play, but the SOS speaks for itself.  I would agree with DePauw, Emory, Calvin, and Wesleyan (could have been Williams here if not for making the final).     Surprised that Miseri, MIT, and Roger Williams got in whereas teams like Emory and Calvin got the shaft.

[gustiefan04]

Any word on a D3soccer.com bracketology this year?

[PaulNewman]

Maybe the decisions are more regional than anything, but on paper looks like Messiah outshooting Lycoming 32-2 and losing had a huge impact.  You would think Amherst is the 4th of the #1 seeds and would have been pushed out if Messiah didn't lose.  Sure, Amherst didn't get a bye but they arguably have by far the easiest quadrant of the top teams.  The other bracket on that half of the draw has the last 2 national champions, last year's national runnerup, a very strong Wheaton, Salisbury, and then all the others mentioned earlier.  Probably also impacted Rutgers-Camden.

Hard to believe Stevens v York could be a 2nd round game, as well as Messiah v Salisbury, CMU v Montclair, F&M v Dickinson, and possibly Wheaton v Ohio Northern.

[Jim Matson]

Bracketology would be a good idea. I'll check on that.

Kickin', I like your last statement (as a concept). That might be case for more than one team on any given year...like Wheaton in 06. By the way, it's good to see you continue to add your soccer wisdom to the collective D3soccer.com pool year after year!

Regarding Wheaton men, it will be difficult to predict how they'll do in their pod. On some days, they look like they could beat anyone, yet a few times, they have really struggled to score.

[PaulNewman]

RE: Randolph....So why were they ranked in the top 15-20 nationally most of the year???  I admit I don't know much about the South Atlantic, except that I thought teams like Lynchburg, Roanoke, W&L, etc were pretty good and and they seem to be actual South Atlantic teams compared to the regionally ranked "South Atlantic" teams that one would presume are all in the MidAtlantic.  Except for Emory there wasn't a single regionally ranked true South Atlantic school.  Also there has been little mention of Christopher Newport.  Wonder if they deserved a better assessment.

[lastguyoffthebench]

Still trying to figure out how conference champions like Rutgers-Camden, Stevens, and York end up playing a sweet 16 game (it's really ashame for 2 of these three schools)... whereas teams like Williams and Rutgers-Newark could potentially play each other in the Sweet 16 (two non ranked teams that didn't even win the conference).

Rutgers-Camden benefited in 2011 from being shipped up to the NE Region... I would expect that Newark could also make a run to the Elite 8 before falling to Amherst.

[Sirius90]

Still trying to figure out how conference champions like Rutgers-Camden, Stevens, and York end up playing a sweet 16 game (it's really ashame for 2 of these three schools)... whereas teams like Williams and Rutgers-Newark could potentially play each other in the Sweet 16 (two non ranked teams that didn't even win the conference).

Rutgers-Camden benefited in 2011 from being shipped up to the NE Region... I would expect that Newark could also make a run to the Elite 8 before falling to Amherst.

Yes, this year's bracket was particularly poorly done. I noticed a couple of conference foes destined to play each other a third time in a season. The RUC bracket is the worst.

[PaulNewman]

Loras is my winner, but I'm getting a little nervous about Luther.  At this point they are battle-tested and on a pretty good roll.

[PaulNewman]

The NESCAC folks can get prickly so I'll put this here.

Blake New from Oberlin just won NCAC COY.  Bloecher from OWU POY.  Amolo from Kenyon Newcomer of Year.

[PaulNewman]

Watching Wheaton now.  Surprised that this storied program at apparently storied Joe Bean Stadium appears to lack a newer generation turf field.  Turf certainly is understandable just outside of Chicago, but would think they would have something more up-to-date.  Also the field is advertised as 120 by 75, but there looks to be very minimal out of bounds area with concrete structures extremely close and no room to take proper corner kicks.  Am I wrong?

[KICKIN95]

Wartburg is throttling Dominican 3-0, this was a close match the 1st half and suddenly Wartburg decided enough toying with these guys and began threading the net!