Pool C -- 2013

[ADL70]

Heck, he could have even said, "It's going to be hard for a region to have three out of five at large teams in a given year," and be fine by me. Because normally, it is.

How many of us have used the "modify" function when we've typed something that didn't quite come out right?

I know I have!   

[wabndy]

Of course there is a way to ensure plane ticket costs aren't a part of the bracketing process. If d3 were at a level that ESPN wanted to produce a broadcast of the whole shebang  (I.e - there were ratings to support such an investment) then we could do this. Until then - I think we do have to be grateful that we even have a 32 team tournament- however seeded.

[Ron Boerger]

And we have to pray that the upper echelons of D1 football and D1 basketball don't decide to take their ball and go form their own exclusive non-NCAA org so they can keep ALL of the money generated by those sports.

[Ralph Turner]

And we have to pray that the upper echelons of D1 football and D1 basketball don't decide to take their ball and go form their own exclusive non-NCAA org so they can keep ALL of the money generated by those sports.    

I just wanted to emphasize Ron's point.   

[wabndy]

Did I see a stat somewhere that all of Division III amounted to something like 6% of the NCAA's total budget?

[jknezek]

Did I see a stat somewhere that all of Division III amounted to something like 6% of the NCAA's total budget?

Here's the expense breakdown for 2011/2012:

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/NCAA/Finances/Finances+Expenses

Here's the revenue for the same period:

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/NCAA/Finances/Revenue

With 81% of revenue coming from Television and Marketing Rights (Division 1 primarily), the 3% spent on DIII championships and programs is a gift. I'm assuming part of the 13% spent association wide, 3% limited liability, and 4% spent on General and Admin can be pro-rated to DIII expenses as well. 6% probably is not unreasonable.

$25.3 million is spent on D3, including 18.7 for championships.

[USee]

After being off the boards for a couple days due to travel, it took me a couple days to read through the pages of thoughtful and passionate rhetoric on the NCAC board about the selection process for Pool C and the subsequent communication. I have a small dog in this fight as my team (Wheaton) was likely the 4th team on the North Pool C board behind Wabash. I have followed these boards closely since inception and have been active in discussions and arguments around the selection process, particularly in past years when it was relevant for my team.

It seems the arguments can be broken into categories: Transparency, consistency, and communication.

Transparency is the issue that can shed light on all other issues. If the committee was open about how they did what they did, we wouldn't have many of the questions we have now. If you look at this very site as a test case. Pat and Keith and company spend hours going through their mock picks and then explaining the rationale for why they did what they did. They happen to have a high rate of accuracy on the actual picks that come out on Selection Sunday. They show their work. Heck Wally Wabash went through the criteria and came up with the same dilemma as everyone else. He picked his team, Wabash, but in doing so, he expressed quite clearly it could go the other way. If the public saw the criteria and how the committee made their decisions, they may not agree, but it would create some accountability and credibility into the process. I think most of us would agree with that.

Conistency is another problem. As Wabash fans have pointed out, they have been on both sides of the issue and lost every time. The criteria has stayed the same, committees have changed and different interpretations of the criteria has been the result. Transparancy wouldn't solve that problem, but it would likely help.

Communication (or lack of it) is a derivative of transparency. If we had visibility into the process, communication would be a natural result. Pat and Keith communicate why they made their picks. That communication, given their high accuracy rate of picking playoff teams, actually serves as a proxy for us fans to explain why some teams made it and some didn't. What's more, Wally, Pat, ets, all explained the current field in a way that made sense (SJF over Wabash was understandable, based on the criteria). What sent the room into the uproar is the Chair's communication and subsequent interpretation of those comments. If the committee had given transparency into the process, those words would have had far less impact (or more depending on the process!). Because we can't see what they did, we can only go by their comments, which were not thoughtfully presented, regardless of the context.

Finally, let's provide another scenario.....suppose Wabash had an SOS equal to SJF but were 9-1 when they popped up on the board? What happens then? If 3 teams from a region are decidedly better than any other teams at the table, why wouldn't they be the ones selected? The explanations in defense of the Chair's comments don't seem to address that. Unless I missed something.

The system isn't perfect. I think it should be much more open for review with a desire to learn from smart people and make it better in a thoughtful way. If we had transparency, consistency can be tolerated and communication can be understood.

[Mr. Ypsi]

The WORST non-transparency is the secret final regional rankings.  Since they did away with 'once ranked, always ranked', the secret final RRs are the ONLY ones that matter.  It is therefore impossible to know one of the key criteria, results vs. RROs.  (We can speculate, and probably come pretty close, but we can't KNOW.)  This alone makes the whole process open to conspiracy theorists!

[Boxer7806]

The WORST non-transparency is the secret final regional rankings.  Since they did away with 'once ranked, always ranked', the secret final RRs are the ONLY ones that matter.  It is therefore impossible to know one of the key criteria, results vs. RROs.  (We can speculate, and probably come pretty close, but we can't KNOW.)  This alone makes the whole process open to conspiracy theorists!

100% True. +k

[mattvsmith]

The WORST non-transparency is the secret final regional rankings.  Since they did away with 'once ranked, always ranked', the secret final RRs are the ONLY ones that matter.  It is therefore impossible to know one of the key criteria, results vs. RROs.  (We can speculate, and probably come pretty close, but we can't KNOW.)  This alone makes the whole process open to conspiracy theorists!

As a dyed in the wool conspiracy theorist celebrating the most sacred holiday of the conspiracy year,* I can assure you, Mr Ypsi, that there is nothing in D3 worth conspiring for or against.

* - The Kennedy assassination is our high holy day, on which we lay the blame on Lyndon Johnson and George HW Bush.

[K-Mack]

This is where I'm torn.

I really don't like the whining about, "Well, we have to play X and Y early and..." since you had to beat X and Y anyway to win the title. Admittedly, it's worse in the NCAA D-1 hoops land, where the commentators who slurp the BCS conferences complain about tough matchups for the 4th place teams in the Big 12. But part of me doesn't like the fact that X has to play Y so early. Play early, play late - you still have to beat them.

HOWEVER...there really shouldn't be any rematches in the first week. And the NCAA should actually follow a reasonable facsimile of seeding so you don't have the third and fourth best team in the region playing in week one just because they're close and no one else can get there without a flight.

Instead of spending time disqualifying cross country runners for participating in a fun run for charity, the NCAA should cough up some dough to fix the travel for the best football tournament in the land!

I'm with you right up until the very end. I'm never a big fan of people saying "well, xxx has enough money and should just pay for it." That's like a homeless guy coming up to you and saying "you look like you're pretty well off, you should just give me $100."

Analogy aside, if the money source were identified, I would get behind the idea.

Considering that D-III gate probably wouldn't pay for all the travel in the D-III tournament, I'm a little hesitant to complain about the focus on money.

That said, PLU (in my top 8) at Linfield (in my top 3) in Round 1 will always stink.

As much as we'd like to have each are self-sufficient in a large organization such as the NCAA, or even at College or University, many times they are not, and funds get moved from one area to another. 

I think other sports would also benefit for a tournament structure that eliminates first round re-matches and a better bracket. Sure, you gotta beat em all to win it, but knock heads against someone else at first.

I would support a hard and fast no-rematches in Round 1 rule.

[K-Mack]

The WORST non-transparency is the secret final regional rankings.  Since they did away with 'once ranked, always ranked', the secret final RRs are the ONLY ones that matter.  It is therefore impossible to know one of the key criteria, results vs. RROs.  (We can speculate, and probably come pretty close, but we can't KNOW.)  This alone makes the whole process open to conspiracy theorists!

100% True. +k

Solid post. Although not releasing seeds is in the competition for worst transparency.

[smedindy]

"Seeds"...

[ExTartanPlayer]

Soooo, Jonny, how did our Pool C contestants do?

UW-Platteville 54, Concordia 20: UWP was never really in question as a slam-dunk Pool C choice, but this game doesn't really tell us much as it came against one of the lesser Pool A entrants.  Nonetheless, they won handily.  Well done UWP.

Linfield 42, Pacific Lutheran 21: The one team in the field that I can feel "bad" for, as much as I can feel "bad" for any playoff team, is PLU just because we don't get to see how they would have done against a few other teams.  Nonetheless, I think we all would agree that PLU was a deserving Pool C choice and it's their bad fortune to get stuck with a Linfield rematch.

Wartburg 41, Illinois Wesleyan 7: the "WTF happened here?" award goes to Illinois Wesleyan!  Is Wartburg a fine team?  Of course!  They played Bethel quite respectably in their OOC loss and the only in-conference blemish came against a decent Coe squad that made last year's playoffs and defeated 2013 playoff team WashU as well as Wartburg.  But Illinois Wesleyan was, on paper, one of the strongest Pool C teams if not THE strongest, and I really expected them to win this one.  Perhaps I should heed the comments from the CCIW folks that the conference as a whole is a notch down from its peak strength.

St. John Fisher 25, John Carroll 16: annnnnd two of our Pool C entrants played one another!  (I didn't even really notice this quirk until now, but that seems a bit awkward to me; I know we're already discussing the vagaries of bracketology and the fact that we would prefer to avoid first-round rematches, but I also wonder if perhaps we should in theory match all of the Pool C selections against Pool A teams in the first round?  Something doesn't strike me as quite right that AQ teams have to play against/eliminate one another while one at-large team is guaranteed to get into the sweet 16; this might be an unpopular opinion among those who argue that the Pool C teams are stronger than many of the Pool A teams in the field, but that's fine, even that is an argument to split the five Pool C teams and distribute them against Pool A's as much as possible).  This was also a surprising result to me.  The E8 always handles itself well in the playoffs but I had the feeling that the conference's top teams were not quite as good as in years past and that JCU was a legit title contender.

Two of the five Pool C teams advance, although one was eliminated by another.  IWU is definitely the biggest disappointment in Pool C, IMO, and PLU did about what could be expected.  UWP vs. North Central next week might be one of the best second-round games!

[Ralph Turner]

Soooo, Jonny, how did our Pool C contestants do?

UW-Platteville 54, Concordia 20: UWP was never really in question as a slam-dunk Pool C choice, but this game doesn't really tell us much as it came against one of the lesser Pool A entrants.  Nonetheless, they won handily.  Well done UWP.

Linfield 42, Pacific Lutheran 21: The one team in the field that I can feel "bad" for, as much as I can feel "bad" for any playoff team, is PLU just because we don't get to see how they would have done against a few other teams.  Nonetheless, I think we all would agree that PLU was a deserving Pool C choice and it's their bad fortune to get stuck with a Linfield rematch.

Wartburg 41, Illinois Wesleyan 7: the "WTF happened here?" award goes to Illinois Wesleyan!  Is Wartburg a fine team?  Of course!  They played Bethel quite respectably in their OOC loss and the only in-conference blemish came against a decent Coe squad that made last year's playoffs and defeated 2013 playoff team WashU as well as Wartburg.  But Illinois Wesleyan was, on paper, one of the strongest Pool C teams if not THE strongest, and I really expected them to win this one.  Perhaps I should heed the comments from the CCIW folks that the conference as a whole is a notch down from its peak strength.

St. John Fisher 25, John Carroll 16: annnnnd two of our Pool C entrants played one another!  (I didn't even really notice this quirk until now, but that seems a bit awkward to me; I know we're already discussing the vagaries of bracketology and the fact that we would prefer to avoid first-round rematches, but I also wonder if perhaps we should in theory match all of the Pool C selections against Pool A teams in the first round?  Something doesn't strike me as quite right that AQ teams have to play against/eliminate one another while one at-large team is guaranteed to get into the sweet 16; this might be an unpopular opinion among those who argue that the Pool C teams are stronger than many of the Pool A teams in the field, but that's fine, even that is an argument to split the five Pool C teams and distribute them against Pool A's as much as possible).  This was also a surprising result to me.  The E8 always handles itself well in the playoffs but I had the feeling that the conference's top teams were not quite as good as in years past and that JCU was a legit title contender.
Two of the five Pool C teams advance, although one was eliminated by another.  IWU is definitely the biggest disappointment in Pool C, IMO, and PLU did about what could be expected.  UWP vs. North Central next week might be one of the best second-round games!

Good assessment. +1!
I was very impressed by SJF and the way that they beat JCU.  I also thought that the very upper level of the E8 was down this year. However, I believe that SJF's past playoff experience (2010, that strong quarterfinal run in 2011 and 2012) may have helped the team in preparation this week, "been there, done that".