2014 NCAA Tournament

[y_jack_lok]

Randy-Mac lost to Scranton head-to-head and has a poorer W-L %; doesn't figure for hosting.

Second game of the season by 2 points. I don't think the committee can get to that level of detail in making these kinds of decisions. Also, if you place any faith at all in the Massey ratings, they have Randy-Mac (I love that you referred to the school that way because that's what we called it when I was a student decades ago) ranked 47th in Strength of Schedule and Scranton 162nd.

[Greek Tragedy]

So what opening weekend pod is the toughest?

Off the top of my head, I think Whitewater, Augustana and St. Thomas (along with Northwestern) is as tough as they get.

I'm thinking Whitworth, Texas-Dallas and Trinity (Texas), along with Chapman could be a grind.

[David Collinge]

There's four pretty good teams playing at Wash U., and the IWU pod isn't too shabby either, if the good OWU shows up.

[kiltedbryan]

There's four pretty good teams playing at Wash U., and the IWU pod isn't too shabby either, if the good OWU shows up.

Massey's obviously not the be-all, end-all, but all four teams in the Wash U pod are in Massey's top 35. Gotta be among the toughest overall pods in the tourney - just no weak team there.

Wash U - 2
Calvin - 17
Wilmington - 18
Wittenberg - 32

Illinois Wesleyan - 4
Webster - 168
St. Norbert - 5
Ohio Wesleyan - 35

So what opening weekend pod is the toughest?

Off the top of my head, I think Whitewater, Augustana and St. Thomas (along with Northwestern) is as tough as they get.

I'm thinking Whitworth, Texas-Dallas and Trinity (Texas), along with Chapman could be a grind.

Whitewater - 3
Augustana - 14
St. Thomas - 20
Northwestern - 288

Whitworth - 25
Texas-Dallas - 12
Trinity (Texas) - 62
Chapman - 109

[bopol]

I posted my complaints about the Pool C picks in the Pool C thread, so here I'll complain about the bracket.

Wow, what a mediocre job. 

My guess is the committee was exhausted by the process and didn't have the time or energy to put together a bracket that didn't stink.  Or they don't know geography and didn't know who played who already this season.

First, the Emory thing.  The obvious answer was to put a pod in Centre and bring over a Southern Ohio team (Wilmington or Wittenberg) into the pod and you give Wash U the bye they deserve.  So it wasn't an unfixable problem like the travel pod in UT-Dallas.  So it was an out and out flub.

Second, how many teams are in the same pod with a team they've already played.  We have St. Olaf in the UWSP pod, Wheaton in the Hope pod.

Third, why are we heading towards a Sweet 16 between #3 Wash U and #4 IWU, while we have two lower ranked teams on the top half of that bracket (Wooster and Hope).  You could have put a Centre based bracket (where there would have been a fighting chance of someone emerging that doesn't require an air trip for the 2nd weekend) into this bracket and swap up the Hope pod creating a little better balance.

Fourth, there are 4 hosts in the South.  One of the weaker regions ends up with 4 hosts.  Randolph Macon or Va. Wesleyan should have lost their hosting rights to Scranton. 

Fifth, the east-west thing (one team will be from the east, one from the west in the finals)

Six, why does it occur the committee to split up Williams and Amherst, but not Whitewater and Stephens Point or Randolph Macon and Va. Wesleyan?

Disappointed.  Could have been better done.

[sac]

Things they got right

Seeding---I think they got the seeding correct if you view pods at a 1, 2, 3, 4.  Use Knightslappy's RPI and I think you'll see at least in the West they were very close with a few of the expected geographical exceptions.


Split Hope/Calvin -- and this may seem small to others but to me this was big,  Hope and Calvin have never  been in the same tournament, further apart.  We've always been lined up to play each other in the 2nd round.  On a bigger scale they avoided almost all 2nd round conference rematches, that's an important departure from past tournaments.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

There are 5 regions sharing 8 hosting spots on the right side and only 3 regions sharing on the left-discounting the Emory anomaly. Randy-Mac lost to Scranton head-to-head and has a poorer W-L %; doesn't figure for hosting.

Ronk - RMC has a FAR better SOS than Scranton. But that doesn't matter... Scranton and RMC should be hosting.

[realist]

I posted my complaints about the Pool C picks in the Pool C thread, so here I'll complain about the bracket.

Wow, what a mediocre job. 

My guess is the committee was exhausted by the process and didn't have the time or energy to put together a bracket that didn't stink.  Or they don't know geography and didn't know who played who already this season.

First, the Emory thing.  The obvious answer was to put a pod in Centre and bring over a Southern Ohio team (Wilmington or Wittenberg) into the pod and you give Wash U the bye they deserve.  So it wasn't an unfixable problem like the travel pod in UT-Dallas.  So it was an out and out flub.

Second, how many teams are in the same pod with a team they've already played.  We have St. Olaf in the UWSP pod, Wheaton in the Hope pod.

Third, why are we heading towards a Sweet 16 between #3 Wash U and #4 IWU, while we have two lower ranked teams on the top half of that bracket (Wooster and Hope).  You could have put a Centre based bracket (where there would have been a fighting chance of someone emerging that doesn't require an air trip for the 2nd weekend) into this bracket and swap up the Hope pod creating a little better balance.

Fourth, there are 4 hosts in the South.  One of the weaker regions ends up with 4 hosts.  Randolph Macon or Va. Wesleyan should have lost their hosting rights to Scranton. 

Fifth, the east-west thing (one team will be from the east, one from the west in the finals)

Six, why does it occur the committee to split up Williams and Amherst, but not Whitewater and Stephens Point or Randolph Macon and Va. Wesleyan?

Disappointed.  Could have been better done.

Have you ever heard the old saying: "the more things change the more they stay the same".
In the 2000 tournament Calvin was #1, and hosted a sweet 16 round.  The other teams were # 3 Wooster, and #4 McMurry, and Marysville who beat the # 2 team Hampden S. to make it to Grand Rapids.  So there was a pairing of 3 of the top 4 ranked teams at the time, and it potentially could have been all 4 top teams. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

I posted my complaints about the Pool C picks in the Pool C thread, so here I'll complain about the bracket.

Wow, what a mediocre job. 

My guess is the committee was exhausted by the process and didn't have the time or energy to put together a bracket that didn't stink.  Or they don't know geography and didn't know who played who already this season.

First, the Emory thing.  The obvious answer was to put a pod in Centre and bring over a Southern Ohio team (Wilmington or Wittenberg) into the pod and you give Wash U the bye they deserve.  So it wasn't an unfixable problem like the travel pod in UT-Dallas.  So it was an out and out flub.

Second, how many teams are in the same pod with a team they've already played.  We have St. Olaf in the UWSP pod, Wheaton in the Hope pod.

Third, why are we heading towards a Sweet 16 between #3 Wash U and #4 IWU, while we have two lower ranked teams on the top half of that bracket (Wooster and Hope).  You could have put a Centre based bracket (where there would have been a fighting chance of someone emerging that doesn't require an air trip for the 2nd weekend) into this bracket and swap up the Hope pod creating a little better balance.

Fourth, there are 4 hosts in the South.  One of the weaker regions ends up with 4 hosts.  Randolph Macon or Va. Wesleyan should have lost their hosting rights to Scranton. 

Fifth, the east-west thing (one team will be from the east, one from the west in the finals)

Six, why does it occur the committee to split up Williams and Amherst, but not Whitewater and Stephens Point or Randolph Macon and Va. Wesleyan?

Disappointed.  Could have been better done.

Have you ever heard the old saying: "the more things change the more they stay the same".
In the 2000 tournament Calvin was #1, and hosted a sweet 16 round.  The other teams were # 3 Wooster, and #4 McMurry, and Marysville who beat the # 2 team Hampden S. to make it to Grand Rapids.  So there was a pairing of 3 of the top 4 ranked teams at the time, and it potentially could have been all 4 top teams.

There will hopefully NEVER be a Bracket of Death to compare to 4-5 years ago - if memory serves, ONE quadrant had 7 of the top 8 teams in the d3hoops poll!!  But this year's lower left if still much too close: with WashU, IWU, St. Norbert, and Wooster, plus such teams as Hope, Witt, Calvin, Geneseo, and Wilmington.  (In comparing brackets, I ignore the really weak teams since they will likely all be gone by Saturday anyway.  In a single-elimination tourney, strength of a portion of the bracket is entirely dependent on the top teams, IMO, unlike making strength of conference comparisons.)

[Ralph Turner]

I hope that TitanQ gets to see the UT-Dallas pod.  Great games in a fan friendly gym.  (Not necessarily an architectural statement, but functional as a public multi-use facility.)

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Listening to this podcast with Ulrich is just making me more upset.  It just seems like they were in over their heads.  Simple, cost-neutral changes that were just missed.  Even if they didn't want to get creative with pods, they still could have evened out the overall strength.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Looks like I'll be heading up to Cabrini once again this year.  I was hoping Wesley could host and be closer to me, but Cabrini is just a little over an hour, so not too bad.

[mailsy]

Looks like I'll be heading up to Cabrini once again this year.  I was hoping Wesley could host and be closer to me, but Cabrini is just a little over an hour, so not too bad.

Hoops see you there!

[wooscotsfan]

Third, why are we heading towards a Sweet 16 between #3 Wash U and #4 IWU, while we have two lower ranked teams on the top half of that bracket (Wooster and Hope).  You could have put a Centre based bracket (where there would have been a fighting chance of someone emerging that doesn't require an air trip for the 2nd weekend) into this bracket and swap up the Hope pod creating a little better balance.

bopol -- overall, I agree with your comments about the poor bracketing by the NCAA.  However, your comment about #4 IWU above doesn't make sense to me because you are using an old D3Hoops rating for the Titans before they picked up their 4th D3 loss in the CCIW tourney.

Wooster, on the other hand, only has 2 losses in D3 so they may be ranked ahead of IWU by the NCAA at this point?  D3Hoops rating and the NCAA rating (seeding) are obviously two different methodologies.

It will be very interesting to see who hosts the sectional IF Wash U. is upset, IWU wins their pod and Wooster wins their pod.  It will not surprise me at all if the sectional is in Ohio under that scenario.

[bopol]

bopol -- overall, I agree with your comments about the poor bracketing by the NCAA.  However, your comment about #4 IWU above doesn't make sense to me because you are using an old D3Hoops rating for the Titans before they picked up their 4th D3 loss in the CCIW tourney.

Wooster, on the other hand, only has 2 losses in D3 so they may be ranked ahead of IWU by the NCAA at this point?  D3Hoops rating and the NCAA rating (seeding) are obviously two different methodologies.

It will be very interesting to see who hosts the sectional IF Wash U. is upset, IWU wins their pod and Wooster wins their pod.  It will not surprise me at all if the sectional is in Ohio under that scenario.

I'd put Wooster a touch under IWU, so I think it is justified that you would geared the two towards a Elite 8 matchup.  To take it a step further, IWU and Wash U played in the regular season.  So did Wooster and Wheaton (in the Hope bracket, beat Hope during the regular season).  So there is a good chance that we'll have the 2 Sweet 16 games be repeats, even though that could have been avoided by some juggling and careful attention, which was quite lacking on the Great Lakes/Midwest/West side of the bracket.

Given what's there, I think I would have put the Hope bracket in the UWSP upper right corner and dropped the Texas Dallas bracket into the lower right corner bracket.

Geared towards:

UWSP vs. Hope (3rd Round) in UWSP
Emory vs. UWW (3rd Round)

Wash U vs. UT-Dallas in Bloomington
IWU vs. Wooster

No repeats of regular season matchups until the Elite 8.  I agree with you in principle that Wooster could easily deserve to host the 2nd weekend, but I don't see it happening based on travel considerations.  It'll likely end up in Bloomington, IL.