Pool C -- 2014

[ExTartanPlayer]

St. Thomas I can buy if they took Platteville out of the rankings (which hurts both Oshkosh and North Central) and placed C-M in.

Can I revisit something?  Specifically, the secret final West rankings which must have put UST ahead of UWO.

Here are the last West rankings that were released:

1 UW-Whitewater 8-0 9-0
2 Wartburg 9-0 9-0
3 St. John's 8-1 8-1
4 Linfield 7-1 7-1
5 UW-Platteville 7-2 7-2
T6 Bethel 7-2 7-2
T6 Chapman 7-1 7-1
8 UW-Oshkosh 5-1 5-4
9 St. Thomas 7-2 7-2
10 Pacific 6-1 6-2

Week 11 results

#8 UW-Oshkosh beat #5 UW-Platteville.
#9 St. Thomas beat unranked Gustavus Adolphus.

Now this is where I get really confused.  How in the world do they justify moving the #9 team ahead of the #8 team on the same day that #8 beat #5 head-to-head?  Wally has postulated that perhaps UWP fell all the way out of the rankings and Concordia-Moorhead entered, which seems patently absurd in retrospect (if they were going to put C-M into the rankings ahead of someone, wouldn't it be #6 Bethel, who just lost to an unranked team, instead of #5 UWP, who lost to a ranked team in three overtimes?) 

This also highlights the issue with "regionally ranked" wins against the teams hovering near the bottom as a big criteria point.  Maybe the MIAC ended up with Bethel and C-M both sitting there at #9 and #10 in the rankings and suddenly UST has a couple of RR results on the resume, while UWP drops out (although I don't see why they'd suddenly end up behind Bethel, given that they were in front before) and now UWO loses their RR win.

Put another way: using the week 10 rankings

UWO had a win over #5 and a loss against #1.
UST had a loss against #3, loss against #6, and zero ranked wins.

So now, with UWO beating UWP, somehow that results in UWP dropping from #5 all the way out of the rankings and Concordia coming in to give UST the bonus RR result.

Looking back, that seems very poorly executed.  UST leapfrogging UWO in these rankings, with this set of results, seems pretty atrocious.  Yuck.  UWO, you may re-commence complaing.  You got jobbed.

[AO]

St. Thomas I can buy if they took Platteville out of the rankings (which hurts both Oshkosh and North Central) and placed C-M in.

Can I revisit something?  Specifically, the secret final West rankings which must have put UST ahead of UWO.

Here are the last West rankings that were released:

1 UW-Whitewater 8-0 9-0
2 Wartburg 9-0 9-0
3 St. John's 8-1 8-1
4 Linfield 7-1 7-1
5 UW-Platteville 7-2 7-2
T6 Bethel 7-2 7-2
T6 Chapman 7-1 7-1
8 UW-Oshkosh 5-1 5-4
9 St. Thomas 7-2 7-2
10 Pacific 6-1 6-2

Week 11 results

#8 UW-Oshkosh beat #5 UW-Platteville.
#9 St. Thomas beat unranked Gustavus Adolphus.

Now this is where I get really confused.  How in the world do they justify moving the #9 team ahead of the #8 team on the same day that #8 beat #5 head-to-head?  Wally has postulated that perhaps UWP fell all the way out of the rankings and Concordia-Moorhead entered, which seems patently absurd in retrospect (if they were going to put C-M into the rankings ahead of someone, wouldn't it be #6 Bethel, who just lost to an unranked team, instead of #5 UWP, who lost to a ranked team in three overtimes?) 

This also highlights the issue with "regionally ranked" wins against the teams hovering near the bottom as a big criteria point.  Maybe the MIAC ended up with Bethel and C-M both sitting there at #9 and #10 in the rankings and suddenly UST has a couple of RR results on the resume, while UWP drops out (although I don't see why they'd suddenly end up behind Bethel, given that they were in front before) and now UWO loses their RR win.

Put another way: using the week 10 rankings

UWO had a win over #5 and a loss against #1.
UST had a loss against #3, loss against #6, and zero ranked wins.

So now, with UWO beating UWP, somehow that results in UWP dropping from #5 all the way out of the rankings and Concordia coming in to give UST the bonus RR result.

Looking back, that seems very poorly executed.  UST leapfrogging UWO in these rankings, with this set of results, seems pretty atrocious.  Yuck.  UWO, you may re-commence complaing.  You got jobbed.

This is obviously a head-scratcher but maybe for the right reasons.  Hopefully they threw out the previous regional rankings and corrected a few of the blunders such as Platteville ahead of Bethel and Pacific ahead of Concordia.

[Pat Coleman]

The national committee could have overruled the regional committee here -- I know Duey Naatz implied otherwise, but that doesn't mean that's true.

[wabndy]

Pat
    If it comes down to eliminating whole conferences because of strength, wont that bring discussions back of dividing DIII into a fourth division?

Two questions:  1) Why?  2) Where do you draw the line?
Would dividing draw down more money for tournaments from the NCAA? I'll go out on a limb and say no.  More opportunities for winning a national championship? Meeh.
Lets say you divided based on school size.  Mount Union enrolls 2200 undergrads.  Whitewater enrolls over 10,000 (so sayeth wikipedia!).  You could logically see that in a size division, the purple powers would still be in the driver seat of their respective size class. 
Perhaps you could try to divide on overall academic ranking, but that opens up an entirely different can of worms.  Besides, many conferences are drawn up with the academic stature of their member institutions in mind.  Example.
The real question here is do we really need to entirely scrap the current organization of D3 athletics because, at least for in football, we don't have enough Pool C bids for every "worthy" team.  Even if money were no object, I don't see "greater playoff access" as being a major motivator for a majority of current D3 schools to want to push to split further.

[Pat Coleman]

Division III isn't likely to break up based on size in such a binary way. But if there were a III-AA for football I could see a lot of small school conference and academic elite conferences opting to go there.

Interestingly, the FT undergrad enrollment size of this playoff field is much larger than typical: 3,043. That's not because of Whitewater since the Warhawks are basically always here, but because of schools that are large for their conferences getting bids this year: MIT, Chapman are newcomers and Ithaca and Benedictine and Christopher Newport and St. Thomas and Johns Hopkins are regulars that are all larger than the typical school in their conference. (Plus there's Rowan, which doesn't fit either of my other classifications.)

Cue the gnashing of teeth.

The average FT undergrad enrollment for a Division III school with football is 2,499.

[smedindy]

while UWP drops out (although I don't see why they'd suddenly end up behind Bethel, given that they were in front before)

Here's the thing. Bethel SHOULD HAVE BEEN ahead of Platteville before then. The West committee made a HUGE error.

They had a better SOS AND RR results.

It really should have been

5. Bethel
6. UW - Platteville
7. Chapman
8. Oshkosh
9. St. Thomas
10. Pacific

Bethel loses, now has three losses but great RR results. Platteville looks shaky and is 0-2 vs RR.

With Pacific's loss, that opens up a slot at the least. Who's the best team for that slot? Macalester, Central, Monmouth,  Redlands, or C-M? C-M has the best criteria. In fact C-M probably has the claim to be as high up as #8 thanks to their results.

So now I think we have in raw rankings

5. Chapman
6. Oshkosh
7. St. Thomas
8. C-M
9. Platteville / Bethel / Macalester / Central / Redlands / Monmouth
10. Platteville / Bethel / Macalester / Central / Redlands / Monmouth

The fact that:

A. Bethel has a higher SOS
B. Bethel has more RR results (3-2 vs. RRs).

That will lead me to think that the committee could legitimately boost up St. Thomas over Oshkosh as Bethel should be ranked, and Platteville may not have been.

[d-train]

^ My personal West Region fan poll ballot looked similar.  C-M is the new team in (replacing Pacific).  UW-P and Bethel hang in at the bottom spots.  PLU is number 11 (for me) ahead of those other four candidates you list.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Good replies, folks.  I can see that Bethel should have been ahead of UWP in the week 10 rankings, my brain-fart on that.

There's just something weird about a team ranked #8 in the RR's beating a team ranked ahead of them (whether #5 or #6) and still getting jumped by someone else.  Imagine the furor that will ensue in the CFP rankings if (hypothetical) #5 Auburn beat #2 Alabama in the Iron Bowl and got jumped in the rankings by previously #6 TCU, and that was what kept #5 Auburn outside-looking-in for the playoffs.

I know why it happens w/re-evaluation of SOS and RR wins each week.  Just seems odd that UST jumps ahead of UWO in a week where UWO beats a team ranked even higher in the RR's and nothing really favorable happens for UST's profile other than random blips around the bottom of the rankings resulting in one team floating into the #9/10 slot.  C-M might have been able to slide into the bottom of the RR's, but not because of some new data that shows the MIAC is any more beastly than we already knew, right?

smedindy, that is a good breakdown.  Thanks.  FWIW, it's hard to imagine that any of those teams (Mac, Central, Monmouth) would have been RR'd ahead of either Bethel or UWP, so let's assume that they remain in slots 9 and 10.  Let's also assume that UWO/UST are in the debate for the 6th/7th slot.  Now UST has a win against #8 C-M and losses against #3 and #9, while UWO has a loss against #1 and win against #10.  I can see how it's hard to pick between those two, sure, but it still seems like an oddball thing for UST to jump UWO on that basis.

I guess my whole deal (which isn't how the rankings work) is that, maybe UST is/was a better choice by the criteria, but if they were it seems like they should have been ahead of UWO before the week 11 results.  The week 11 results themselves did not support changing the ranking, IMO.

[d-train]

Hopefully they threw out the previous regional rankings and corrected a few of the blunders such as Platteville ahead of Bethel and Pacific ahead of Concordia.

That wasn't a 'blunder' until their Week 11 loss to Linfield (and I'm sure it was corrected then).

[AO]

Hopefully they threw out the previous regional rankings and corrected a few of the blunders such as Platteville ahead of Bethel and Pacific ahead of Concordia.

That wasn't a 'blunder' until their Week 11 loss to Linfield (and I'm sure it was corrected then).

Not egregious, but Concordia had major criteria advantages with the win over St. John's and much better SOS. 

[smedindy]

I guess my whole deal (which isn't how the rankings work) is that, maybe UST is/was a better choice by the criteria, but if they were it seems like they should have been ahead of UWO before the week 11 results.  The week 11 results themselves did not support changing the ranking, IMO.

I don't think they WERE until you rank C-M. Then, they are ahead of UWO. It's incestuous, I know...

[d-train]

Hopefully they threw out the previous regional rankings and corrected a few of the blunders such as Platteville ahead of Bethel and Pacific ahead of Concordia.

That wasn't a 'blunder' until their Week 11 loss to Linfield (and I'm sure it was corrected then).

Not egregious, but Concordia had major criteria advantages with the win over St. John's and much better SOS.

...and the Cobbers had one more D3 loss than Pacific (at that time). Yes - Pacific lacked the win over a RR - but their wins over PLU and Willamette (who beat Linfield) looked pretty good after Week 10.

[wesleydad]

Could it just be that the committee looked at the 4 losses, 3 outside of D3, and decided as Pat stated that they could not get a 4 loss team into the field so they figured to put up the next best team which as you all have shown was St. Thomas.  Low and behold they get in.  It does look totally absurd, but may have been a simple as that.

[AO]

Hopefully they threw out the previous regional rankings and corrected a few of the blunders such as Platteville ahead of Bethel and Pacific ahead of Concordia.

That wasn't a 'blunder' until their Week 11 loss to Linfield (and I'm sure it was corrected then).

Not egregious, but Concordia had major criteria advantages with the win over St. John's and much better SOS.

...and the Cobbers had one more D3 loss than Pacific (at that time). Yes - Pacific lacked the win over a RR - but their wins over PLU and Willamette (who beat Linfield) looked pretty good after Week 10.

No the wins over PLU and Willamette did not "look good" except for their effect on SOS.  Concordia's losses to Bethel and St. Thomas were also not of the "bad" variety that the Dubuque loss was.

[d-train]

Okay...I'm not really in the mood for a pointless debate.  In my opinion, Pacific over C-M after Week 10 made sense and was not a 'blunder'.  It doesn't make a bit of difference now.