2015 NCAA Tournament

[Gregory Sager]

Incidentally, a quick correction to D-Mac, who said on the air that the women's championship game tomorrow between George Fox and Thomas More will be the first-ever D3 title match between undefeated teams. He should've specified gender, since it will be the first women's basketball title game in D3 that features two unbeatens. UW-Platteville and Manchester were both undefeated going into the 1995 men's basketball championship game, in which the Pioneers knocked off the Spartans for the Walnut & Bronze.

It will, however, be the first-ever championship game between two schools that each bear the name of an English religious leader.

[Pat Coleman]

Earlier this week I saw articles featuring Augustana, Babson and VWC. Did I miss a Pointers article or wasn't there one?

Yeah, sorry -- unfortunately there was a communication problem and I failed to assign the story. Sorry.

[AndOne]

Quote from: Titan Q on Today at 08:47:14 am
One team in Division III has wins over both Augustana and UW-Stevens Point -- North Central (both on the road).

Cardinals continue to look like a great Pool C pick.

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North Central's road win over Stevens Point was achieved primarily due to the fact that the Cardinals absolutely pounded the Pointers on the boards, winning the rebounding battle by a ridiculously lopsided 43-25 margin. Four Cardinals had at least 6 rebounds. The second most important factor was NCC's blanketing defense, particularly on the interior. Joe Ritchay was the only Point player in double figures (21), but he was only 9 for 22 from the field. Overall, NCC limited UWSP to 32.5% shooting (20 for 62)

The NCC win at Augie was especially noteworthy due to the fact that it was gained despite the Cardinals playing without 15.7 point per game scorer Jayme Moten, the Card's best guard and primary outside threat. For the season Moten made 82 of 181 three point shots (45.3%). The primary factor in the victory was the total domination of the Cardinal bigs, over the Augie bigs. The 4 NCC big men outscored their Augie counterparts by a hard to believe 60-13 margin. Charlie Rosenberg had 24, and Jack Burchett and kevin Honn both had 16. NCC also out rebounded Augie, a superior rebounding team, by 2.

As TQ pointed out, Augie has a distinct size/inside advantage. If they can combine this with good perimeter defense, they should be in good shape.
I could very well be wrong, but if Augie gets 10+ points behind, I think they have the ability to come back. If UWSP suffers the same fate, I don't think a comeback is gonna happen.

[AndOne]

Boy, I was really off with regard to my prediction about Augie's ability to come back if they got 10+ points down.

Congrats to UWSP. Dominant pretty much throughout.

[Greek Tragedy]

12 of 18 from 3 will do that.

Can anyone post the All-tourney team please. Guessing Richard got tourney MOP?

Read that Ryf got Final Four MOP and Pelkofer and Ritchay made it. Not sure who else.

[iwumichigander]

12 of 18 from 3 will do that.

Can anyone post the All-tourney team please. Guessing Richard got tourney MOP?

Read that Ryf got Final Four MOP and Pelkofer and Ritchay made it. Not sure who else.

it is on D3Hoops.com (of course  ) under the tournament coverage
Augustana's Hunter Hill;  Babson's Joey Flannery

[Greek Tragedy]

When I read that, it was very brief and I don't recall reading that at the end. Thanks though.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

So why are we talking D1? LOL :-)

We're just putting d1 teams into a d3 style bracket.  I'm not sure what that bracket would mean for sectionals, though.t

Better yet - how about redoing the d3 bracket into d1 style!  Straight seeds - 500-mile limit be damned!

Shame on you Ypsi. You are making entirely too much sense.
Having a true DIII national championship tournament is something the NCAA has demonstrated they are not really interested in by virtue of:
A. Their insistence on allowing a team to have four home games thus affording those teams a tremendous advantage as opposed to either allowing 2 home games at most or holding all games at neutral sites.
B. Their refusal to spend more than a very small percentage of their immense funds on the D3 tournament. And yes, I know D3 contributes only a minute percentage of the NCAA's fortune, but they could have a true national tournament and still have more than enough to spend on the D1 tournament and they would still rake in millions and millions in TV revenue.
This category includes the no flight rule unless the distance is over 500 miles. Instead, the powers that be at the NCAA insist that a team spend up to approximately 7 1/2 hours riding on a bus to reach their game site. This is a tremendous advantage to the home team. If its not, it should be.

In summary I know this is asking a lot, isn't realistic, and isn't ever gonna happen. However, if the NCAA wants to have a true national championship it would be nice to include the best 62 or whatever number of teams, and to give all of the teams as much of an equal chance as possible to be the true national champion.

You are missing a major point... per the NCAA constitutions, Division III is allocated 3.18% of the entire NCAA operating budget/revenues. The division brings in roughly $400k-$450k in revenue itself via dues (rough math) and yet had a $25 million dollar operating budget last year. This coming year, they have already budgeted for a $31 million dollar budget (roughly) and the dues did not increase. By the way, 75% of the Division III operating budget is dedicated to all of the division's championships and heading into this academic year, the division was operating with a $2 million dollar deficit.

Some other points:
- To change the 3.18% number to something higher, all three divisions would have to approve it at a convention (each January). It may be a hard sell to tell Division I who brings in a vast majority of the revenue with the basketball, lacrosse, baseball, softball, Frozen Four, and other (not football) TV contracts that they should give up the money they are bringing in to other divisions (whether it seems fair or not - they are the ones with the contracts and Division III doesn't have any).
- Division II, which is smallest of the three divisions, has a roughly 5% piece of the pie - which again was approved when the constitution was put together basically in the 80's I believe.
- Division III needs to find some more revenue to show the rest of the NCAA that it is willing to pony up more money before it can reasonably ask for more piece of the pie. There is strong indication that raising dues - potentially doubling from $900 per school where they have been since the 1980s - will be the answer. However, on the basis of how it works: if Division III elects to raise dues, all three divisions again have to approve it and the division would still only get 3.18%. There is talk that they may be able to find some language in a "bill" to allow Division III to keep all of the extra money raised through raising the dues, but that is well behind-the-scenes right now so there isn't much to discuss until more is figured out.

Division III has had a very regional nature to their brackets along with a vast majority of sports in ALL three divisions. However when you see the basketball tournaments in Division I, there can be an understandable thought that all of Division I works that way. They don't. The sports who bring in the money certainly have the ability to do things differently. The rest, in all three divisions, then play by the same rules that dictate travel and expenses - even other Division I sports (same is true with scholarships, by the way).

Incidentally, a quick correction to D-Mac, who said on the air that the women's championship game tomorrow between George Fox and Thomas More will be the first-ever D3 title match between undefeated teams. He should've specified gender, since it will be the first women's basketball title game in D3 that features two unbeatens. UW-Platteville and Manchester were both undefeated going into the 1995 men's basketball championship game, in which the Pioneers knocked off the Spartans for the Walnut & Bronze.

It will, however, be the first-ever championship game between two schools that each bear the name of an English religious leader.

If you heard me once say it without a gender... you missed me saying it at least a half dozen other times where I specifically said women's. I know it was women's only.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

In case you missed Salem, here are some of the time lapse videos we shot: http://www.d3hoops.com/playoffs/men/2015/salem-civic-center-timelapse

[AndOne]

VERY cool. 
Thanks.   

[frodotwo]

I think I saw myself, looks like the camera added ten pounds.

[sac]

I'm pretty sure that in the last 10 NCAA Tournaments we've had 221 different D3 schools make the tournament.

Only 3 qualified for all 10
St. Thomas
Wooster
Va. Wesleyan

[Greek Tragedy]

St. Thomas has won the last 10 MIAC regular season titles as well. Not sure about tourney titles though.

[David Collinge]

I'm pretty sure that in the last 10 NCAA Tournaments we've had 221 different D3 schools make the tournament.

Only 3 qualified for all 10
St. Thomas
Wooster
Va. Wesleyan

And of those three, only Wooster went 0 for 10.

[sac]

St. Thomas has won the last 10 MIAC regular season titles as well. Not sure about tourney titles though.

I have St. Thomas as a Pool C in 2010 and 2014.  I don't have Pool C's for 06 or 07.


Carleton in 2010 and St. Olaf in 2014 as the MIAC Tournament Champions