Pool C -- 2015

[wabndy]

Seems to me that the only prayer UWP has hinges on whether North Central can beat IWU Saturday. If NCC loses, I don't see how they could stay regionally ranked as a 4 loss team. UWP desperately needs a win against an RRO on its season end resume to have a prayer. Even if they do- I still have the dilemma of how a RAC would consider a result against a a potential borderline RRO from another region. In short, when the west RAC deliberates, they aren't going to know where the north RAC is slotting NCC, if anywhere. Sure they can take a guess on the week 10s advisory rankings, but as we know, those don't count in the official criteria. I'd love to get confirmation that the RACs talk to each other but I somehow doubt it. While it is true that the national selection committee will have the benefit of seeing all the "secret" regional rankings, the damage may already be done for UWP if they are ranked behind other west teams and never make it on the pool c board. As usual- I defer to wally's clairvoyance if he's seeing something I'm not.

[wally_wabash]

I haven't gotten into full analysis mode yet here so this is more of a feeling than anything else, but I think UW-P presents one of the stronger 2-loss Pool C profiles that we've seen, maybe ever.  A lot of this hinges on whether or not North Central winds up ranked (which depends entirely on their result with IWU this weekend), but they look very strong.  Very high SOS, they walloped Dubuque (who really should be ranked), they beat North Central (who can still actually very plausibly win the CCIW).  They'll need to keep an eye on the MIAC race and how the runner up situation plays out there, but UW-P is very much in play here.   

While it is true that the national selection committee will have the benefit of seeing all the "secret" regional rankings, the damage may already be done for UWP if they are ranked behind other west teams and never make it on the pool c board. As usual- I defer to wally's clairvoyance if he's seeing something I'm not.

This is a really important piece.  We know Platteville will be behind Whitewater in the West already.  They may well be behind St. John's as well (if the MIAC shakes out with a 1-loss St. John's).  That would put them third in the West, which is a really tough place to be.  They should by all means be ahead of Wartburg (Wartburg is in serious trouble, guys).  So, Platteville could very well be the third team out of the West that sidles up to the table in about round 4 or 5 of the process.  At which point can they overcome voting inertia and get one of those last two spots?  It'll be interesting.  Man, I'm excited to run through this and see how it goes. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

On one of the boards, PAC maybe? I played around with a mock South Region Committee ranking given the info we have right now. Not accounting for anything that might happen going forward. I was surprised that I ended up with two 2 loss teams over a host of one loss teams, but when looking at how the RRO dominoes fell and SOS it seemed almost inevitable. Granted they were teams 9 and 10 and probably wouldn't see the board, but it was hard to ignore them based on the criteria.

Yeah, as the season's gone on, the thought process on two-loss teams has morphed slowly from a "We can't just eliminate two-loss teams yet, no matter how lousy we think they are" to "Give us a reason why you should be up here". Wally and ETP know a lot more about the big picture than me, so they've done almost all that lifting, but I can tell you they're following an internal logic and trying to think about criteria in these calls.

For me, it's been simple.  Any 9-1 team at least survives the first cut of "Do they have any chance at all to get discussed?" because there just aren't many teams that finish 9-1 in Pool C (what's the all-time record for 9-1 teams in the Pool C discussion since the field expanded to 32?  I think the most 9-1 teams I can ever remember being left out of the field is 2).  Even though there will be the occasional 9-1 team with an extremely flimsy resume who will never get discussed, it's hard to flag that for sure in the Eliminator, so we'd best leave all 1-loss possibilities on the table.

Then when we start looking at 8-2 teams, you realize, there are going to be a lot of 8-2 teams.  Too many for any old 8-2 team to make it to the table.  So there's gotta be a bonus point on an 8-2's resume.  A really big SOS, one or more RR wins, or 2+ good RR "results" working for you.

And that's where I think walla walla's last post is really stretching it with the "closeness" of those UWP losses.  It's possible that a team like 8-2 Concordia-Moorhead might get into the discussion if they're carrying an 8-point loss to St. John's and an overtime loss to St. Thomas.  As smedindy noted, there is precedent; St. Thomas got in last year at 8-2 with two competitive losses (although, as wally said in the past, that seemed like a bit of an odd pick).  But one of those UWP losses was an annihilation, and while UWO is undeniably awesome, the two weeks preceding their UWP game, they won by 3 points and 11 points.  UWP lost by a whole lot more than that.

The other thing that hurts UWP is that their big win, North Central, is going to have (at least) two other losses and will probably not be in the playoff field.  In an alternate universe where NCC beats Wesley and Wheaton and takes the CCIW at 9-1 with their only loss against UWP...that trump card of an RR win against a 9-1 league champion would help offset the two losses.  But with NCC 7-3 or 6-4 and maybe not regionally ranked, that win no longer works as a big shiny diamond in your favor.  It's just a good win.

And it cuts both ways.  I suspect that NCC's drop in the latest d3football.com poll had less to do with their loss to Wheaton (who was already ranked much higher and expected to win) than with UWP getting pummeled (making it far less of a 'good loss').

(As a side note, anyone recall if a 4-3 team has ever before been in the top 20?)

[Andy Jamison - Walla Walla Wildcat]

You don't need to use "" when talking about "weaker" conferences or "weaker" teams. The evidence that not all conferences are equal has been and will continue to be proven each year in the playoffs.

[wally_wabash]

You don't need to use "" when talking about "weaker" conferences or "weaker" teams. The evidence that not all conferences are equal has been and will continue to be proven each year in the playoffs.

I don't think anybody believes that all of the conferences are equal.  Do they?

[ExTartanPlayer]

You don't need to use "" when talking about "weaker" conferences or "weaker" teams. The evidence that not all conferences are equal has been and will continue to be proven each year in the playoffs.

OK.  I'll stop using the quotes.

Why does the fact that not all conferences are equal mean that we should exclude some conferences from the playoffs?

[ExTartanPlayer]

There are very, very few teams in D3 that would not have lost both of those games by a much greater average margin (22.5). 

I bet that there are zero teams outside the Top 8 that would do better against UWO and UWW

My friend, I present to you the case of UW-Stevens Point.  You know, that team who gave up 65 to Albion in the season opener.  Probably not in the Top 8 this year.

UW-Oshkosh 21, UW-Stevens Point 10
UW-Whitewater 35, UW-Stevens Point 27

Now, I work with numbers a little, and I am fairly certain that average margin is less than 22.5 polnts (here, I'll help you so you don't have to get your calculator: it's 9.5 points).  So there's at least one team outside the top 8 who would do did better against UWO and UWW, and that team lost to one from the MIAA (to boot, a team that's not even leading the conference!)

[SaintsFAN]

If UW-P had lost both the games in close fashion, I could understand the hang up with them.  I know it's been mentioned by a few here but that blowout loss doesn't sit well with me.  A team who gets their doors blown off like that is NOT Walnut & Bronze material.  Period. 

Maybe it's my East Coast bias, though.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Maybe it's my East Coast bias, though.

LOL

[wally_wabash]

I don't like the score of that Platteville game either, but last year we saw TLU get in with a similar/worse wipeout and much less meat on their profile than what Platteville has this year.  And TLU went in BEFORE an undefeated team from their same region.  It may be that the West RAC really punishes Platteville for that margin of defeat in a way that the South region didn't do to TLU in 2014.  I'm just saying we've seen very recently that that sort of loss can be overcome at selection time. 

[MonroviaCat]

If UW-P had lost both the games in close fashion, I could understand the hang up with them.  I know it's been mentioned by a few here but that blowout loss doesn't sit well with me.  A team who gets their doors blown off like that is NOT Walnut & Bronze material.  Period. 

Maybe it's my East Coast bias, though.

I would argue (though I know the criteria say nothing about this) that a 3rd place team from any conference does not belong in the playoffs.  They've already shown that they are not as good as 2 other teams that (it seems) are going to make the field.  It's not a case where there is a 3 way tie for first (or even a 2 way tie for 2nd) and one teams gets left behind.  If you couldn't beat 2 teams ahead of you in your conference then you didn't earn a spot into the playoffs.  Sure, it may be the case that there are teams in the playoffs that said team could beat (even easily) but there are also teams in the playoffs that have proven they can beat said team (and in once case---easily).  Obviously just my opinion and the selection committees will do what they do but it seems pretty clear (to me) that 2 losses in conference (with the 2 teams that beat you ahead of you in the standings) should not qualify for 1 of the very limited number of At Large spots.


Did I use enough parentheses? 

[ExTartanPlayer]

I don't like the score of that Platteville game either, but last year we saw TLU get in with a similar/worse wipeout and much less meat on their profile than what Platteville has this year.  And TLU went in BEFORE an undefeated team from their same region.  It may be that the West RAC really punishes Platteville for that margin of defeat in a way that the South region didn't do to TLU in 2014.  I'm just saying we've seen very recently that that sort of loss can be overcome at selection time.

What UWP does have working for it (that TLU didn't) is the possibility of a couple RR wins to offset that blowout loss.  If Dubuque goes 8-2 and wins the IIAC, and North Central goes 7-3 and ends up in a tie for the CCIW, they'll have a couple bonus points helping them out.  In which case, they might be in, and that's cool. 

What I'm ranting against is the poor Team X, they played other hard teams and only sorta got killed that drips out of walla walla's last post.  "I bet no other team outside the top 8 could hang with UWO and UWW the way UWP did" (ignoring that another team inside their own conference, with a loss to an MIAA team did that this season).  If there's going to be an argument for UWP in the playoffs, it's going to be that they (might) have a couple of RR wins, not that they only lost by an average of 22.5 points against UWO and UWW.

[USee]

If UW-P had lost both the games in close fashion, I could understand the hang up with them.  I know it's been mentioned by a few here but that blowout loss doesn't sit well with me.  A team who gets their doors blown off like that is NOT Walnut & Bronze material.  Period. 

Maybe it's my East Coast bias, though.

I would argue (though I know the criteria say nothing about this) that a 3rd place team from any conference does not belong in the playoffs.  They've already shown that they are not as good as 2 other teams that (it seems) are going to make the field.

I would be careful with this kind of proclamation. We know this isn't true from other settings. The Cubs were the 3rd best team in their division and collectively those three teams were the 3 best (based on record) in all of baseball. It obviously isn't apples to apples but you can't definitively say a 3rd place team from conference X isn't good enough to make the tournament. That's what the at large system is designed for isn't it? To give the "next best" teams the opportunity to prove themselves? Personally I love the AQ system and am pretty comfortable with the Pool C selection process, though I really like some of Wally's tweaks he suggested a couple weeks ago.

As far as a team with a blow out loss deserving admission, that would likely preclude any 2nd place WIAC team (in most years) and any OAC team other than Mt Union. Also, TLU (previously mentioned) played their rematch with MHB to a one score game in the playoffs.

[wally_wabash]

If UW-P had lost both the games in close fashion, I could understand the hang up with them.  I know it's been mentioned by a few here but that blowout loss doesn't sit well with me.  A team who gets their doors blown off like that is NOT Walnut & Bronze material.  Period. 

Maybe it's my East Coast bias, though.

I would argue (though I know the criteria say nothing about this) that a 3rd place team from any conference does not belong in the playoffs.  They've already shown that they are not as good as 2 other teams that (it seems) are going to make the field.

I would be careful with this kind of proclamation. We know this isn't true from other settings. The Cubs were the 3rd best team in their division and collectively those three teams were the 3 best (based on record) in all of baseball. It obviously isn't apples to apples but you can't definitively say a 3rd place team from conference X isn't good enough to make the tournament. That's what the at large system is designed for isn't it? To give the "next best" teams the opportunity to prove themselves? Personally I love the AQ system and am pretty comfortable with the Pool C selection process, though I really like some of Wally's tweaks he suggested a couple weeks ago.

As far as a team with a blow out loss deserving admission, that would likely preclude any 2nd place WIAC team (in most years) and any OAC team other than Mt Union. Also, TLU (previously mentioned) played their rematch with MHB to a one score game in the playoffs.

I don't think that there is a bigger red herring in this whole at-large conversation than conference affiliation.  Conference affiliation is a distraction.   When we did the mock selection last year, I don't think we talked about conference affiliation one time (I'd have to check the archive)- or if we did it wasn't something that had any impact on our votes.  When I do the projections, the conference affiliation never enters the thought process. 

As for third place teams being in or out- generally that takes care of itself.  We've only seen one league place three teams in the tournament one time.  But this is a fairly extraordinary case this year- Platteville has lost to their eventual league champion and to the defending national champion (criteria or no, the committees are giving some special dispensation to results against Whitewater and Mount Union...that's just what 10 years of total dominance gets).  Never mind what place Platteville finishes in their league- if you look at the 10 games they played and who they beat and how they played against other ranked teams, they will stack up favorably.  Getting to the front of the line in the West, from what I can see right now, is probably their biggest obstacle. 

[USee]

Wally,

Well said. I think conference affiliation can cut both ways. It shouldn't get undeserving teams in and conference affiliation shouldn't keep otherwise deserving teams out. I agree it is a different kind of year. We could have 3 one loss MIAC teams as well. Or even 2 one loss CCIW teams that don't get the AQ.