Pool C -- 2015

[art76]

Wally,

Taking this conversation off the MIAC board and bringing it over here.

I've been following these boards for 4 or 5 years now, maybe longer, and I'm still trying to get a feel for the nuance at the end of the season. Let's take a hypothetical 32 team board and plug in some numbers. How do the 32 teams get ranked? Which criteria gets first consideration? Is it the overall D3 record? If it is, what is the secondary criteria? Is it Regional Rankings or SOS? For what it's worth, once the field is set, I don't think the RRs should be taken into account unless there a tie in the SOS score. But I think the RRs are taken into account, as well as the "how they did last season in the playoffs". But how are they weighted?

In a sense, it would be very easy to simply take all the undefeated teams in the playoff and rank them by their SOS scores. Then do the same for the teams with one loss, then two losses and so on. Yeah, I get that a 3 loss team might be a champion in a "tougher conference" but it's easier to rank by record, SOS and then RR in that order to set the bracket.

For me, it's no more arbitrary than what has been done lately. I have not taken the time to check records on the 32 teams you put into the bracket earlier this week, but I'm going to guess that a majority of them are going to be undefeated. That's not likely to change much. The teams that'll be griping about this system will be those with "tough losses to ranked teams". I could callously say, if you want a higher ranking in the tournament at the end of the year, schedule the toughest teams you can find and don't lose.

Let's play this out. Say you are a fan of one of these kinds of teams with one or more losses and you get sent on the road to paste an undefeated conference winner. It just verifies that you were the better team. In my mind that does not in itself mean you should have been seeded higher at the beginning of the tournament. If you want home games after the regular season, don't lose. Everything else is a crap-shot.

Because of travel constraints I know that we'll never get a "true ranked" bracket - #1 playing #32, etc, but my guess is that the selection committee takes into account disparity of teams when setting up the bracket. Well, I've probably said so much I'll get slammed with negative K, but please notice I haven't mentioned the polls in this post at all.

[wally_wabash]

Wally,

Taking this conversation off the MIAC board and bringing it over here.

I've been following these boards for 4 or 5 years now, maybe longer, and I'm still trying to get a feel for the nuance at the end of the season. Let's take a hypothetical 32 team board and plug in some numbers. How do the 32 teams get ranked? Which criteria gets first consideration? Is it the overall D3 record? If it is, what is the secondary criteria? Is it Regional Rankings or SOS? For what it's worth, once the field is set, I don't think the RRs should be taken into account unless there a tie in the SOS score. But I think the RRs are taken into account, as well as the "how they did last season in the playoffs". But how are they weighted?

I don't believe the committee ranks all 32 teams once they are selected.  We know they do this with the men's D1 basketball tournament (1-68) and then they match teams up using an S-curve model...with tweaks to avoid conference rematches and BYU playing on Sunday, but basically any team is free to fly to any other location without any real restriction.  But D1 basketball has all the money in the world, and they only share a little bit of it with us here in D3, so we don't get a perfect S-curve.  We have to watch costs and keep teams from traveling too far for as long as we can.  So what the committee will do is select the top 4 national seeds.  They don't have to be the top ranked team from each region- there can be, and has been, multiple #1 seeds from the same region.  Just last year, Mount Union, Whitewater, UMHB, and Wesley were #1 seeds; two #1 seeds from the South region, zero from the east (not that that's going to keep dudes from griping about the East getting too much credit).  2013 was Mount Union, Whitewater, UMHB, and Bethel.  Two West teams this time and again zero East teams. 

Once they've picked those four #1 seeds, they'll start building brackets around those four teams, trying to keep as many teams within 500 miles of one another as possible and, for the most part, they do a pretty good job of balancing the bracket.  The bracket building process is pretty difficult.  You can listen to the last half hour or so of the mock selection show last year and listen to Pat kind of talk his way through that process.  I would guess that the committee has tools available to them to do it a little better, but I thought Pat did a pretty good job, 2 hours into a live podcast at the end of a busy Week 11 Saturday, to splice that thing together more or less off the top of his head. 

I strayed a little there.  The NCAA says they don't necessarily rank the teams 1-8 in each region (some believe they still do this and they just don't make it public), but you can more or less figure out what those seeds/ranks are by the matchups and who gets home games and what not. 

In a sense, it would be very easy to simply take all the undefeated teams in the playoff and rank them by their SOS scores. Then do the same for the teams with one loss, then two losses and so on. Yeah, I get that a 3 loss team might be a champion in a "tougher conference" but it's easier to rank by record, SOS and then RR in that order to set the bracket.

For me, it's no more arbitrary than what has been done lately. I have not taken the time to check records on the 32 teams you put into the bracket earlier this week, but I'm going to guess that a majority of them are going to be undefeated. That's not likely to change much. The teams that'll be griping about this system will be those with "tough losses to ranked teams". I could callously say, if you want a higher ranking in the tournament at the end of the year, schedule the toughest teams you can find and don't lose.

The thing is that you don't want to put the primary criteria in any specific order.  They are to be considered all at the same time.  Of course, every individual on the selection committee will have their own idea as to what is most important, but taken collectively, you get an even application of all of the criteria.  Mr. Ypsi has questioned this...and maybe I shouldn't say an "even application" of the criteria as much as I should say a "fair application" of the criteria.  These regional groups of 8 people and then the national group of 8 people that make these weekly regional rankings and ultimately selected and bracket the field aren't dummies, as much as we might think so on Selection Sunday sometimes.  They do a good job.  And they do a really hard job. 

Let's play this out. Say you are a fan of one of these kinds of teams with one or more losses and you get sent on the road to paste an undefeated conference winner. It just verifies that you were the better team. In my mind that does not in itself mean you should have been seeded higher at the beginning of the tournament. If you want home games after the regular season, don't lose. Everything else is a crap-shot.

Because of travel constraints I know that we'll never get a "true ranked" bracket - #1 playing #32, etc, but my guess is that the selection committee takes into account disparity of teams when setting up the bracket. Well, I've probably said so much I'll get slammed with negative K, but please notice I haven't mentioned the polls in this post at all.

Yes, they do.  Using Whitewater and Mount Union as the standard bearers of the top 1/2 seeds in the tournament, they have generally seen the weakest team within driving distance to them for as long as I can remember.  Like I said, while the committee may not rank the field 1-32 or officially rank each region 1-8, they generally do a good job of matching up the teams in a way that makes sense.  The exceptions for the first and sometimes second round are for the island teams, but we really shouldn't be upset about that at this point.  Everybody knows what the deal is there by now. 

[wabndy]

For me, it's no more arbitrary than what has been done lately. I have not taken the time to check records on the 32 teams you put into the bracket earlier this week, but I'm going to guess that a majority of them are going to be undefeated. That's not likely to change much.

Current undefeated teams:
Wesley, Western New England, Mount Union, Wheaton, Wabash, Hardin Simmons, John Hopkins, Thomas More, Washington and Lee, St. Thomas, Linfield, St. Norbert


Of those, only St. Norbert and Western New England are not top 25 teams (both got some votes though) and I think the the general consensus here would be that both are out in the first round even if they do stay undefeated. I know its a cliche but it is really really hard to go undefeated.  Fair to middling teams in weak conferences are, in most years, going to pick up a loss or two somewhere along the line.    St. Norbert still has MWC championship game to play against one loss Monmouth with no guarantees.  Western New England has its toughest two games ahead. Very good chance that neither of those will stay undefeated over the next 8 days.


The remaining undefeated teams are ones that are generally multi-round playoff contenders more often than not (Hardin Simmons is the exception but for many reasons are a unique case).  In the 32 team playoff era, we usually don't have much of a history of more than one undefeated weak kneed teams getting put on the road and hammered in the first week of the playoff.  Anybody who can get through any 9 or 10 game D3 schedule without a loss is doing something right.

[smedindy]

If Western New England can survive Coast Guard and Salve, then maybe they can win round 1. The East is all about who can go where depending on the shakeouts of the As and Cs.

St. Norbert is in a tough spot. They can get to a MIAC team, a WIAC team or a CCIW team. Monmouth had some good, special teams that were also hamstrung by where they were (though they did win two playoff games). Even if the MWC gets a home game (like Monmouth did against St. Thomas a few years ago), it may be a tall order.

[cover2]

What does Wesley losing do to Pool C?  Was Salisbury in the hunt and they've simply switched spots?  I didn't see them in the regional rankings though so it's interesting.

[Mr. Ypsi]

What does Wesley losing do to Pool C?  Was Salisbury in the hunt and they've simply switched spots?  I didn't see them in the regional rankings though so it's interesting.

Well, it certainly changes the discussion of #1 seeds!  For the moment I'd guess Mount, St. Thomas, UWO, and Linfield (in whatever order).  That might present some logistical challenges for avoiding flights, but (supposedly) that is not a factor in the original selections, just in the pairings.

[D3MAFAN]

What does Wesley losing do to Pool C?  Was Salisbury in the hunt and they've simply switched spots?  I didn't see them in the regional rankings though so it's interesting.

Well, it certainly changes the discussion of #1 seeds!  For the moment I'd guess Mount, St. Thomas, UWO, and Linfield (in whatever order).  That might present some logistical challenges for avoiding flights, but (supposedly) that is not a factor in the original selections, just in the pairings.

Not to sold on UWO...

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

What does Wesley losing do to Pool C?  Was Salisbury in the hunt and they've simply switched spots?  I didn't see them in the regional rankings though so it's interesting.

Well, it certainly changes the discussion of #1 seeds!  For the moment I'd guess Mount, St. Thomas, UWO, and Linfield (in whatever order).  That might present some logistical challenges for avoiding flights, but (supposedly) that is not a factor in the original selections, just in the pairings.

Not to sold on UWO...

I honestly could see Mount not getting a #1 based on resumes right now. W1 St Thomas, S1 Hardin-Simmons, W2 UW-Oshkosh, S2 Johns Hopkins, W3 Linfield are all undefeated vs D3 and have better SoS (before the final 2 weeks). Plus Mount hasn't played a ranked opponent yet (John Carroll next week will be the only one) But it is Mount Union so I wouldn't be surprised if they got a top spot.

[wrdad]

Besides Bethany playing the rest of there games. Mounts SOS numbers are always determined after week 1 since mount plays 9 conference games! It looks like bethany will finish at .500 so, mounts SOS should be right around the .500 mark. Like it is almost every year.

[wabndy]

But it is Mount Union so I wouldn't be surprised if they got a top spot.

Its Mount Union.  They will get a top spot.

[SaintsFAN]

But it is Mount Union so I wouldn't be surprised if they got a top spot.

Its Mount Union.  They will get a top spot.

The committee knows Mount is Mount AND they have no say so about 90% of their schedule.

[MonroviaCat]

Hardin Simmons just lost to East Texas Baptist who is now in the drivers seat in the conference (but has 2 losses and probably not a strong pool B/C candidate) as they head to MHB next week---discuss

[Toby Taff]

Hardin Simmons just lost to East Texas Baptist who is now in the drivers seat in the conference (but has 2 losses and probably not a strong pool B/C candidate) as they head to MHB next week---discuss

its asc circa 2003 with no AQ

[MonroviaCat]

Hardin Simmons just lost to East Texas Baptist who is now in the drivers seat in the conference (but has 2 losses and probably not a strong pool B/C candidate) as they head to MHB next week---discuss

its asc circa 2003 with no AQ

Right--hypothetically, ETBU could win the conference and not make the playoffs while a team they beat (it would be HSU) could get in

[MonroviaCat]

UPS fumbles on first down--CATS recover.