2015 NCAA TOURNAMENT THREAD

[njf1003]

Tufts would not host and play so well on the road they will be fine with that.

OK, so I'm gonna guess F&M.  Can't imagine everyone would go to Grand Rapids.

I think it's got to be F&M. Tufts and Kenyon can both bus to F&M so they've only got to get Calvin a flight.
Anywhere else requires two flights. (ie F&M and Tufts to Calvin, or Kenyon and Calvin to Tufts). And I think F&M hosts over Kenyon.

[wingtips2]

So MSU was a lock because they have soooooooo much fire power?  Hahahahaha.

[blooter442]

I usually try to be objective on these boards, but this one's a homer post - Brandeis absolutely deserved to win that game, and thankfully they did. Had RPI emerged victorious, it would have been as clear of a case of daylight robbery as you could find. We all know that RPI didn't even deserve to be in the NCAA Tournament, but the Judges had a goal waved off for offsides (which was questionable), they hit the post twice, and had numerous other opportunities. Not to mention the ref was awful. Oh man. Regardless of Brandeis' inability to score - which was apparent in this game - RPI shouldn't have even been in the question. Judges will face a tougher test in the Sweet 16 against a Trinity side that beat them 2-0 back in September.

[d3fan1]

I know money is a major consideration, but Calvin is not been shown any respect for a number 1 rated team. No bye, playing OWU at OWU, and not hosting the next site. What other number 1 ranked team has been treated like that?

[Jim Matson]

I think this year's sectional choices will be easier than in most years. Only the "Central" sectional is up for grabs: will it be Loras or Wheaton?

F&M has to host their sectional for the reasons stated by njf1003.

I think the East sectional will be at Oneonta, although any of the other three could host too. Oneonta is in the middle, if the NCAA is looking to spread the pain around evenly.

The Northeast sectional is an easy one geographically for Amherst, and they are the top seed.

I'd go with Amherst, Oneonta State, Loras, and F&M (I'd personally like to see the Loras group at Wheaton due to facilities e.g. the lack of football stripes on the pitch, etc.).

[PaulNewman]

Tufts would not host and play so well on the road they will be fine with that.

OK, so I'm gonna guess F&M.  Can't imagine everyone would go to Grand Rapids.

I think it's got to be F&M. Tufts and Kenyon can both bus to F&M so they've only got to get Calvin a flight.
Anywhere else requires two flights. (ie F&M and Tufts to Calvin, or Kenyon and Calvin to Tufts). And I think F&M hosts over Kenyon.

F&M makes sense because of capacity for later start times and lights.  Otherwise, it would be Kenyon where only Tufts would have to fly into Columbus. 

[PaulNewman]

Heartbreak for MSU.  Unlucky to draw Tufts in the 2nd round but somebody really good was going to get Tufts because of Tufts' record.  In the committee's eyes Tufts was probably no different than a Babson, RPI, Bowdoin, etc.  MSU had a couple of great chances to go up 3-1 and thereafter seemed to get caught between not really attacking anymore but also not really packing it in either.  They continued to leave Tufts a lot of space but without any real passion about countering.  Credit to Tufts for getting 2 goals in the last 8 or so minutes.  Two set piece goals and then a beautiful strike from Brown.  The last one came too late for MSU to have time for a response.  One of the biggest tourney favorites is gone and now the Jumbos are 4 wins from a repeat.  Amazing.

[njf1003]

Tufts would not host and play so well on the road they will be fine with that.

OK, so I'm gonna guess F&M.  Can't imagine everyone would go to Grand Rapids.

I think it's got to be F&M. Tufts and Kenyon can both bus to F&M so they've only got to get Calvin a flight.
Anywhere else requires two flights. (ie F&M and Tufts to Calvin, or Kenyon and Calvin to Tufts). And I think F&M hosts over Kenyon.

F&M makes sense because of capacity for later start times and lights.  Otherwise, it would be Kenyon where only Tufts would have to fly into Columbus.

NCAA's website says F&M sectional is at OWU.... yeah....

[Brother Flounder]

Heartbreak for MSU.  Unlucky to draw Tufts in the 2nd round but somebody really good was going to get Tufts because of Tufts' record.  In the committee's eyes Tufts was probably no different than a Babson, RPI, Bowdoin, etc.  MSU had a couple of great chances to go up 3-1 and thereafter seemed to get caught between not really attacking anymore but also not really packing it in either.  They continued to leave Tufts a lot of space but without any real passion about countering.  Credit to Tufts for getting 2 goals in the last 8 or so minutes.  Two set piece goals and then a beautiful strike from Brown.  The last one came too late for MSU to have time for a response.  One of the biggest tourney favorites is gone and now the Jumbos are 4 wins from a repeat.  Amazing.

It was an excellent game. MSU is very talented and fast. Tufts outplayed them and they were getting gassed for the first 25 minutes. Tufts could have had a quick lead. The MSU keeper made a fantastic save on a Kayne laser header. MSU, who looked a little faster than Tufts then MSU started to get momentum. MSU scored on a Pk. The video feed wasn't great so I couldn't tell about the call. Then, MSU Scored on on nice cross. Becharano scored on a sweet feed from Kayne but was called offside on a very questionable call. Then MSU sat back and Sullivan and Brown scored nice goals.  I think the Jumbos will be underdogs still and need to continue to spread the ball around. The speed of the game looked good.

[PaulNewman]

Tufts would not host and play so well on the road they will be fine with that.

OK, so I'm gonna guess F&M.  Can't imagine everyone would go to Grand Rapids.

I think it's got to be F&M. Tufts and Kenyon can both bus to F&M so they've only got to get Calvin a flight.
Anywhere else requires two flights. (ie F&M and Tufts to Calvin, or Kenyon and Calvin to Tufts). And I think F&M hosts over Kenyon.

F&M makes sense because of capacity for later start times and lights.  Otherwise, it would be Kenyon where only Tufts would have to fly into Columbus.

NCAA's website says F&M regional is at OWU.... yeah....

That actually would not surprise me.  Possible.

[njf1003]

Official hosts: Haverford, Amherst, Kenyon, Loras.

http://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/files/external/gametool/brackets/soccer-men_d3_2015.pdf

Gotta say I'm surprised it's not at F&M, but not completely shocked.

[PaulNewman]

Official hosts: Haverford, Amherst, Kenyon, Loras.

http://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/files/external/gametool/brackets/soccer-men_d3_2015.pdf

Gotta say I'm surprised it's not at F&M, but not completely shocked.

Makes perfect sense by seed.  And is Kenyon borrowing OWU field??  That also would make sense, as weird as that will be.

[Dark Knight]

I know money is a major consideration, but Calvin is not been shown any respect for a number 1 rated team. No bye, playing OWU at OWU, and not hosting the next site. What other number 1 ranked team has been treated like that?

Calvin is in a weak conference, so because of the RPI-like system the NCAA uses for making these rankings Calvin can literally go undefeated an entire season and not get to host. And be at risk of missing the national tournament if they don't win the conference tournament. All the human and other computer-based systems had Calvin in the top 1-3, but the NCAA's system had them at 5th in the region.

The NCAA has always seemed to prefer ranking systems that are based on won/lost records only and not goal differentials, even though the goal-differential-based systems are statistically shown to be better at predicting future performance. Wikipedia opines that the reason is that when goal differentials are taken into account, that gives players motivation to shave points, so the NCAA wants to stay clear of that. I can't believe point shaving is an issue in D3 soccer, but there it is, and the NCAA is left with RPI-like systems that favor power conferences. Pros, major conferences, etc have moved away from RPI or at least modified it, but we're still stuck with it at the D3 level.

See Wikipedia's article on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rating_Percentage_Index for more information.

I've been toying with the idea of experimenting with another RPI-like statistic I thought of that takes goal differentials into account and could be added as another ranking factor to SOS, RvR, winning %, etc for comparing teams. It would be something like this:

power =  aGD + 2/3 aOGD + 1/3 aOOGD
aGD = average goal differential
aOGD = average opponent's goal differential
aOOGD = average opponent's opponents' goal differential

You can't compare goal differentials directly for teams that play easier or harder schedules, but you can adjust for that in the same way RPI adjusts for SOS.

Maybe someday I'll hack together a program to generate these numbers along with SOS, RPI, etc for D3 soccer teams just to see how this statistic looks and how it compares at predicting future performance to other measures.

[njf1003]

Official hosts: Haverford, Amherst, Kenyon, Loras.

http://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/files/external/gametool/brackets/soccer-men_d3_2015.pdf

Gotta say I'm surprised it's not at F&M, but not completely shocked.

Makes perfect sense by seed.  And is Kenyon borrowing OWU field??  That also would make sense, as weird as that will be.

Pretty sure that's just a typo based off of Kenyon's website.

Also 11 and 1:30 on Friday? Who decided on those times?!?

[PaulNewman]

Official hosts: Haverford, Amherst, Kenyon, Loras.

http://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/files/external/gametool/brackets/soccer-men_d3_2015.pdf

Gotta say I'm surprised it's not at F&M, but not completely shocked.

Makes perfect sense by seed.  And is Kenyon borrowing OWU field??  That also would make sense, as weird as that will be.

Pretty sure that's just a typo based off of Kenyon's website.

Also 11 and 1:30 on Friday? Who decided on those times?!?

Kenyon website says at Gambier with games at 11:00 and 1:30.  Wow.  Very surprised they would play early games on a Friday. 

And to be honest, Kenyon probably plays better on OWU's field than their own.  We would still have a big home field advantage if they did play at OWU.