2018 NCAA Tournament

[smedindy]

A charter member? Massey has ranked the IIAC as a top 4 conference the last 2 years. Takes all human bias out of the equation. Currently 2nd best league in the country behind the WIAC.

Wait... a computer knows how to rank and should be trusted? I think we know how this has worked out in the past... to the end that Minor League football got rid of it a few years back.

Oh, Dave, they totally neutered the rankings by downgrading their Strength of Schedule, and by removing any margin of victory from the calculations. Do we have to keep having the same conversations OVER and OVER and OVER again??? Live in the now, or be banished like a luddite using adding machines, quills, and foolscap.

[smedindy]

Been looking at the IIAC Massey Ratings. They have four in the Top 40:

2. Nebraska Wesleyan
17. Loras
23. Wartburg
35. Buena Vista

When a conference like the IIAC has good non-conference wins, and then the conference season is competitive, that tends to raise everyone up, as teams get upset or eke out wins against the bottom of the conference, because that happens. Plus, wins that were maybe not as impressive at first became impressive.

e.g. Nebraska Wesleyan's win over Bethany Lutheran

Loras had some nice wins over Ripon, Lake Forest, and Monmouth.
Wartburg beat Aurora and Stevens Point and had two othe wins over WIAC teams. That helps a lot.

Now, since everything is connected, and one game over here affects the whole kitten caboodle, good wins by IIAC teams rise up the entire IIAC.

And before you claim "Fiddlesticks", and go by what you think should be the way, and all that stuff, think critically on WHY the rankings are why they are, and not deride them because someone talked to you about that team in January.

[smedindy]

One last thing or two:

The upsets in the first round definitely affected the Massey Ratings.
Also, playing (and beating or coming close to) MIAC and WIAC teams (in the Midwest) does help you raise up in the rankings.

Why (for both)?

Think of the ratings at a point in time - predictions are spun off of those ratings.

If you beat the prediction, you'll improve - a little if you lose with dignity - a lot if you upset and rout a top team on the road (or neutral, even).

Now every game has this going on, and team ratings move and bob with their results, and the results of others. So, if a team you beat two weeks ago upsets a top team, then your rating will raise accordingly.

So, getting back to Loras, for an example - they're helped more by Wartburg's wins than anything else (though they had nice wins over MWC teams that have good ratings) and their subsequent split against Wartburg (which they got the better end of it, beating them by 17 at home, which is nice) and most importantly, their 10 point win over Nebraska Wesleyan, which definitely exceeded expectations. Because it was such an even year, their clunkers against bad to mediocre teams didn't matter that much - it was the games where they and the IIAC exceeded expectations that got them rated this highly.

Now, is the IIAC the second best league? No. But I cant sit here and say that Loras isn't as good Wooster, or Yorkpa, or Emory or Ramapo. Each of those teams had a "WHAAAAT??" loss (Emory lost to Hampden Sydney, Yorkpa to Frostburg, Ramapo to Central (IA), and yes Wooster to dear old Wabash).

[AndOne]

The thing is, Dave, that it would have been easy for NWU to give in and start giving athletic money, especially considering they were kind of on an island with regard to other NCAA schools. So give them a little credit for continuing to adhere to the NCAA philosophy and to work to ultimately solely associate with that organization.

I am not saying they shouldn't be applauded with sticking to the DIII model, but the moment they didn't... they wouldn't have been in DIII. I was simply saying, of course they adhered to the principle... they had to if they were serious about their membership.

I agree. I don't think that anyone should break into a round of applause for NebWes just for observing the rules, same as everybody else in D3. And there are other schools in D3 that are in worse spots in terms of geography, league affiliation opportunities, and scheduling.

You can almost always find someone or something that has it worse, Greg.
But that doesn't mean your concerns have no validity. In this particular case, sure, there are a few schools that have it worse than NWU in terms of being isolated. Consider, however, that those institutions don't play 20 conference games a year in a conference where every single other school gives athletic scholarships. Makes for a situation where the odds are kind of stacked against you. I'm not saying applaud them for following the rules, I'm saying just give them credit for not caving to the pressure and going the NAIA route, but instead staying true to the NCAA D3 philosophy and ideals to the point of giving up any and all association with the NAIA. I think they deserve a degree or two of respect for doing so.   

[Greek Tragedy]

Props to the NEWMAC. I think they may have been an afterthought after MIT lost Jomard near the end of the regular season. Yes, they won the conference championship, but I don't think many of us thought they'd make the Elite 8. Springfield was probably the last team in. Both knocked off favored NESCAC teams.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Props to the NEWMAC. I think they may have been an afterthought after MIT lost Jomard near the end of the regular season. Yes, they won the conference championship, but I don't think many of us thought they'd make the Elite 8. Springfield was probably the last team in. Both knocked off favored NESCAC teams.

What I love about this round is that you're only going to get eight team playing their best basketball - no one backs into the Sectional final.  There's no talk of ceilings or potential.  That being said, if MIT can pull off a win tonight, they do get an extra week of rest and rehab for Jomard, so who knows?

[fantastic50]

It occurred to me this evening that the Elite Eight contains only FIVE ranked teams (from the last pre-tourney poll): #1, 9,14,19,24.  Did the pollsters have an off-week?  Have there been that many legitimate upsets?  Has parity gone stark-raving mad in D3?  I lean most heavily on the last option, but see some of each at work.  Comments?

It's that last part. It is why I have 40-50 schools I'm considering for my ballot each week.

I have four of the last eight on my ballot. The only ones I don't are Oshkosh, Ramapo, Springfield, and MIT... and all of them I considered, though MIT was a short thought considering they didn't have Jomard back.

I think that there is more parity and quality depth than we saw 5-10 years ago.  Here were my final rankings going into the tournament...

Sectional finalists
#2 Whitman
#6 Nebraska Wesleyan
#7 Augustana
#17 UW-Oshkosh
#31 MIT
#33 Swarthmore
#42 Ramapo
#71 Springfield (but did predict their at-large berth)

Other sectional (Sweet 16) teams
#1 UW-Platteville
#4 John Carroll
#12 UW-Stevens Point
#26 Hamilton
#27 Emory
#33 Swarthmore
#39 Middlebury
#55 F&M

[fantastic50]

My bracket is busted like everyone else's, but a lot of the upsets seemed plausible (Wash. U. aside).  See below (with color added to emphasize right/wrong picks.)

Here's my take on the tournament...

Top-left bracket
Sectional final: Williams over Johns Hopkins
Salem darkhorse: MIT
Upset watch: Lebanon Valley over Middlebury

Bottom-left bracket
Sectional final: Wittenberg over John Carroll (but watch Augustana)
Salem darkhorse: Augsburg
Upset watch: Hope over Augsburg

Top-right bracket
Sectional final: UW-Platteville over Whitman (could have been for the Walnut & Bronze)
Salem darkhorse: Nebraska Wesleyan
Upset watch: CMS over Whitworth

Bottom-right bracket
Sectional final: Wesleyan over Cabrini
Salem darkhorse: None, but six teams have a decent shot (York, Plattsburgh, Hamilton, Swarthmore)
Upset watch: Nazareth over Hamilton

Championship
UW-Platteville over Wittenberg

[fantastic50]

There's always that discussion about when you're up 3 do you foul or not. With less than 4 seconds left in regulation I was thinking they should if he missed the FT because a second or two would run off and they couldn't tie it at the line. Sure enough he missed, they didn't foul, and Springfield hit the 3 to tie.

Exciting down to the wire finishes so far.

DePauw's Coach Fenlon would have fouled. He has laid it in out and probability states you should foul. Here is the paper he published:

https://www.depauw.edu/news-media/latest-news/details/25895/

http://c510383.r83.cf2.rackcdn.com/ath/mbasket/images/up3.pdf

This is cool!  I had not seen this, even with Coach Fenlon being in the NCAC.

Along these lines, a 2015 paper at the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference went even farther, suggesting late-game fouling
in a variety of situations while trailing OR LEADING.  The author, Franklin Kenter (who was then a math PhD student at Rice and is now a faculty member at USNA) is known for devising strategies that "break" games (including board games, etc.).  His foray into basketball got mainstream media attention, including a blurb in Sports Illustrated.

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/SSAC15-RP-Poster-Paper-An-Analysis-of-the-Basketball-Endgame.pdf

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/aempep/the-horrible-sloan-paper-that-would-destroy-basketball

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Well, MIT fouled up three last night, so it feels like there's some added weight to the theory.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Well, MIT fouled up three last night, so it feels like there's some added weight to the theory.

Sat courtside at a game at the Palestra this year... in overtime... where the conversation on air was "do you foul" leading by three and seconds left. I basically said, you should. They didn't; three pointer tied the game.

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, would you mind posting your top 10 conferences. I am quite curious. I understand you think a linear 1-10 rank doesn't properly explain how much better those 4 conferences are than the rest, but humor me for a post! 

Maybe tomorrow. I'm starting to wind down right now. Too much overstimulation from too many close games tonight.

Since you think the ordinal ranking doesn't paint the full picture, when/if you do so, I'd appreciate if you would include some sort of a power rank that shows where the tiers are.

For example, on a 1-25 scale, it might show:
1. WIAC - 24
2. NESCAC - 21
3. UAA - 20
4. CCIW - 20
5. MIAC - 14
etc.
etc.

OK, I'm spitballing this, and I am looking more at a five- or six-year pattern rather than only this season's (parity-laden) results, but off of the top of my head it'd look like this:

1. WIAC	25
2. CCIW	23
3. NESCAC	22
4. UAA	20
5. NEWMAC	13
6. MIAC	12
7. OAC	10
8. Centennial	9
9. ODAC	8
10. NCAC	7

I think that, right now, the IIAC is probably the best of the rest. Adding perennially solid Nebraska Wesleyan to that league has definitely lifted the quality of the league by a significant margin.

[Oline89]

Also spittballing here.   Does the fact that the NESCAC put 4 teams into the tournament (and there was huge argument on this board that they should have had 5), combined with the fact that only one team made the elite eight and zero made the final four, mean that there may be a chance that this league is slightly over-hyped?  Perhaps they are not the power conference of the East, that they have been dubbed?  I am not NESCAC bashing here, but really catering more to the idea that there is far more parity in D3 than in D1, where there are obvious "power" conferences.  What would the results had been if another conference, say the CC or SUNYAC or NJAC or LL put 4 teams into the tournament. 

[Gregory Sager]

The thing is, Dave, that it would have been easy for NWU to give in and start giving athletic money, especially considering they were kind of on an island with regard to other NCAA schools. So give them a little credit for continuing to adhere to the NCAA philosophy and to work to ultimately solely associate with that organization.

I am not saying they shouldn't be applauded with sticking to the DIII model, but the moment they didn't... they wouldn't have been in DIII. I was simply saying, of course they adhered to the principle... they had to if they were serious about their membership.

I agree. I don't think that anyone should break into a round of applause for NebWes just for observing the rules, same as everybody else in D3. And there are other schools in D3 that are in worse spots in terms of geography, league affiliation opportunities, and scheduling.

You can almost always find someone or something that has it worse, Greg.
But that doesn't mean your concerns have no validity. In this particular case, sure, there are a few schools that have it worse than NWU in terms of being isolated. Consider, however, that those institutions don't play 20 conference games a year in a conference where every single other school gives athletic scholarships. Makes for a situation where the odds are kind of stacked against you. I'm not saying applaud them for following the rules, I'm saying just give them credit for not caving to the pressure and going the NAIA route, but instead staying true to the NCAA D3 philosophy and ideals to the point of giving up any and all association with the NAIA. I think they deserve a degree or two of respect for doing so.   

"Caving to the pressure and going the NAIA route" was a choice that NWU decided not to make. That's the point here; the school was not forced into anything. The people who run NWU had options. Giving Nebraska Wesleyan "respect" for its decisions implies either that: a) NCAA-D3 is always the right choice and NAIA is always the wrong choice; or that b) taking on the handicap of offering no scholarships in a scholarship-laden league is an indication of virtue. I don't think that either one is true.

There's no ethical credit that comes from being a part of D3. While a lot of us believe that institutions of higher learning that don't offer athletic scholarships have their priorities in better order than those that do, it's simply not a cut-and-dried situation that non-scholarship schools are automatically "better", either academically or ethically, than scholarship schools. The NAIA fits a need and has its own way of doing things, just as NCAA-D3 does. I prefer D3, but I'm not a snob about it. Remember, at least a couple of other GPAC schools (Doane and Concordia NE, if I remember correctly) did an exploratory year of D3 in this decade and eventually opted not to switch. This is truly a situation in which "to each his own" applies on an institutional basis. And it also needs to be said that, when NWU declared it was dropping both its NAIA affiliation and membership in the GPAC in order to join the IIAC, NWU athletic director Ira Zeff citied two factors -- the shorter seasons and the increased opportunities for national championships in D3 -- in his press conference, not the scholarship issue.

As for NWU remaining scholarship-free and maintaining dual affiliation in an NAIA-oriented league whose other members offered scholies, that doesn't mean that NWU was virtuous for participating in the GPAC with one hand tied behind its back. Nobody forced NWU to do that. It wasn't constrained by resources, nor were there any other intrinsic reasons for doing that, other than that it reflected the priorities set by the NWU Board of Governors. Likewise, nobody forced NWU to drop the NAIA affiliation and switch leagues. That was a virtue-neutral decision, because athletic scholarships aren't by their very nature unethical. If you're going to be a D3 school, the optimal situation is to get out of your NAIA league and into a D3 league. That's all.

[Gregory Sager]

Also spittballing here.   Does the fact that the NESCAC put 4 teams into the tournament (and there was huge argument on this board that they should have had 5), combined with the fact that only one team made the elite eight and zero made the final four, mean that there may be a chance that this league is slightly over-hyped?  Perhaps they are not the power conference of the East, that they have been dubbed?

I don't think so. You have to take the long view, not just look at one season, or one March, to draw conclusions like this. The NESCAC has definitely earned its status as a power conference, and it's kept that status for a long time now, this weekend notwithstanding.