2018 Great Lakes Region

[PaulNewman]

Fixed it while you were posting....

Celts will be fine...no way Stevens doesn't figure it out...but IMO could use some help for Horford.

[Christan Shirk]

GREAT LAKES REGION - NCAA REGIONAL RANKINGS - October 24, 2018

Rank	School	. Div. III . Record	. Div. III . SOS	. R-v-R .	. Overall . Record	. Prev. . Rank
1.	Case Western Reserve	11-2-1	0.600	4-2-1	11-2-1	1
2.	Kenyon	12-1-2	0.592	1-1-2	12-1-2	2
3.	Carnegie Mellon	9-3-2	0.633	2-2-2	9-3-2	5
4.	Capital	12-3-0	0.572	2-3-0	12-3-0	3
5.	John Carroll	10-4-1	0.604	3-3-1	10-4-1	6
6.	Ohio Wesleyan	11-2-2	0.556	1-2-1	11-2-2	4
7.	Mount Union	10-3-1	0.524	2-1-0	10-3-1	7
8.	Ohio Northern	10-5-1	0.550	1-4-0	10-5-1	8

[Domino1195]

OAC post season teams set - Cap and JCU with first round byes, lots of potential movement in seeding. Cap with a chance for their first conference title with a win vs Otterbein Sat - list twice to Bein last year. Wilmington at JCU - would expect JCU to win and Wilmington to finish 6th. ONU and Mt Union looks to be a juicy affair - ONU win and Bein lose could see ONU move to third.

NCAC - while we are all waiting for and expecting an OWU-Kenyon rematch the fourth spot is very much up for grabs. I love Wooster at Wabash - Wooster pretty much has to win to get in. DePauw needs to win and hope either Denison or Wooster lose.

Hanover, PSU-B and Grove City need to hold on- although Grove City doesn't have a gimme vs Westminster - probably a 1-0 game either way.

Case with 3 difficult road games will be lucky to go 2-1. Just don't see them winning more than 1. CMU with the same schedule - on the road except for the CWRU game - could also drop at least two. Regional rankings - expect Kenyon to be 1 or 2 when it's all done.

[PaulNewman]

I do not understand what is happening at Oberlin......1-15 this season. I've always thought Oberlin would be a tough school for recruiting, given the overall activist/artsy vibe and the stiff recruiting competition from schools in New England, the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest on a similar tier, but on the other hand the coach seems very good and has been there for years.  He also seemed to have Oberlin on the rise as they had a 14-4-4 season in 2013 and made the NCAA tourney and then had another very good year just two years ago in 2016 (15-4-1).

[Ryan Harmanis]

Recruiting. I remain convinced that programs generally need at least two good recruiting classes out of four to be decent. Three out of four to be really good. My guess, having not researched or looked at rosters, is that Oberlin nailed a couple good classes and those guys have now graduated. Wittenberg had a similar stretch when I played - they were pretty good in 2006-07, really good (Pool C) in 2008, then fell off the map once the key players  graduated.

OWU is another good example. In 2016 and 2017 multiple classes were smaller, with fewer contributions from upper classmen. Results showed that, as did the playing style and quality of play. This year, only two seniors see meaningful minutes, but OWU is getting good contributions from all three other classes. And results and quality of play show that. (Off topic, but results also show a team that hasn't fully matured yet. The loss to JCU and draw against DePauw came from flat performances, and now the team has no margin for error to make the tournament.)

Most programs struggle to get over the hump and consistently recruit strong classes. There's a danger zone where you need better players even than the ones you have, or at least players that are the same level. But you aren't quite good enough to recruit off success (conference champs, consistent NCAAs), and you're too good to recruit on a good chance at early playing time. Most programs go backward at that point. In the NCAC, only OWU and, more recently, Kenyon have managed to recruit at a high enough level to sustain success. Even DePauw has noticeably dropped off the last couple seasons.

[PaulNewman]

Recruiting. I remain convinced that programs generally need at least two good recruiting classes out of four to be decent. Three out of four to be really good. My guess, having not researched or looked at rosters, is that Oberlin nailed a couple good classes and those guys have now graduated. Wittenberg had a similar stretch when I played - they were pretty good in 2006-07, really good (Pool C) in 2008, then fell off the map once the key players  graduated.

OWU is another good example. In 2016 and 2017 multiple classes were smaller, with fewer contributions from upper classmen. Results showed that, as did the playing style and quality of play. This year, only two seniors see meaningful minutes, but OWU is getting good contributions from all three other classes. And results and quality of play show that. (Off topic, but results also show a team that hasn't fully matured yet. The loss to JCU and draw against DePauw came from flat performances, and now the team has no margin for error to make the tournament.)

Most programs struggle to get over the hump and consistently recruit strong classes. There's a danger zone where you need better players even than the ones you have, or at least players that are the same level. But you aren't quite good enough to recruit off success (conference champs, consistent NCAAs), and you're too good to recruit on a good chance at early playing time. Most programs go backward at that point. In the NCAC, only OWU and, more recently, Kenyon have managed to recruit at a high enough level to sustain success. Even DePauw has noticeably dropped off the last couple seasons.

Yep.  OWU still will have good to very good teams 10 and 15 years from now (barring something really unforeseen).  OWU is like UK, Duke, UNC, etc in bball.....they are always going to be good (and probably even after monumental coaching changes).

What's interesting is how programs (Tufts, Kenyon, etc) go from moribund to very competitive.  At least in part that must correlate with a coach really committing to a program/place and being given some resources/latitude.

Oberlin, as I've said, I've always thought was a tough sell, but even in mediocre to bad years they'd typically go 6-8-2 or 5-9-3.  I'm curious how he got a couple of classes that enabled them to have a couple of strong seasons and what is getting in the way from getting similar classes now, especially since in the last few years there was potential and some recent success to point to.

[Domino1195]

Only 4 seniors - two that rarely play - only one who starts every game.

[Lesaborian96]

OAC post season teams set - Cap and JCU with first round byes, lots of potential movement in seeding. Cap with a chance for their first conference title with a win vs Otterbein Sat - list twice to Bein last year. Wilmington at JCU - would expect JCU to win and Wilmington to finish 6th. ONU and Mt Union looks to be a juicy affair - ONU win and Bein lose could see ONU move to third.

NCAC - while we are all waiting for and expecting an OWU-Kenyon rematch the fourth spot is very much up for grabs. I love Wooster at Wabash - Wooster pretty much has to win to get in. DePauw needs to win and hope either Denison or Wooster lose.

Hanover, PSU-B and Grove City need to hold on- although Grove City doesn't have a gimme vs Westminster - probably a 1-0 game either way.

Case with 3 difficult road games will be lucky to go 2-1. Just don't see them winning more than 1. CMU with the same schedule - on the road except for the CWRU game - could also drop at least two. Regional rankings - expect Kenyon to be 1 or 2 when it's all done.

I feel the one seed is Case's to give up. Case did well on the CMU - EMORY weekend last year coming away with two wins. And if Wash-U returns to be regionally ranked, having 5-7 regionally ranked wins would be huge relative to everyone else in Great Lakes.

[PaulNewman]

OAC post season teams set - Cap and JCU with first round byes, lots of potential movement in seeding. Cap with a chance for their first conference title with a win vs Otterbein Sat - list twice to Bein last year. Wilmington at JCU - would expect JCU to win and Wilmington to finish 6th. ONU and Mt Union looks to be a juicy affair - ONU win and Bein lose could see ONU move to third.

NCAC - while we are all waiting for and expecting an OWU-Kenyon rematch the fourth spot is very much up for grabs. I love Wooster at Wabash - Wooster pretty much has to win to get in. DePauw needs to win and hope either Denison or Wooster lose.

Hanover, PSU-B and Grove City need to hold on- although Grove City doesn't have a gimme vs Westminster - probably a 1-0 game either way.

Case with 3 difficult road games will be lucky to go 2-1. Just don't see them winning more than 1. CMU with the same schedule - on the road except for the CWRU game - could also drop at least two. Regional rankings - expect Kenyon to be 1 or 2 when it's all done.

I feel the one seed is Case's to give up. Case did well on the CMU - EMORY weekend last year coming away with two wins. And if Wash-U returns to be regionally ranked, having 5-7 regionally ranked wins would be huge relative to everyone else in Great Lakes.

I think you are absolutely right.  For Kenyon to challenge at all the Lords would have to win their AQ (and get another ranked win but CWRU still would have far more).  CWRU DOES want to stay ahead of CMU, though, which could be challenged if CMU goes 3-0 in last 3 which would include a H2H versus Case.

[PaulNewman]

You know what...Case should just go ahead and win the darn UAA... already up 1-0 at UR.

[PaulNewman]

Kudos to CWRU.....the Spartans are right up there IMO for story of the year so far with Nick West and St. Joe's.

Looks like a very good chance Denison, DePauw and Wooster will all finish 4-3-2 in NCAC and all vying for the 4th playoff spot.  Denison beat DePauw.  Wooster beat Denison and tied DePauw.  Anyone with an idea on how the tiebreakers would shake out?

[PaulNewman]

Mt. Union closing in on big win versus Ohio Northern.

And I should have added Chewy Gordon to top stories of 2018 list.

[Domino1195]

Funny - I was wondering the same about the three way tie scenario. Denison - it's all in your hands. Let's see how they respond

[PaulNewman]

I had a sneaky feeling that Oberlin might show up and DePauw might not....wonder if DePauw already knows the tiebreakers don't fall in their favor....0-0 in 68th minute.

Meanwhile, Kenyon up 4-0 at half on senior day, and looking like well on way to another NCAC regular season title.  Impressive for Coach Brown regardless of what happens from here on out.

Ans DePauw gets one on the 70th minute.

[PaulNewman]

Appears that Kenyon started 2nd half with all subs except for 2 CBs and GK, and now up 7-0 on Allegheny 15 minutes into 2nd period.