2022 D3 Men's Soccer National Perspective

[Hopkins92]

Oh wow.  Montclair?  Montclair didn't get in?  Wow, wow, wow.  That's my one miss but did have CMU as a wild card.

That is a shocker to me. One bid out of that conference?

[Shooter McGavin]

I'll take a stab at the 16 host sites (without knowing who did and did not submit for hosting duties)

Messiah
Chicago
Amherst
Kenyon
Oneonta St
Stevens
Montclair
Hopkins
Wash Lee
John Carroll
North Central
Calvin
Gustavus
Middlebury
Ohio Northern
SLU/Babson/Bowdoin/Texas school

Missed F&M, Newport, Montclair, Mary Washington, John Carroll, Middlebury and Calvin

11ish/16

[Caz Bombers]

I assume WestConn must have had a terrible SOS? 20-0-2 and sitting at home is brutal - doesn't sit right with me.

[jknezek]

I assume WestConn must have had a terrible SOS? 20-0-2 and sitting at home is brutal - doesn't sit right with me.

It was around .51 I think, so yeah, bad. 1-0-1 RvR I think. But yeah, especially passed over in favor of a team that won 6 games.

[stlawus]

Even if you take out West Conn, Williams still got in over Montclair.

[Kuiper]

I feel for Montclair since they are one of the few nationally prominent teams that made the trip out to LA to play some SCIAC teams.  Unfortunately, it didn't help them though.  They surely thought the tie against Redlands would boost their record against regionally ranked teams, but Redlands had their first down year in over a decade, and then they beat a weak La Verne team 1-0.

[stlawus]

The final RRs have just been released. 

[paclassic89]

For the final rankings, the committee has Tuft and Williams over Middlebury.  West Conn doesn't even leapfrog Hamilton.  Like wtf is going on with those regional rankings. 

[College Soccer Observer]

What confuses me is the big movement from one week to another by teams that either did not play or played but did not win.  I have no argument with Tufts and Williams ahead of Midd because both of those teams won games head to head.  If that had been the standings in week 3, I would have been fine with it.  Williams ties a Conn team that Middlebury beat, while Middlebury loses in OT to the #1 team in the region and then they get dropped? 

Montclair dropping all the way to 4th in their region makes no sense to me either.

[4samuy]

Yeah,  I had a hunch that was going to happen.   Hamilton blocked West Conn from even getting to the table for debate.

Now getting to the table and being selected are obviously two different things.  The reality is they needed to jump Hamilton in the regional rankings to get up for debate,  just as we all have been doing this week.  Sadly they didn't get that chance.

[Domino1195]

Where is CMU's second ranked win? JCU is the only one I can identify, unless Rochester was ranked in the past two weeks?

If I had the patience I'd calculate CMU's non conference SoS - but I'd had to be close or just below .500.

It would also be interesting to remove Chicago from their calculations. I think Paul alluded to the effect of the Chicago's, Messiah's and Kenyon's of the world have on SoS.

OWU certainly stole a bid as they were not getting in without the NCAC tourney win. But CMU over Montclair is a sin. I don't think the UAA was anywhere near as dominant as they typically are.

[Flying Weasel]

Where is CMU's second ranked win? JCU is the only one I can identify, unless Rochester was ranked in the past two weeks?

The new data sheets have not been released yet, except for Region I.

The win over Rochester counted last week, but with Rochester falling out of the Week 3 rankings and not returning in today's rankings, that win would have been lost.

[Flying Weasel]

What confuses me is the big movement from one week to another by teams that either did not play or played but did not win.  I have no argument with Tufts and Williams ahead of Midd because both of those teams won games head to head.  If that had been the standings in week 3, I would have been fine with it.  Williams ties a Conn team that Middlebury beat, while Middlebury loses in OT to the #1 team in the region and then they get dropped? 

Montclair dropping all the way to 4th in their region makes no sense to me either.

Actually I see no real surprises in how the Regional Rankings did or did not change from last week.  Thanks to Paul Newman drawing attention to Brockport State we expected them to jump in and maybe overtake teams.  They passed Skidmore which seemed possible if not likely.  They didn't quite catch Vassar and didn't quite get selected.  Muhlenberg getting in makes sense because they picked up 2 RvR wins in the past week for a 2-1-3 RvR by my quick count.  Tufts and Williams jumping ahead of Middlebury might be the biggest surprise for me.  Middle lost a RvR win with Conn Col. dropping out of the rankings in Week 3 while Williams shed a loss and Tufts dropped a tie.  So RvR did favor those two over Middlebury, but Middlebury still should have had a somewhat better SOS and slightly better win pct. but lost head-to-head to both Williams and Tufts.  My guess is that those teams were super tight.  In the end they all got picked anyway.

Rowan and Montclair State switching spots seems reasonable to me.  With the win, Rowan added another RvR win to build a 4-3-1 RvR if I'm not mistaken, while MSU's RvR would have been 2-2-1.  Rowan's SOS was 31 pts higher entering the past week (.576 vs. .545) and that gap would have climbed as MSU helped Rowan's SOS more than Rowan helped MSU's SOS.  They split the two head-to-head matches.  Clear RvR and SOS advantages for Rowan would compensate for the win pct. favoring Montclair.

So for me the surprise is Montclair State not getting selected for an at-large, not where they were ranked.

[Gregory Sager]

Count me in as another observer who is shocked to see Montclair State out in the cold. The absence of the Red Hawks from the tourney field is going to be even more glaring when the new d3soccer.com poll comes out, because I'm guessing that MSU is going to show up somewhere in the low teens. I'm well aware that national polls have nothing to do with the selection process, of course, but, still, you almost never see a team that's ranked that high in any sport at tourney time miss out on the dance.

[blooter442]

WestConn has been raised extensively as unfortunate, and I would generally agree with that assessment while recognizing the SoS factor. To me, it's most crazy to think that a team missed out on a Pool C with literally 3 times the number of wins (20) as Williams (6).