After Selection Musing

I have updated my Projected Field Post with the “correct” teams. I also added some thoughts that probably should go here.

First off, it was nice that CMS was announced first. I had heard rumblings that they were going to host but that there was an effort to split up Trinity from them. I just didn’t see how that could happen.

I mentioned this morning that I thought two mid to 20s ranked teams might be brought in. Instead they brought in fodder (Fontbonne) and Chicago. Chicago isn’t ranked but they are probably right around that 25 mark. They have proven they can beat really good teams and they are a nice add to the bracket, although they may not think so.

The TLU/Chicago match-up is actually very interesting. Remember that TLU beat Transy early and took Whitworth to 5-sets. Whitworth beat Chicago twice. That’s not a typical 3/6 pairing.

I just don’t see anyone beating CMS at home but Trinity will sure try. I would call this a pretty normal regional. Tough, but fair.

I mentioned in a comment that we really wanted to pull for a Transy hosting gig and that’s what happened. They were able to drive Emory and Berry over. If that hadn’t happened then both of those schools would have had to come to CMS. Historically, there is either a regional in the West or at Berry or Emory. Never both because of how the flights would work out.

One downfall of not flying out our six teams are some unbalanced regionals. There was nothing to be done about Calvin and Northwestern. There are just too many good teams in those areas. Having Aurora and North Park as 8 seeds is crazy.

Four good teams in the Transy Regional. Emory, Berry, Transy and CMU.

Mary Washington Regional is pretty weak to me. They basically just have UMW and Johns Hopkins. No ranked teams in this regional. Question here is how healthy is Johns Hopkins? They have won their last 12 and could be an Elite 8 team pretty easily.

Northwestern Regional is brutal. Lots of good teams here.

Happy they sent NYU to a New England Regional. They get the Emory treatment this year as Emory would normally go to easy regionals in the past. Still, NYU and Wesleyan will make for a good final. Williams as a 6-seed is funny. They shouldn’t be here.

Calvin, Oshkosh, Wittenberg and WashU in the same regional. Four Top 10 teams and none have an easy first round opponent.

Junita at least has Ithaca but that should be an easy path for them. Lot of poor teams here.

Tufts is your standard Northeast Regional. I really didn’t like Swarthmore or Scranton but they have to be happy to be here.

New England got their three at-large teams in again. I had Amherst ahead of Williams and we’ll probably have to look at that later. Their best win was Babson and Amherst. Three bad losses in a region where you shouldn’t have any. Platteville beat Stevens Point, Eau Claire and Coe. Which team do you think can elevate their play to what is needed in the tournament?

Case Western beat Carnegie Mellon and WashU. I saw someone mention that they wouldn’t have taken them because they only won against UAA teams. Well, that’s all the New England teams ever do! Just play their conference and region. And their conference isn’t as good as the UAA. It doesn’t matter how you build the criteria, it’s what it looks like.

What happened to Region IX? Bethel was hard to get in for me but their wins were Whitewater, Cornell, St Olaf and Augsburg. They took losses to some of the best teams in their region and in Region VIII. It seems like the selection committee didn’t reward those deep regions at all. On the flip side they took Chris Newport. (Four teams from the C2C Conference, by the way.) CNU had a great SOS but their best win was Johns Hopkins? They are the Ithaca of 2021. They won just enough and played a high SOS schedule.

Again, coaches, SOS is the player in the selection game. Schedule tough. Look at Albion.

One last thing. The presenter started the show off by saying there were 32 automatic qualifiers and 32 at-large teams. Wish that were true.

Regional Rankings will come out later today and I’ll write about that when it drops.