Final Regional Rankings Released

The final regional rankings were released. These were the rankings that were used for selection so, yeah, they were kind of important.

Before I forget, go do the Regional Winners Poll. I setup a poll and I’ll release the results on Thursday!

Okay, this is going to be brief as I’ll go back and look at some of the more questionable decisions that were made at a later date. With that said, I’m not sure there is much to look at this year.

In the Central, the RAC moved WUSTL ahead of Augsburg. This was a pretty close comparison. At the time of the selection, I probably liked Augsburg more than WUSTL but it didn’t matter as both got in. The Central also replaced the 8th team (Loras) with Dubuque. What this does is count Dubuque as a ranked win for anyone that beat them. Now, that is certainly an advantage but I’m of the mindset that the 8th ranked team in any region shouldn’t get you bonus points. In case you were wondering, removing Loras didn’t hurt anyone because they still are considered a ranked team because they were ranked in the third release of the rankings.

In the Great Lakes, Otterbein jumped over both Wittenberg and Hope. This was a smart move I believe by the RAC because it’s likely that Wittenberg would have stayed up longer (to be considered for an at-large) than Otterbein if the ranking was unchanged. We don’t know who the last team selected was but if it was Wittenberg and Otterbein was still behind them then they would have received just one round to get in. In the end, I think it wouldn’t have mattered.

In the Mid-Atlantic, they moved in Arcadia for Messiah. Again, this was bottom of the rankings so I don’t think it would have impacted anything.

In the Midwest, the RAC moved Stevens Point ahead of Eau Claire. It didn’t matter as Stevens Point had the Pool A bid.

We did see some movement in the New England Region with JWU (RI) moving ahead of Wellesley. Despite our good buddy from New England (Ned) saying that Bowdoin would be ranked ahead of Wellesley, this didn’t happen. I really didn’t like Wellesley…at all…and frankly this was a dumb move by the region but it didn’t hurt. Emerson also jumped a couple of spots and was the team under consideration at the end of the process for New England.

New York made some moves. Don’t care. But, I do plan on looking at the Ithaca selection and I just wonder if adding back in St. Lawrence helped them.

The South moved Virginia Wesleyan ahead of Washington & Lee. Didn’t impact anything.

The West was unchanged, which means they did have Chapman over UMHB. This means that UMHB was never considered for an at-large bid because Chapman sat on the board probably for 15 rounds or so and never got selected. I’ll take one more look at this later but I’ll repeat myself here. Having Chapman ranked ahead may have been the correct decision per the criteria. I don’t think it was the correct decision for the West Region.

Oh, and if you are curious about the drama from the Trinity/Colorado College, I weighed in. You’ll have to go to Selection Eve and find my comment.