First regional rankings of 2013 released

It’s that time. We’ve been parsing top 25 rankings for weeks, but now it’s time for the only rankings that matter — the regional rankings. Today the regional committees released the first of three weekly rankings.

In past years the top 25 and regional rankings were often incongruous because of the underlying criteria that the respective rankings considered most important. This is the first year that all D-III matches count in the primary criteria. When St. Thomas played a Great Lakes team like Hope in the past, it was great theater but not all that important in terms of NCAA selections.

Assuming all schedules conform to the 70-percent in-region rule — teams had to submit schedules in early August, so they should have been vetted for the rule — this year’s regional rankings have every opportunity to mirror the AVCA top 25 poll. In theory at least.

Here are the first Central and Midwest regional rankings: Central1. St. Thomas 2. Washington-St. Louis 3. Augsburg 4. Saint Benedict 5. Coe 6. Nebraska Wesleyan

Midwest1. Elmhurst 2. UW-Stevens Point 3. Chicago 4. UW-Whitewater 5. Cornell 6. UW-Eau Claire 7. Millikin

Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the other regions: Great Lakes: 1. Hope; No. 2 Calvin Mid-Atlantic: No. 1 Juniata; No. 2 Eastern New England: No. 1 Roger Williams; No. 2 Williams New York: No. 1 NYU; No. 2 Stevens South: 1. Emory; 2. Trinity (Texas) West: 1. Cal Lutheran; No. 2 Colorado College

I’ll add commentary to this post if necessary. I wanted to get them posted before anything else. Sadly, there are no PDF files with supporting information accompanying the first rankings. We had to show our work when I was in school. It appears that only the answers are necessary this week. That’s unfortunate. UPDATE (10/25): Squeaky wheel gets the grease. The PDF’s are now below the regional rankings.

The order of the top five in the Central was fairly predictable. NWU, Wartburg and Concordia-Moorhead are rather close, but I thought Concordia was going to be in there. NWU’s win over Concordia could loom large in the region. And it didn’t help that the Cobbers also lost to Wartburg, but wins over St. Thomas and Puget Sound look rather nice amid a rather loaded schedule.

In the Midwest, I thought the fourth and fifth spots would be reversed, but it’s close. The committee is probably correct there.

I thought UC Santa Cruz would have been in the West rankings, but the head-to-head loss to Chapman makes sense of that.

NYU’s UAA membership, with its inherent strength of schedule advantage, wins out in New York, where I thought New Paltz would be a spot higher.

The Mid-Atlantic, New England and South look OK to me.

The Great Lakes looks good, too, but I’d have Calvin over Hope.

What do you think? My biggest complaint is the omission of PDF files. Seems like an important detail, no? As mentioned above, the PDF files now accompany the release.

Update (10/25): With the PDF’s here are some teams that could have been slighted, either in their position or by their omission, in the first set of rankings. Central: None, but Wartburg, Concordia-Moorhead are next in line. Great Lakes: Bethany could have a gripe, especially in a region where SOS was regarded so highly in Week 1. Defiance, Geneva, Thomas More, Hiram,  John Carroll and Transy shouldn’t be too far off the radar. Mid-Atlantic: Looked good to me. Haverford, Messiah, Gallaudet and DeSales were the closest near the end. Midwest: I agree with the committee. Wheaton, UW Oshkosh, Carthage and Dominican are next in line. New England: I’d put UMass Boston instead of No. 12 Western New England. The rest looks OK to me. New York: I’m not sure why provisional teams are on the PDF. Clarkson and Stevens are close at No. 2. My edge would go to Clarkson. Even after seeing the PDF, I still think New Paltz should be fourth, ahead of Stockton. Vassar is probably the only unranked team with any chance of a gripe this week. South: Clear top two, but after further review, this is the one region in which I disagree with the committee. SOS was not as big of a factor in the South rankings as it was in some others. I think you can make a case for Southwestern being as high as third although Texas Dallas looks deserving there too. A .641 SOS with wins over Eastern and everyone not named Emory, Trinity or UMHB? Granted, that loss to Millsaps doesn’t look great by comparison and other contenders beat Mary Hardin-Baylor while Southwestern lost. but I tend agree with the Great Lakes view of Wittenberg more than I do the South view of Southwestern. My order, based on numbers and results would be No. 3/4 SU, No. 3/4 UTD, No. 5 Berry, No. 6 UMHB, No. 7 TLU, No. 8 HSU. Centre, Washington & Lee, Randolph-Macon, and East Texas Baptist would be my next four outside the rankings. West: Chapman, Santa Cruz and Oxy are awfully close for the sixth spot. Benefit of the doubt to the committee’s choice of Chapman, but you don’t even have to spin it to make a case for the other two.

-Ricky Nelson