Monday Musing

Update: Ricky has a poll up on who you think will win the National Championship!

I wasn’t in the best of moods last night. I should have been but two decisions made by the NCAA or affiliated minions didn’t sit well. I mentioned both in my Elite 8 article, but I felt a little reflection was required, as well as a few more words.

First off, I’m tired of the reseeding of the Elite 8. This was started in 2017 and was championed by Emory’s Head Coach Jenny McDowell. Her issue was that seeding the Elite 8 by the difficulty of the regional was unfair to teams that were (I guess) forced to play in easier regionals. You may have the best team (say Emory) assigned to an easy regional only to be put up against a very tough opponent in the Elite 8 match. I think 2016 was a classic example of Coach McDowell’s issue. The toughest regional was by far the UT-Dallas (West) Regional that contained 7 ranked teams. I’m the first to say that the AVCA rankings don’t matter but typically they do a good job of identify a group of good teams. The UTD Regional had (by year’s end) the 4^th, 7^th, 9^th, 10^th, 16^th, 21^st and 22^nd ranked teams in the nation. The region was so difficult that the NCAA actually separated Cal Lutheran (5^th ranked) and sent them to Northwestern. This regional was paired with the Tufts Regional who didn’t have a single ranked team (Tufts would be ranked 20^th in the final poll). On the flip side, Emory was (I guess) forced to play in the Brockport Regional as the #1 seed. The Brockport Regional had only one ranked team, Emory. This was considered the 7^th best regional and was paired with the Calvin Regional (had at least 4 ranked teams at the time). When both Calvin and Emory won, they were paired against each other in the Elite 8 while Southwestern, the surprise winner out of the UTD Regional, played Tufts. So, we have two problems here. First, the Emory/Calvin matchup was basically the championship match and it was being played in the quarterfinals. Second, you had two teams in Southwestern and Tufts that probably were in the bottom half of the Elite 8 also playing in the quarterfinals. (It didn’t help that WashU surprised in their regional and was placed on the same side as Southwestern.) Never mind that Southwestern had to beat an incredible schedule of three impressive teams (including the host school) to get to the Elite 8, this situation was deemed to be unfair to teams like Emory who were seeded first and had to beat teams like New Rochelle, Clarkson and Brockport losing one set in the process. The solution was to reseed the Elite 8 so that teams like Emory wouldn’t be picked on and penalized for having an easy path to the Elite 8.

Lots of sarcasm in that last paragraph but it’s all mixed in with facts. Here’s the real problem with reseeding, it uses the selection criteria to do it and that is biased to the larger regions grouped together, which are exactly the regionals that end up being the easiest. To top it off, for whatever reason, the people doing the reseeding then ensure that a New England team is seeded higher than they should. In 2017, Emory got that second seed they desperately wanted and promptly lost to the 7^th seed in Ithaca. (No idea why I inserted that fact into this article.) JWU (RI) was seeded a spot higher than they should (again, the New England benefit in work) and were moved in front of Calvin but they had to play each other so it didn’t matter. Commonsense couldn’t be defeated by the NCAA as Calvin won in a sweep. In 2018 it was more of the same. Emory got the 3 seed and ultimately won the tournament. (At least my unnecessary facts are inserted fairly.) Babson (New England) got a crazy high 5^th seed while Wesleyan (New England) somehow was seeded ahead of Aurora (as was Babson for that matter). In 2019 we saw Bowdoin (New England) go from a 7^th or 8^th seed to a 5^th seed. And that leads us to this year. That’s 4-years of this nonsense that doesn’t fix anything but ensures teams that gain an unfair advantage with selection and regionals are then given an unfair advantage if they make the Elite 8. I would actually be fine if the reseeding process only used the criteria (no I wouldn’t) but they seem to pick and choose in order to justify these crazy reseeding orders. It’s easy to blame Coach McDowell, and I was the one that called the reseeding process the Emory Rule, but the fault lies with the ADs and coaches from the schools not in the Northeast. Get a backbone and start complaining about this. I figure most don’t care because they never think they will be in a position to be impacted by the reseeding process but you’re not going to like it if you are. I think we have a National Selection Committee Chair in Danny Miller that will listen. (Just not to me as he doesn’t return my emails. See, he is smart.)

One last point on this. I agree that it does stink that a Calvin/Emory match, when they were probably the two best teams in the country, play in the first round of the Elite 8. If you also agree then you should further agree that watching Wartburg/CMS in a Regional Final was probably watching two of the best teams in the country and we hadn’t even gotten to the Elite 8. This is all about East Coast Privilege. These schools can’t even grasp what it’s like to fight through a regional with 7 ranked teams. They complain about being a #1 seed in New York instead of being inserted into region that challenges you in every single match. I’m just tired of it.

I guess I mentioned that two things annoyed me yesterday so here’s the minor one of the two. The Stevens Regional decided that Trinity, the winner of their regional, only deserved two All-Tournament Team members. Traditionally, the winner gets three. The region decided to give an extra one to Middlebury who were actually swept by Trinity. One of the players went off for 7 kills with 6 attack errors against Trinity hitting 0.037. Here were the Trinity players, not selected to the team, that did better just in this match; Emma Funk, Sarah Willammee and Emily Ellis. Here are the players, not named to the tournament team, that did better than her in the Regional Final; Annie Rose Leggett, Sami Lin, Emma Funk, Sara Flynn, Sarah Willammee, Emily Ellis, Alexis Acevedo, Marisa Amarino and Brette Thornton. Yeah, that was everyone who played but here’s the point; the Middlebury player was already sitting at home! Can anyone think of why a New Jersey regional (Stevens) would slight the only team not from the area? All-Tournament teams don’t really matter but a lack of respect does.

Alright, that felt good. That’s some good old D3VbWest writing circa 2017/18 right there.

The NCAA Statistics are updated through the 14^th. It looks like it includes the Sunday matches for some but not all. (CMS is not included, for instance.) Here are your Top 11 in Hitting Percentage:

1. Trinity

2. CMS

3. Calvin

4. Northwestern

5. NYU

6. Johns Hopkins

7. UC Santa Cruz

8. Berry

9. Juniata

10. Ohio Northern

11. RIT

That’s 5 teams in the Elite 8 that have a chance at the title. Thanks to reseeding, it means that the top 4 are all on the same side of the bracket!

Now, I just noticed that the NCAA has statistics for just the championship. Here are your Top 11:

1. Berry

2. Johns Hopkins

3. Calvin

4. UW-Eau Claire

5. Trinity

6. Emory

7. Wesleyan

8. Tufts

9. Northwestern

10. Wittenberg

11. CMS

That’s 6 of the Elite 8 and the other two (Juniata and MIT) sit at 12 and 13. It’s important folks. You have to be able to put the ball down.

Interestingly, the championship statistics only show 63 teams and I didn’t feel like looking for the lost one. Worst hitting percentage goes to Brooklyn and if you have a few minutes, go watch a minute of the Brooklyn/NYU match. The size difference between the two teams is crazy. Worst hitting percentage by a team that made it to the second round was Colorado College. I don’t mean that as an insult but if you saw the match, you know just how good Wartburg is on defense. I will go further and say if you are an AD looking for a volleyball coach, I would raid what Coach Jennifer Walker has on her bench.

Has everyone seen Dune, yet? That first Dune movie was so bad and I loved the books so it still hurts to this day, but this one was really good. There is a scene where someone gets this dart shot at the middle of their back and they struggle to remove it but can’t reach it. I had a skin cancer spot removed from around that same location so when I’m putting my gauze back on each morning I think of that scene. Needless to say, I would have been able to remove the dart. That dude needed to take yoga classes.

More about that CMS/Wartburg match. I thought it was one of the best DIII matches I’ve ever seen. It won’t surpass 2016 UTD/Southwestern because of my personal interest but it was simply incredible. From his press conference, Kurt Vlasich said, “If that’s not the best volleyball match of the year I don’t know what else could be.”

From a correspondence with Coach Vlasich, “Wow…I’m still shaking. Best match I’ve ever seen in my life.”

CMS had 146 digs while Wartburg had 133. Just crazy high numbers. In the third set, which was a must win for CMS, Wartburg was up 15-14 when CMS ran off 5-points. It really seemed like at this point Wartburg had their first instance of “we could lose this match” moment of the tournament. Credit to them, however, as they continued to battle but no matter what they seemed to do from this point on, CMS had an answer. One big thing that changed was that Wartburg had 7 blocks through the first two sets but only 3 after. It became a contest of who could hit the ball the hardest and whether it would see the floor. In the end, CMS was just better at that starting with set three.

The NYU/Trinity fourth set was really overshadowed by that CMS match, unfortunately, because it was a classic set. NYU really dominated Trinity in the first set and it looked like this was going to be a quick match. My (hot) wife put it in perspective when she said, “Yeah. We did that to them, too. It didn’t matter.” True to form, Trinity came back and won the next two sets rather easily (set two required a huge NYU comeback to get 3-points close). Set four was different. NYU held a 15-10 lead and it looked like a fifth set was going to happen. Four straight points, two from Tuggle, closed the gap. It stayed close until 20-19 when Trinity had the lead and NYU ran off 4-straight points. A timeout and the always unfortunate service error started a 4-point run for Trinity and their first match point. They wouldn’t get the set and match until their 4^th match point. NYU actually scored more Points averaging 18.13 Points/Set for the match, but Trinity won 3-1 and 32-30 in the last set.

Credit to Tufts for taking down Johns Hopkins at their arena. They now have beaten Trinity and JHU on the season. I criticize their seeding because the criteria say it’s too high but don’t think for a second that they can’t do some damage in the Elite 8. There hasn’t been a New England team winning an Elite 8 match since 2001 but they have a chance.

No seeds higher than 4 made it to the Regional Finals this year.

Only three host schools made it to the Elite 8 this year; MIT, Calvin and UW-Eau Claire. That has to be a record low and, maybe, an indication on how much fairer the brackets were. (Four #1 seeds made it. Berry was playing at Emory this year.)

CMS has beaten Trinity. Trinity has beaten MIT. Calvin has beaten CMS. Tufts has beaten Trinity. That’s the head-to-head matchups for the Elite 8. None of them would have occurred if the Region X teams weren’t willing to travel.

There was a team, and I honestly forget who they were, that seemed to have their bench chant/cheer when the other team made a mistake. The difference, to me, was that they would face the other team and point, which I thought was a little strange and unnecessary. Maybe it happens more than I think.

The 2017 NCAA DIII Volleyball bracket is missing from the NCAA site. I have no clue why they can’t keep them in place. They seem to lose them all the time and never recover them. The 2015 bracket is still there but it’s missing teams.

Alright, gotta go. Things to do. Enjoy the calm before the (next) storm.