NCAA Tournament Change

A friendly Latvian sent me a tweet from D3 Datacast that indicated that the Top 8 seeds (as ranked by the NCAA Power Index or NPI) will be protected at the NCAA Tournament. This initiative is part of a two-year Championship Enhancement Program. I did go back and look at the August DIII Championship Committee Meeting Notes and the July Management Council Meeting Notes. Both committees did discuss this and the Management Council approved a waiver that normally requires geographic proximity (i.e., the competition site is within 500 miles of the institution) to take precedent over seeding when constructing the bracket.

What this all means is that the Top 8 seeds will be the highest seeds in a given regional starting this season and going into 2025. It doesn’t mean they will be the hosting site. It doesn’t mean that a regional won’t be stacked but it does mean the Top 8 (as decided by NPI) will be the highest seed in a regional.

I reached out to Selection Committee Chair, Sam Atkinson, for confirmation prior to finding those meeting notes and he was nice enough to get back with me. He confirmed the NCAA wanted to give this a go. We talked about the budget and really this comes down to the number of flights needed to complete the 64-team bracket. Sam basically said that they know they cannot create unnecessary flights and they still would like to keep the number of flights between 4 and 6. He acknowledged that the number of flights will really come down to the teams that are selected and how the committee is able to bracket them. I asked if they would continue to re-rank the Elite 8 based on the new NPI numbers (including NCAA Tournament matches) or if they would remain static once the tournament starts. Sam said he assumes they would use the updated numbers as they have done this in the past with the selection criteria.

Last year, I wrote that the 2023 Elite 8 was the best top-to-bottom group of teams to appear in the championship. This was accomplished mainly because Region X had two great teams but not enough depth to host. This allowed the Selection Committee to strengthen each of the 8 regionals by flying these teams to other parts of the country. They also allowed a west coast team to fly to the east coast to facilitate this, which was sort of a violation of an unwritten rule. The result was a great Elite 8. It now appears that if we don’t get the Top 8 in the Elite 8 for the next two years, it’s because another team proved on the court that they were better. This is a wonderful accomplishment by the NCAA and the DIII committees and should be well received by everyone.

Some history.

A few years back, there were 8 regions as opposed to the current 10. This typically meant that each region would host their own regional. In volleyball, there are stronger regions and weaker regions so we would often see regionals with 7 of the 8 teams ranked by the AVCA while you could have another regional with no ranked teams. This typically meant one or two teams made the Elite 8 that probably shouldn’t have. To make matters worse, these teams were often favored by the selection criteria (i.e., the New England bias) so they wouldn’t be ranked 7^th or 8^th causing really weird pairings. The ranking of the Elite 8 came into existence in 2017. Prior to that, the Elite 8 was part of the entire 64-team bracket based on the strength of the regional (i.e., the toughest regional would be seeded first and they would play the weakest regional). The re-ranking of the Elite 8 with the 8 regionals was a system that really didn’t work. When we moved to 10 regions, it meant there was no longer a stigma for a region to not host a regional. This period of time was also coupled with West Region (Region X) getting worse from a depth perspective. This allowed the Selection Committee to use the Region X teams to make the regionals fairer. This started with Danny Miller (Averett University) taking over as the Selection Committee Chair and has continued with Sam Atkinson (Gallaudet University). We are now to a point where the tournament is open to all teams through conference championships while also ensuring the best of the best have a clear shot at the Elite 8. I really applaud the efforts of both Danny and Sam to get us to this point.

That’s a lot of positivity from me so take a second and soak that in. Maybe find a paper bag if you are feeling short of breath. It might help to put your head between your legs and try to relax. I’ll be here when you get back and, more importantly, I’ll throw some gloom on all of this.

The only problem, other than not being able to seed all 64 teams in order to get the best possible bracket, is the system used to seed. The NCAA has moved to NPI for the next 3-years and this will be used for at-large selection and then seeding of the brackets. I’ve written a lot about the system and some of the flaws but we are giving a lot of power to an unproven calculation without any human oversight. This is how it starts, people! It’s like no one has seen “The Matrix” or “I, Robot” or even the movie that came right out and said it, “Robot Overlords”. It’s a slippery slope and it starts with NCAA DIII Volleyball. It ends with the end of humanity as we know it. Okay. A bit overdramatic but you know you wanted that from me. In all seriousness, I do think we need some oversight to correct any major flaws in the system. We’ve seen in our simulations that a team with a 0.460 Strength of Schedule (SOS) receives an at-large bid. What if they get a Top 8 seed? Shouldn’t someone be there to say we may need minimum criteria for at-large teams or Top 8 teams? Couldn’t we all agree that a team should have at least 15 wins and a 0.500 SOS to be considered? Maybe none of this will be needed but I guarantee you none of us know that it’s not needed.

We should probably see how this would have turned out last year. With regards to the Top 8, here are the teams our simulations spit out for last season:

1. UW-Oshkosh

2. Juniata

3. Emory

4. Hope

5. UW-Whitewater

6. NYU

7. Mount St Joseph

8. Northwestern

Remember that the NPI system didn’t care for the Region X teams like Trinity and CMS who both made the Elite 8 last year. UWO, Juniata, Hope, NYU and Northwestern were five other teams to make it and they are in the list above. This new enhancement would have given each a clear path to the Elite 8. The 8^th team to make it was Johns Hopkins. The highest New England team was Wesleyan who finished just outside the Top 8.

In the above scenario, UWO, Juniata, Hope, NYU and Northwestern would have probably made it out since they made it out in real life. Emory lost to Trinity in the Berry Regional Final so that probably would have been repeated as that was the most likely place for Trinity to be sent. UW-Whitewater lost in the Cornell Regional Final to Northwestern. It’s probably safe to say that UWW would have been an Elite 8 team and probably would have been sent to the east coast (maybe in place of CMS). That leaves one spot open and it wasn’t going to be Mount St Joseph. They lost in the first round to Covenant in the Berry Regional. I don’t think being the top seed in a different regional would have saved them so that last spot is really unknown. I could see them being sent to Wesleyan and having to compete against Wesleyan and Johns Hopkins. It probably also means that CMS doesn’t have a clear path to the Elite 8 like last year. Maybe the committee sends both CMS and Trinity to Berry and one of those teams makes it out? What is interesting about this exercise is you can see that more flights will be needed to make this work. The ability by the Selection Committee to minimize the extra flights and costs will go a long way in determining if this will be more than a 2-year enhancement program.

How does this impact Region X? Flights in the past have been reserved mainly for Region X. It doesn’t matter if SoCal or Texas hosts, the flights are needed to bring teams to the hosting site. Unless the NPI Top 8 breaks in such a way that they align with the regions, the committee will need to use flights to protect the top teams. The more Top 8 teams from a region, I believe the more flights that will be needed. The regionals will still be in the same areas as before because the bulk of the teams are within 500 miles of those locations. I’ve often said that you can’t give a regional to Region X and give one to Emory. (Berry may be a problem, too.) It’s either-or because of the additional flights needed to get teams to both locations. So, now the number of flights is more constrained. If Region X is able to get 3 teams from a location into the tournament, then 5 flights are needed to fill out the regional. You still have to fly Emory somewhere. You still have to use a flight or two to protect the Top 8. Eight flights seem “unnecessary” to me. It’s quite possible that Region X will need to get four teams from a location to host another regional. One nice fallout from NPI is that the Regional Advisor Committees and the Selection Committee will have more time to figure out the bracketing because they will have a good understanding of who is probably getting in earlier in the process. They also have eliminated a lot of time arguing over the selection criteria. So, they will have as much time as they need to reduce the number of flights while still protecting the Top 8.

To finish this off, kudos to the NCAA for trying this out. I have always railed against how unfair the regionals were. It’s nice to see positive steps being taken to see if that problem can be eliminated. In the end, I still think we’ll see unfair regionals but we should have, at least, two quality teams headlining each one. The Selection Committee was able to do this last year without this enhancement, but it’s good to know they have the direction and means to make it happen again. Remember, the result was the best Elite 8 in the history of our sport. That could happen again this season if NPI doesn’t mess it up.