NCAA Tournament Projection #1

We have a light match day today so I was thinking I should write an article. The problem, as always, is what to write about. Ned has been doing a projection of who will make the tournament and this is something I use to love to write about when the selection criteria was in place. I guess I found my topic.

Ned’s method is to look at each match and compare the team’s rankings with Massey and Pablo (he uses a percentage of each). He then looks to see how close the teams are and then assigns a little home court bonus that can turn the tide if the rankings are close. Bottom line, the higher ranked team is pretty much going to win out so congratulations to Juniata, MIT and Marietta for your undefeated seasons! Still, we have to use something but we also know that funks happen. Injuries happen. Travel has an impact. Etc. What I haven’t liked about the projections up until this week was that the at-large cut line was too high. This week, it was at 60.85, and I think that will be close to what it actually will be. That probably means that with conference play, things will be more stable as most conferences have an established pecking order that will align with the rankings Ned uses. So, let’s take a look at our field of 64!

With the Pool A (Automatic Qualifiers), the bid goes to the team with the highest NPI. I didn’t ask Ned if there was a team that received the Pool A while also losing the final in his projection. It could happen if the NPI and rankings don’t align or the lower ranked team is hosting and gets a bonus. I also know that Ned doesn’t have all of the tournament schedules correctly entered. Some only play 2 rounds while others play more. So, there could be some minor adjustments in real life, as there always are. Regardless, I give you the 43 teams getting a Pool A bid:

• Juniata

• MIT

• Emory

• Johns Hopkins

• Hope

• UW-Whitewater

• Marietta

• Millikin

• Ithaca

• Colby

• ETBU

• Washington & Lee

• CMS

• Chris Newport

• Northwestern

• Southwestern (yay!)

• Whitworth

• Eastern

• Stevens

• Transylvania

• Centre

• Gust Adolphus

• Coe

• Cortland

• William Paterson

• Endicott (This is the last Pool A team above the at-large cut line.)

• Gallaudet (So, this team and below would not get an at-large if they lose their conference tournament.)

• Methodist

• UMass-Dartmouth

• Lasell

• Edgewood

• Allegheny

• Hartwick

• Ohio Wesleyan

• Cornell College

• Greenville

• Asbury

• Manhattanville

• Hunter

• Maine Maritime

• Alfred State

• Bridgewater State

• Marymount (48.62 NPI)

I’ve given you the at-large cut line in that list. Any school above the cut line that lost their conference tournament would, in most cases, get an at-large, which would then reduce the number of at-large bids to give out to the teams below. Most years, this does not happen or only happens once. Most of the time, when the favorite fails to win their tournament, they do not receive a bid based on the old selection criteria and regional rankings. Normally, we have 21 at-large bids to give out so here you go (with their projected NPI):

1. UW-Oshkosh (71.57)

2. WashU (68.78)

3. Case Western Reserve (68.36)

4. Babson (67.82)

5. Chicago (66.16)

6. UW-Platteville (65.45)

7. Gettysburg (65.28)

8. Franklin & Marshall (65.02)

9. Ohio Northern (65.00)

10. Trinity (Tx) (64.78)

11. Salisbury (64.53)

12. William Smith (64.35)

13. La Verne (62.60)

14. Calvin (62.47)

15. Carnegie Mellon (62.03)

16. Virgnia Wesleyan (61.85)

17. NYU (61.83)

18. Middlebury (61.54)

19. UW-Stevens Point (61.51)

20. Springfield (60.92)

21. Tufts (60.85)

Now, what jumps out at me with these projections are the names. Yes, there is a William Smith (12-2 with a 0.604 SOS) in there but none of the other names are unusual for an at-large team in the past.

If I look at the teams that were above the cut line in our last simulation, we see the following teams drop out of an at-large:

• Illinois Wesleyan (1^st team out)

• Otterbein (2^nd team out)

• UW-Eau Claire (3^rd team out)

Coming in were UW-Stevens Point, Springfield and Tufts. The fact that there were only 3 spots switching out is not surprising when you consider that the projections are favoring no upsets. This also favors teams with strong SOS numbers because the teams they played were good so (with no upsets) they will only get stronger, increasing NPIs for them and those that played them.

As of last week, Springfield was 45^th, UW-Stevens Point was 56^th and Tufts was…wait for it…98^th! The cut line was in the 42^nd position. Tufts NPI this past week was 54.22. Tufts needs a little more investigation.

Looking at the projection data, Tufts is predicted to lose to Colby (twice), Babson and MIT. The others they are projected to win and what helps them is that their conference is very strong per NPI. They get Quality Win Bonus wins over Trinity (CT), Bowdoin, Springfield, Endicott and Wesleyan (twice). That certainly is a path to jump 6 NPI and 50 spots in the rankings.

Before the Tufts fans starting printing NCAA Tournament T-shirts, I’ll point out that the Latvians are a bit skeptical of these projections. He can see what Ned predicts happening if there are no upsets but that is probably not going to happen. One interesting point is that he thinks if Calvin losses to Millikin (which Ned predicts), then Calvin may not have a chance at the at-large. That’s a big difference from being the 14^th team chosen. All of that to say, we really don’t know how the matches will play out but we are getting to a point where the projections are going to be close to what happens in November.

I’ve been critical of NPI and that will continue. It’s too simplistic and alters our long-standing understanding of what a quality DIII volleyball team is and what they have to do to prove themselves. I’m not sure how many I have on my band wagon right now, but if those are the 21 at-large teams, I fear a number of my supporters will be jumping off.

In talking with the Latvians on this article, they mentioned that they are trying to model how NPI relates to future wins and losses. They basically say, at this point, that a 1-point difference in NPI correlates to a 10% chance of success over 50%. So, if a 60 NPI team is playing a 57 NPI team (a 3 point difference), they will have an 80% chance at winning. (50% + 30%) They mentioned that to date, there have been 801 matches where the NPI difference has been greater than 10. In only three of those matches did the lower NPI team win. Those big upsets were Whitman over Pacific Lutheran, Albion over Carnegie Mellon and Oberlin over Ohio Wesleyan.

I’ll keep following the predictions until the official selection and see how it changes. I do think it’s fascinating that a team as low as Tufts is right now still has a chance. Pomona-Pitzer sits 0.05 above Tufts but I don’t believe their conference (the SCIAC) will give them the same chance as Tufts will have. One selling point for NPI was that a weak conference would not hurt a team’s NPI. That’s because bad wins don’t count. The flip side, however, is that a strong (deep) conference absolutely helps your NPI as we see from the projections. There are 5-teams from the UAA, 3 for the WIAC and both New England major conferences get 2 teams in. So, conference strength still matters.