Picking the NCAA Field of 111

I don’t think I have to tell all of you how brave I am. I tackle the hard issues here. I tackle the non-issues here. I turn non-issues into issues. I turn issues into wide spread panic. But, one of the bravest things I do here is look at issues much too early and you’ll get a little dose of that today as I look at the NCAA Tournament field of 64 111!

We are a little more than 2 weeks into the season so naturally it’s time to determine the NCAA field of 111. You see, it’ll be the field of 64 in November but right now I’ve got 111 teams in the hopper with about 110 of those (it seems) coming from the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC). (The MIAC has 7 teams currently with records at 0.800 or better and that doesn’t include Bethel, St. Benedict and St. Thomas.)

Maybe I should back up a bit first. Since all of you have read the FAQ page cover-to-cover, I don’t have to tell you that there are 43 automatic qualifiers (Pool A) for the NCAA Tournament. You may also know that there has been some conference chaos this season which has resulted in teams moving from conferences that had an automatic qualifier to other conferences (some without an automatic bid). This, in turn, meant that the NCAA increased the number of independent teams that will get a bid (Pool B) from one to two. And, finally, you know that the increase in independent bids has decreased the at-large bids (Pool C) from 20 to 19.

What I decided to do was look at the 43 conferences with Pool A bids and jot down the team with the best winning percentage. Now I know that winning percentages are not created equally and we’ve got a really small sample size to work with, but I’m brave. We’ve established this fact in the very first sentence. In cases of ties, I just went alphabetically so teams like Calvin got the bid over Hope and Augsburg got the bid over St. Olaf. For the West Region conferences I was a little more strict since I know more about what’s going on. (For instance, Belhaven has a very good record but I know that all of their wins have been to non-DIII schools so I couldn’t put them in.) I then looked at the independents and quickly selected two schools for the Pool B bids (Congratulations Thomas More and Marymount!). With 43 schools receiving the Pool A bids and 2 the Pool B bids that left 66 schools fighting for the remaining 19 Pool C bids. If you get nothing from this post just understand how hard it is to receive a Pool C bid (if you reside outside the New England and New York regions). Ok, that was a joke…sort of. Nothing but Grade A humor here at D3VbWest!

You may be wondering how I came to these 66 schools and basically I just cut off the schools at a certain winning percentage. Having said that, I did bring some schools into the mix that didn’t meet the winning percentage because I knew how difficult their schedule was early on (looking at you Juniata, IWU, Carthage and Berry). Back to the Pool A bids, we do have some winners that most likely will not be there in the end (Lewis & Clark in the NWC over a Pacific Lutheran…Gettysburg in the Centennial…Catholic in the Landmark…Hiram in the NCAC…etc). You get the point, but that did push a lot of good teams out (for now). Frankly, what I’m left with is a hot mess. I decided to look at the past few years and write down the average number of at-large bids each region has been getting and I came up with:

• Central – 2 Bids

• Great Lakes – 2

• Mid Atlantic – 2

• Midwest – 4

• New England – 3 or 4

• New York – 2 (was 0)

• South – 0 to 2

• West – 3 or 4

These bid totals range from 18 to 22 and you know we only have 19 this season. New England has really seen their bids increase over the last 4-years and New York over the last 2-years much to the dismay of anyone that likes to see the top teams make the tournament. The South really only would get a bid if Emory didn’t win the UAA but the region has gotten stronger recently. The West seems to be getting squeezed a bit but you also have my bias to contend with on this point.

It was right around here while struggling what to do next with all of this data that the following occurred:

“Hey Robert!” “ Yes, I responded to myself?” “ You’re brave, right?” “ Of course. Haven’t you been reading what we’ve written?” “ Not really. You tend to drag on at times.” “ Gee, thanks, what did you want?” “ Let’s just pick the Field of 64!” “ Bravery, thy name is Robert!!”

Yes, I have no friends, but that is not the point. I’m picking the Field of 64 on September 13^th! I’ll post my Pool A winners below and you already know the two Pool B winners so here are my Pool C bid winners:

• Central – Gust. Adolphus and WUSTL

• Great Lakes – Hope and Wittenberg

• Mid Atlantic – Johns Hopkins and Juniata

• Midwest – Carthage, IWU, UW-La Crosse and UW-Whitewater

• New England – Bowdoin, Springfield, Wellesley and UMass-Boston

• New York – Stevens and SUNY New Paltz

• South – Emory and Berry

• West – Pacific Lutheran, Trinity and CMS

Whoops, that’s 21 teams and it doesn’t even include Cal Lutheran, UT-Dallas, Ohio Northern, half of the MIAC, Eastern, Chris Newport or Muhlenberg. Getting down to 19 should be tough but there are a couple of teams in that list that just don’t fit. You see them, too, right? Easy pickings so we’ll just cut the WIAC teams of UW-La Crosse and UW-Whitewater. There, that’s better…the NCAA wasn’t allowing them in anyway. (Yes, that was a long way to go for another NCAA hates the WIAC joke but I feel it was well worth it.)

Obviously the conferences are going to shake out and the pretenders listed below will fall out of the mix, but there are not enough pretenders to get all of the deserving teams into the tournament. With the reduction of the Pool C bids, it’s only going to make things harder come November and I hope upon hope that the WIAC doesn’t get snubbed again when it counts. At some point the larger issue of the 43 automatic qualifier (Pool A) bids to the conferences has to be looked at. I think a simple solution is to identify some of the weaker conferences in the larger regions and have them do a play-in match. Heck, replace them with a better at-large team that can also drive to the regional if you want*. This can also be done to the weaker Pool B selections, too. None of this helps the West Region at all but it makes the overall product better and maybe forces some of these schools to improve their product.

* Currently, the at-large bids are not influenced by travel (or at least that is the company line). My recommendation would be to select normally, identify the regional host and only then see if two or more teams from that region should do a play-in match. Then look at the teams that didn’t receive a bid that are within 500 miles of the regional (maximum distance for bus travel) and add them to the field.

Pool A “Winners”:

Amherst

Arcadia

Augsburg

Bridgewater

Calvin

Catholic

Chapman

Chicago

Colorado College

Earlham

Eau Claire

Framingham St

Fredonia

Gettysburg

Hiram

Hunter

Illinois Col.

Ithaca

JWU (RI)

King’s

Lakeland

Lewis & Clark

Loras

Mary Washington

Methodist

MIT

Morrisville St

Mount Union

Nazerth

Notre Dame

NW-St. Paul

Pitt-Bradford

Sewanee

Southern Vt.

SUNY Canton

SUNY Maritime

UM Dartmouth

UMHB

Wentworth

Westminster

Westminster

Wheaton

Wm Paterson

I really didn’t have anything else to add but I did want to thank you for actually reading down this far. Bravery, thy name is you!