Ranked Wins – West Region

I just dropped a podcast on the regional rankings which includes an early look at how the Ranked Win criterion could change things next week. As a reminder, that criterion isn’t used the first week because none of the RACs know who the other RACs are going to rank. Now that we have a ranking, we can see how it will possibly play out. Click the link above to get to the podcast or visit my Podcast page for all of my past podcasts.

With this article, however, I did want to focus a bit on the West Region and what we’re seeing with Ranked Wins. As a reminder, you can always visit the Watch List page where I track the teams from the West Region with the best chances at an at-large bid. Now that we have the official data sheets and statistics, we have a clearer picture of everyone’s chances. What also helps is seeing what the competition looks like in other regions.

One last thing before I show you the ranked win records for the teams in the West Region Watch List and that is this criterion is more than just a record. It’s about not only how many wins you have but also about who you are beating. In my mind it’s also about who you are losing to and whether you are losing to teams that are not regionally ranked. We’ll talk a little about this below but first here are the numbers:

Team	Wins	Losses	Pct.
Cal Lutheran	1	8	0.1111
Chapman	3	3	0.5000
CMS	6	3	0.6667
Colorado College	6	2	0.7500
Concordia	0	4	0.0000
La Verne	1	8	0.1111
Pacific	0	2	0.0000
Pacific Lutheran	1	4	0.2000
Southwestern	0	7	0.0000
Trinity	6	3	0.6667
UMHB	3	6	0.3333
UT-Dallas	2	2	0.5000
Whitworth	1	3	0.2500

I was lazy and didn’t order this by the regional rankings. Colorado College, CMS and Trinity all look good from a raw number perspective. Behind the scenes, each of these teams also has quality wins and only Trinity has a loss against a team that wasn’t regionally ranked (Pacific Lutheran). Colorado College’s best win (based on regional rankings) is Trinity. CMS’s best wins are St. Olaf (Central #1) and Emory (South #1). Trinity’s best wins are St. Benedict (Central #2) and Ohio Northern (Great Lakes #2). All pretty good so no worries here.

Mary Hardin-Baylor’s best win is Christopher Newport out of the Mid-Atlantic. Not bad but not the best, either, as CNU sits 5^th in their region. Their raw record is 3-6 with no bad losses but the Cru just seemed to lose all of those important matches they had this year. Chapman’s raw record is 3-3 with no bad losses and their best win is CMS. After that, it’s bleak as they only have Cal Lutheran (West #8) and UW-Platteville (Midwest #8). There’s not guarantee these two teams will stay in the rankings and if that happens then Chapman losses those wins. Whitworth is 1-3 with their only win over Birmingham-Southern (South #6). They really need to win the NWC title to be sure about their chances. UT-Dallas is interesting at 2-2. Not a lot of matches but their two wins are Trinity and UW-Stevens Point (Midwest #5), which is good. Finally, Cal Lutheran is 1-8. Whelp! Good win against Augsburg (Central #3) but nothing else.

As for the rest of the teams trying to take a spot in the rankings that I’m tracking…well…not much there. Of the other 5 teams they combine for only 2 ranked wins. What this means is that the West is really only 7 teams strong this year and unless there is an upset in a conference title match, that is the most we are getting into the tournament. This is important because I believe 7 teams is the minimum number the NCAA needs to have in order to award a regional to the West. By the way, if a regional does happen in the West with the 7 most likely teams than right now Trinity would be your host.

Next week I’ll wrap in the matches from the week and see if the regional rankings should change but right now it appears that Chapman may get a bump that takes them over UMHB next week. It just depends on how the RAC looks at it. I like the Chapman win over CMS better than what UMHB has but the losses by both teams are really good. I also think UT-Dallas could get a bump from this criterion and pass Whitworth in the rankings. If you want more detail on the West then listen to the podcast. I’ll forgive you if you jump down to the last segment but you’ll miss me insulting New England again.