Realignment News

One of the bigger changes coming in DIII volleyball (well, all sports) is the proposed realignment from 8 regions to 10 regions. Over at Ricky Nelson’s site, he has published a proposed list that was given out by the NCAA. This list is preliminary but shows what conferences would be assigned to which region. If you remember from last year the original proposal received some push back due to competitive balance concerns. Let’s take a deeper look into what the NCAA has so far.

Region I (39 Teams)

GNAC, Little East, NESCAC and North Atlantic

Region II (38 Teams)

Commonwealth Coast, MASCAC, NECC, NEWMAC with Brandeis and Pine Manor

Region III (39 Teams)

Empire 8, Liberty, Skyline, SUNYAC with Rochester

Region IV (38 Teams)

CUNYAC, MAC Freedom, NJAC, NEAC and New York University

Region V (47 Teams)

Atlantic East, Centennial, Colonial States, Landmark, MAC Commonwealth with Carnegie Mellon, Trinity and Valley Forge

Region VI (43 Teams)

Capital, ODAC, USA South, SAA and Emory

Region VII (49 Teams)

AMCC, MIAA, NCAC, OAC, Presidents’ AC with Case Western

Region VIII (53 Teams)

CCIW, HCAC, NACC, SLIAC, WIAC with Chicago, Mount Mary and Washington-St. Louis

Region IX (41 Teams)

American Rivers, MIAC, MWC, Upper Midwest with Finlandia

Region X (39 Teams)

ASC, NWC, SCAC, SCIAC with Mills College and UC Santa Cruz

One quick note is that the number of teams noted above are in today’s count. For instance, the West Region (now Region X) actually has 41 teams when you count JWU (Denver) and St. Thomas (TX). Both of these teams are in the reclassification period and will be “official” in the next couple of years.

Alright, let’s take a look at what’s in front of us. First off, the committee really didn’t change much or take a radical approach to this job. They primarily relied on the existing geography of the current volleyball regions. I say “volleyball” because that’s what I care about knowing that other sports had different layouts to their regions. I’m not sure how many other sports mimic the volleyball layout and I have no interest in researching it.

As I feared when the 10-region concept came out, the New England Region was simply cut in two with the two tougher conferences from that region going their separate ways. Once the committee did this, it signaled to everyone that competitive balance was not a factor when constructing the regions. The New York Region was also (pretty much) cut into two parts. The exception is the inclusion of the MAC Freedom (from the Mid-Atlantic Region) into Region IV. And that’s it. Those are your two new regions. An extra New England Region and an extra New York Region.

The committee did monkey around with the other regions but honestly, I really don’t know the point. You’ll notice that the first four regions all come in right below the targeted 40 team mark but the 4 regions that were the Central, Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest come in between 41 and 53 teams. The South Region becomes Region VI with the addition of the Capital Athletic Conference and the West Region is now Region X with NO CHANGES. Honestly, this is just a lazy effort in my opinion.

As far as competitive balance, it’s hard to know what to gauge it on but I decided to look at the top 4 teams from the last 10 years and see where they now sit in the new regions. (I purposely didn’t take the top 8 teams because the current system allows the larger regions to essentially have byes into the Elite 8.)

The two New England Regions (I and II) have no teams that have made the Final 4 in the last 10 years. The two New York Regions (III and IV) each have one team that have reached the Final 4. Ithaca in Region III and Eastern in Region IV. Now, let’s see where the other 38 teams sit in the other 6 regions.

Region V is basically the bulk of the Mid-Atlantic Region today and it has two teams that have made the Final 4 in Johns Hopkins (2019) and Juniata (twice). That’s three appearances and one national champion. If we are really concerned about competitive balance across all 10 regions, this really should be the low bar that each region has if doing this correctly.

As mentioned before, the South Region is now Region VI and it now has three teams that have reached the Final 4 in Christopher Newport (twice), Emory (5 times) and Hendrix (once). They also have Emory’s 2018 national champion in their resume to go along with these 8 total appearances.

Region VII is the old Great Lakes Region and they come in with 11 appearances and 5 national champions. This is the most for both of those totals across our new 10 regions. Obviously, any region with Calvin (7 appearances with 3 titles) is going to have an advantage and you’ll also get Hope’s one appearance and title since they play in the same conference. Keeping them with Wittenberg just makes this the “Region of Death”.

Region VIII is our largest region and mainly consists of the Midwest Region with a little tinkering. They have the most individual teams that have made the Final 4 in the last 10 years with 5 for a total of 9 appearances. By far our deepest region with the WIAC, Carthage, Elmhurst and WUSTL. Throw in Chicago and Aurora among others and the only thing keeping this from the “Region of Death” is national championships.

Region IX is the Central Region with one tweak that doesn’t matter but also one that does with the removal of Washington-St. Louis. Only two teams have made an appearance in St. Thomas and Northwestern-St. Paul. They do have the one St. Thomas national championship but remember that the Tommies will no longer be in DIII after next year. This region really becomes just like the two New York Regions.

Region X is obviously everyone’s favorite as it is EXACTLY like the West Region is today. I mean I’m thankful from a blog perspective (D3VbX?) and upon further review maybe it’s fine that it’s kept intact but a serious lack of thinking went on here. For the record, four teams have made the Final 4 with 5 total appearances and 2 national championships. (If you want to see a lot of thinking on realignment, then check out what I wrote last year.)

Overall, there are 5 haves and 5 have-nots with these 10 regions. Regions I, II, III, IV and IX will only have (at most) one team that has made the Final 4 in the last 10 years with no championships once St. Thomas makes their move. The other 5 have 36 appearances and 9 titles. It’s just silly, right? We can all see this? Well, I guess not everyone.

In my past write-ups I mentioned that the biggest issue will be regional rankings. If we assume each of the 10 new regions will rank 8 teams, this means that the New England and New York Regions of today basically get to rank 16 teams each. They will still all play each other and still have no incentive to leave their home base and their regional ranking criterion will look fabulous. In summary, this realignment will make things worse and we’ll only see more Northeast teams receive at-large bids despite having NO history of success in the NCAA Tournament. The only solution is an understanding by the selection committee how the selection criteria is not equal between the regions and for them to consider this in their decision process. It hasn’t happened since I’ve been following it so I’m not hopeful for the future on this count.

We’ll have to see what the final list looks like but if I had a vote and I wasn’t in the New York or New England Regions (and maybe Region IX), I’d vote against this. The Mid-Atlantic really takes a hit here, too, as they lose some of their big region status in this realignment.