Region X Rankings (10/7/21)

I think it’s now a normal thing that the Region X Top 8 will be a separate article. I’m using Ned’s SOS numbers and they are through yesterday. The Watch List is updated. Remember, that the Watch List is my opinion of who has a chance at an at-large bid. The Regional Rankings, which I’m trying to mimic here, are the rankings based on the selection criteria. Usually, this jives with my Watch List but sometimes it does not (and it doesn’t this week).

Here are the rankings with explanations below it:

Region X Rankings (10/7/21) – (previous rank)

1. CMS (1)

2. Trinity (2)

3. Colorado College (3)

4. Southwestern (4)

5. Mary Hardin-Baylor (5)

6. UC Santa Cruz (6)

7. Whitworth (8)

8. Chapman (NR)

Dropped Out: Austin College (7)

CMS retains the top spot as they are undefeated and have the second-best SOS number of the teams considered. Their head-to-head win over Trinity eliminates the Tigers from consideration here.

Trinity still has the best SOS number (by a large amount) so even though they have a worse record than UMHB, I give them the nod here. It really shouldn’t be up for debate. Any team with an SOS close or over 0.600 with a great record needs to be ranked very high.

I’m still putting Colorado College in the third spot. They have the third best SOS number and their two losses are to Johns Hopkins and Trinity. They have a head-to-head win over Southwestern so that helps, too. If you favored record over SOS then you could argue UMHB or UCSC here. Again, when in doubt (there is a “tie”), put your school with the best chance of selection higher. That’s Colorado College.

Southwestern, UC Santa Cruz and UMHB are all in a tie based on the criteria. UMHB has the best record but the worst SOS. UCSC has the worst record but the best SOS. Southwestern sits in the middle of both. With that said, other than the poor UMHB SOS, the numbers are all close. I have to look at national selectability again so I’m going Southwestern (wins over Aurora and Carnegie Mellon), UMHB (win over BSC) and UCSC. The RAC could put these in any order they want, I think. This means no change from last week.

Whitworth has a better record and SOS than Austin College so they get 7^th but now I need to see if I need to move them higher. They basically “tie” Southwestern and UMHB but lose out to UCSC as they have a common opponent disadvantage with Pomona-Pitzer. UCSC beat them twice while Whitworth has a loss against them. I will leave them at 7^th this week, which is a one spot improvement from last week.

So, Austin College is 8^th, right? They are the last team in my Watch List but I’m pseudo watching Chapman and Pomona-Pitzer so let’s factor them into this. Chapman has a win over Pomona and while their records are similar, Chapman has a good SOS at 0.589. Pomona-Pitzer’s SOS is 0.507. So, Chapman gets the edge over Pomona-Pitzer although I admit I haven’t gone through the common opponents. The SOS would break any tie in Chapman’s favor to be honest about it. (Not sure why I would consider lying to be honest about it.) (“…to be honest about it…” is just a bad phrase to use ever.)

Chapman has a worse record than Austin College but a much better SOS. I don’t see a national selectability case for either so I’ll lean towards SOS and put Chapman 8^th. Now I have to see if Chapman will rise up the rankings.

Whitworth has a better record but a worse SOS. Whitworth has a head-to-head over Chapman. Common opponent is kind of a mess. Chapman has a loss to Puget Sound and Whittier who Whitworth beat but the opposite is true when you factor in Pomona-Pitzer. So, a nod to Whitworth here. Record + Common Opponent + Head-to-Head means Whitworth will stay at 7^th. Looking further up the rankings, know that UCSC beat Chapman Head-to-Head. Just not worth putting Chapman higher than 8^th right now.

That’s your Region X Top 8, but we can’t stop here. With the release of the Pre-Championship Manual there is an issue with where UCSC will be ranked. They are listed in Region VI so it’s quite possible that Region X will ignore them even though they are located in California. Strange, I know. Another issue is that if you remove Mills College and UCSC from Region X (both are in the C2C Conference and in Region VI), then it’s possible that Region X will only rank 7 teams instead of 8. (This is because a calculation is used to determine how many to rank based on how many teams are in your region.) Why is this important? The less teams ranked regionally means the less teams you can have a regional win against and that becomes a selection criterion after the first regional ranking is published. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out but just know that it’s a big disadvantage to the region if we only rank 7 teams.