Regional Hosting Predictions

After I dropped my Errors/Set article yesterday, I realized that we didn’t have any matches today and that I should probably do an article. Another article. Like…more work. Like…how stupid was I to drop that article yesterday?

As most of you know, however, I’m brilliant. Not so much at what I can do but what others will do for me. So, I reached out to my mentor, Ricky Nelson, and asked if he wanted to give me his thoughts on where regionals will be hosted based on our current understanding (as of 10/13/2024) of who will make the tournament. Now, Ricky is pretty awesome at this stuff and I’ll show you what he came up with at the end of this article.

At the same time, I thought it might be fun if I actually did some work and try to do the same exercise separately so we could compare our work. Now, in high school, I would tell a friend that I was also doing the work but would really only do two or three of the problems. Then I’d get them on the phone to “compare” our work. I strategically let them know what answers I had all the while getting every other answer from them. See, I told you I’m brilliant.

I will first explain my horrible method at this in a second but I probably need to mention the 500-mile rule. It’s a rule that says any school that travels to a regional within 500 miles will drive. Anything over 500-miles, requires a flight. The NCAA has always said they have no limit on the number of flights but the NCAA does want to hold down travel costs as much as possible. So, when regionals are constructed, there is a big effort to limit flights. In most years, we only see 5 or 6 flights and most of those are given to the Region X teams or for teams flying into a Region X Regional. (Region X is the West Region.)

Alright, time for my really bad way of doing this. My method was to print out the 2023 bracket and replace teams as I went down the list of schools. For instance, the Hope Regional could still work this year just by replacing the teams that probably will not make the tournament with their replacements. For instance, Bethany is out and Allegheny is in because NPI has them higher in their conference. They still work because Allegheny to Hope is still within 500 miles.

I went through the entire bracket like that and noted the teams that would be replaced by other at-large teams if a school isn’t in position to make the tournament. For instance, Otterbein made the tournament last year but are not in an NPI position to win their conference or get an at-large bid. So, they needed to be replaced. Some schools like UW-Stevens Point could easily be replaced by UW-Eau Claire (who are in an at-large position) so I did that quick update. Anyway, when I was done, I had identified 8 at-large positions that needed to be filled. I then went through the anticipated at-large teams and found, wait for it, 8 at-large teams that I didn’t have in my bracket. That was enough fact checking for me. Success! I then tried to pair up my new at-large teams into the open slots.

When I was done, I was somewhat successful. Keep in mind, I didn’t worry about teams driving past one regional to get to another. There are going to be efficiencies that can be done. The first problem I had was that 2023 regional hosts Cornell College and Berry College are currently not in line for a tournament bid this year. I gave Cornell’s hosting gig to UW-Whitewater and Berry’s to Centre College. (I have no clue if Centre has the facilities to host.) My next problem was Maine Maritime getting the bid instead of Eastern Nazarene (pour one out for the Lions as they are closing their doors) and being too far from Ithaca to drive. I decided to move Maine Maritime to the MIT Regional as I had an at-large spot there open. My third problem was Methodist coming in for Meredith and being just over 500 miles from Centre. For my first pass, I put Ohio Northern into the Centre Regional and moved Methodist to the Juniata Regional. I believe I ended up with one extra flight from last year in taking Southwestern to Oshkosh and their open spot. (Ricky and Robert reunited again!)

I’m not too worried about that flight, yet, as I haven’t protected the Top 8 seeds. Let’s wee where they reside currently:

1. Juniata is hosting

2. MIT is hosting

3. JHU is hosting

4. Emory is at Centre

5. Marietta is at Hope (uh oh)

6. Hope is hosting

7. Washington & Lee is at Centre (uh oh)

8. UW-Whitewater is hosting

So, two problems to deal with. The regionals without a Top 8 are Ithaca and Oshkosh. My immediate thought is to move the Oshkosh Regional to Chicago because that’s just under 500 miles to Marietta. (I am also not worried about hotel costs, I guess.) I can drive Washington & Lee to Ithaca.

The problem I have then is that I’m taking two teams out of Centre and that is probably the hardest regional to fill without flights. Let’s see how it works.

I happen to be flying in 3 teams from the West into what was the Oshkosh Regional (now Chicago Regional). Now I fly two to Chicago and drive Marietta over. I fly the third team (let’s say Southwestern) to Centre. (This would stink because my son lives in Chicago. Just like the NCAA to mess me over. First, I can’t see Ricky and now I can’t see my son!) Looking through the teams I have at Ithaca and none can drive to Centre. It’s not until I get to the Whitewater Regional when I find teams that can travel, but, of course, I can’t drive the extra Ithaca team to Whitewater as it’s too far. I do have Whitworth flying into Ithaca so they are now going to the Centre Regional. I’m going to drive Alfred State 503 miles to Hope and “hope” no one notices. Eastern can go from Ithaca to Juniata. I’m sure they won’t care.

Alright, I’m good with just one extra flight and protecting the Top 8. My hosts are Hope, Johns Hopkins, Centre, MIT, Ithaca, Juniata, Whitewater and Chicago. It would mean only 5 of the Top 8 are hosting and that seems problematic. One that Ricky will solve below.

A different approach is moving the Centre Regional to Texas. Let’s say…oh…I don’t know…I mean for grins…we could say…maybe…possibly…SOUTHWESTERN!?!?

I currently have in my new Southwestern Regional: Southwestern, Trinity, Emory, Asbury, Wittenberg, Centre, Whitworth and Ohio Northern. As it stands, that would be an additional 5 flights (really 3 because I’m not flying Southwestern and Trinity out) so that is not going to work. First thing I do is get ETBU here because it saves a flight and I’m not stupid (just dumb). I also get La Verne and CMS to Georgetown (Southwestern resides in Georgetown), which eliminates those extra flights as long as I can drive three teams currently in excess to another regional. Emory isn’t going anywhere as they need protection. That gives me 7 teams and I’ll keep one of the remaining teams. My excess teams are Ohio Northern, Asbury, Wittenberg and Centre. I just put a hole in Chicago (two teams) and MIT (one team) by flying the West Coast teams to Texas.

As luck would have it, all four teams can drive to Chicago so goodbye to two of them. Let’s keep Asbury at Georgetown, which means I probably only have to deal with Ohio Northern (let’s say). Before we figure that out, who likes a West Regional of:

1. Emory

2. ETBU

3. La Verne

4. Whitworth

5. CMS

6. Trinity

7. Southwestern

8. Asbury

According to NPI, that would be the ranking. Yes, we could have put the regional at ETBU or Trinity but neither wanted to host. There were also numerous problems with their paperwork. Don’t blame me!

My last task is shifting Ohio Northern to a team that can get to MIT. First off, I’m sending ONU to Juniata because that regional is kind of weak. At that point, it’s really easy to move a number of teams to MIT but I’ll go with Springfield to replace CMS. I don’t think MIT will complain about that swap. The good news from the NCAA point-of-view is that I think I only used 5 flights and all were to the Southwestern Regional. I was able to protect the Top 8 and even New England is happy because they have a clear path to an Elite 8 spot. The only problem with this setup is that I have some really weak regionals, which is what happens when we keep the West teams together. Oh, and I don’t have all of my Top 8 hosting.

Ricky emailed his attempt and it’s in his concise well-thought-out manner that visitors to his site expect. I will just paste it here (numbers are their NPI rank):

1 Juniata 16 Babson 19 Ithaca 28 Carnegie Mellon 36 Eastern 39 Cortland 102 Hartwick 270 Westfield

2 MIT 9 Colby 14 William Smith 30 Middlebury 35 New York University 46 Endicott 57 Lasell 200 Alfred State

3 Johns Hopkins 13 Case 17 Franklin & Marshall 26 CMS31 Southwestern 41 Springfield 47 Plymouth State 164 Manhattanville

4 Emory 15 East Texas Baptist 23 La Verne 24 Whitworth 34 Centre 48 Hanover 70 Methodist 72 Asbury

5 Marietta 11 Millikin 20 Chicago 27 Ohio Northern 33 Stevens 55 William Paterson 74 Allegheny 260 Neumann

6 Hope 21 Washington (MO) 22 Wis-Platteville 29 Trinity (TX) 37 Wis-Eau Claire 62 Coe 83 Edgewood 90 Wittenberg

7 Washington and Lee 12 Gettysburg 18 Salisbury 25 Virginia Wesleyan 32 Christopher Newport 45 Gallaudet 114 Hunter 199 Morrisville State

8 Wis-Whitewater 10 Wis-Oshkosh 38 Calvin 40 Illinois Wesleyan 42 Northwestern 63 Gustavus 96 Grinnell 126 Greenville

That’s a total of six flights (teams in bold). That’s one more than mine but a small price to pay for a better bracket. There is no West Regional and each of the Top 8 get to host. The other, more subtle, beauty to this is that the Top 16 are almost protected. The only blemish is the MIT Regional having both the 9^th and 14^th teams while the Hope Regional’s second-best team is WashU at 21. Without confirmation from the Selection Committee, I’m pretty sure they would take an extra flight to almost protect the Top 16 teams. I think they would also like the Top 8 to host, if they do a better job of submitting their paperwork than ETBU and Trinity did in my mythical example.

In summary, right now, getting a pretty fair bracket while protecting the Top 8 is very doable. Teams can change from now to Selection but I really like what Ricky has and we’ll probably see something very similar to this. This also shows how much more work I need to do to get to Ricky’s level. Of course, oddly, when I turned my work into the teacher, it matched Ricky’s exactly.