Regional Rankings III

The third official Regional Rankings are out!

Here are the changes for each region from the last rankings:

Region I

• Bowdoin and Colby swapped spots.

Region II

• No changes for the second week in a row.

Region III

• Clarkson replaces SUNY Geneseo.

• Movement between Fisher, Brockport and Manhattanville.

Region IV

• Kean replaces Montclair State.

• Movement between Rowan, Stockton and Arcadia.

Region V

• Eastern replaces Susquehanna.

• Movement between Scranton and Swarthmore.

Region VI

• Washington & Lee replaces Birmingham-Southern.

• Emory moves up from 5 to 2.

• Movement between UMW, CNU, VA Wesleyan and Randolph-Macon.

Region VII

• Movement at the top. Calvin is the new top team. Wittenberg drops to 3.

Region VIII

• Millikin replaces Chicago.

• Movement between Transy, UWSP and UWEC.

Region IX

• No Changes.

Region X

• Pomona-Pitzer replaces Whitworth (opposite of what they did last week).

I think the major change was the movement of Emory to the second spot in Region VI. As we saw last week in the Mock Selection, it wasn’t the correct decision and it’s been fixed. Now, it helped that Emory beat Berry. I would have loved to see the order if that didn’t happen.

Region X is interesting to me, too, so we’ll look at that a little more.

1. CMS

No issues.

2. Trinity

No issues.

3. UC Santa Cruz

No issues.

4. Cal Lutheran

The RAC didn’t change the placement although I still thought UT-Dallas deserves this position. Here is the comparison I had:

Cal Lutheran: 0.640, 0.583, 0.597, 2-9, 0-2UT-Dallas: 0.783, 0.549, 0.563, 1-3, 0-2

The official SOS numbers were different so I’ve added them above. Although Ned probably needs to check his numbers, that change really didn’t alter the comparison. UTD has Head-to-Head (H2H) and Record while Cal Lutheran has SOS. What the RAC decided was that Cal Lutheran’s Ranked Results were better and then gave the tiebreaker to them, as well. I guess I’m happy the RAC isn’t going by straight percentage and I can certainly see why Cal Lu got the Ranked Results. I am having an issue over the tiebreaker because I simply don’t know what they are using to break that tie. They certainly are not using H2H and taking the team that was actually better. Again, that’s fine, too. Maybe they are simply saying Cal Lu has a better chance at an at-large so they are the choice. If that is the case, then I’m on board.

5. UT-Dallas

They have to be here if not in the 4th spot.

6. La Verne

I had Whitworth here and La Verne in 7th. Here is that comparison:

La Verne: 0.654, 0.563, 0.574, 1-6, 3-0Whitworth: 0.727, 0.538, 0.549, 2-2, 2-2

Again, the SOS change doesn’t impact the comparison. I had this comparison as a tie with Whitworth getting Record and Ranked Results. La Verne got SOS and Common Opponent. What is similar between this outcome and the UTD/CLU outcome? The RAC is favoring SOS. Maybe we have our tiebreaker.

7. Pomona-Pitzer

I didn’t list out the Pomona-Pitzer/Whitworth comparison so let me do it here:

Pomona-Pitzer: 0.667, 0.553, 2-7, 1-0Whitworth: 0.727, 0.549, 2-2, 1-1

The scorecard favors Whitworth 2-1-2 if you give Ranked Results to them. Pomona-Pitzer’s wins are both La Verne while Whitworth’s wins are both Chicago. Now I like those Chicago wins but that region just removed them for Millikin so Whitworth won’t be a factor in the final rankings unless they are added back in. It’s obvious that the RAC gave the Ranked Results to Pomona-Pitzer. Maybe it was the bad losses from Whitworth? Maybe they are just in love with La Verne for some reason?

One last thing to look at is Pomona-Pitzer versus Texas Lutheran. I had this as a tie pending Ranked Results being reviewed, but if the RAC wants to put Pomona-Pitzer in the 7th spot then they need to hold off TLU.

Pomona-Pitzer: 0.667, 0.553, 2-7, 3-0Texas Lutheran: 0.724, 0.540, 2-4, 1-2

I give TLU the advantage in Record and Ranked Results. TLU beat Transylvania and Scranton and that compares favorably to two La Verne wins in my mind. Pomona-Pitzer gets Common Opponent. So, it appears the RAC made a mistake here. They, again, just think La Verne is the second coming of CMS or I’m just missing something. Now, in fairness, they could have looked at Pomona-Pitzer, TLU and Whitworth and decided that there was no clear favorite and took Pomona-Pitzer. I guess.

Through it all, there is one overriding factor and that’s SOS. Maybe, regardless of the tolerance between numbers, this RAC is just favoring SOS in all cases and maybe that’s the takeaway.

In the end, the ordering of Cal Lu and UTD is only important if UTD doesn’t win their conference and if they don’t win their conference they probably don’t deserve the 4th spot. I don’t currently think Cal Lutheran will get an at-large bid so it really doesn’t matter the order behind them.

One last thing and this is to all of the coaches. This RAC is favoring SOS so if you want a chance at an at-large bid next year, then you need to build up a healthy SOS. This is what they are telling you. Are you listening?