Selection Day Musing

Volleyball selection show is today at 10 PT / Noon CT / 1 ET. Here is the link to the volleyball page on the NCAA site. You should be able to find the video there or another link to it. They typically start right on time or a minute or two late. I’ve found in the past that browsers can impact whether it works or not so be prepared with a backup browser.

Storylines from today will be how many New England and New York teams get at-large bids. I had Wesleyan and Babson and no New York teams. Worst case for the integrity of the bracket would be three NE teams and one NY teams, but they’ve done it before. Ranked Results is where the battles happen and that’s where things fall apart for these four regions when you look at it in-depth. Hand in hand with that storyline will be how difficult the regionals will be. Ricky is thinking three Midwest regionals, which is what I thought, plus a Great Lakes Regional.

How many Region VIII teams get selected will be interesting and in what order. Region VII is also deep so how many go there?

Another storyline is what to do with the West teams. I have it on pretty good authority that there will not be a Texas Regional. That leaves two options, CMS hosts or fly them all out. Each requires 6 flights. If I was a betting man then I would bet heavily on CMS. They are hosting the championship next year and could use a practice run. Not guaranteed things will fall like this next year. Another storyline is whether Trinity flies to CMS (if they host). That seems unfair to Trinity but that’s what would happen back in the day when the West got regionals.

A potential CMS Regional:

1. CMS

2. Trinity

3. UC Santa Cruz

4. UT-Dallas

5. Texas Lutheran

6. Puget Sound

Now you fly two teams in. Do they fly an isolated team like Emory in? That seems unfair. Do you fly excess northeast teams? New Rochelle flew to Southwestern in 2017. If CMS gets a regional then expect a pretty good team to come in to make the regional stronger. Here’s the thing, and we saw this in 2015 (WashU sent to Cal Lu), a top team is going to scream holy heck to be sent to CMS. So a team in the teens or 20s in the ranking is my guess and maybe two of them. Just carrying this even further because this is how my mind works…CMS would draw Puget Sound. TLU can’t play Trinity so Trinity gets UT-Dallas or one of these teams coming in. TLU gets UC Santa Cruz or one of the new teams. Going even further, if there is a CMS Regional, could the Selection Committee brought in Cal Lutheran as an at-large? Selections come in before hosting is determined but a Cal Lu bid would guarantee a CMS hosting gig.

Now, watch them all fly out to Whitewater. Whitewater, Oshkosh, CMS, Trinity, Stevens Point and Eau Claire to headline that regional.

I’m kind of hoping I can make it to a regional this year, but I got sick from this last trip. Either someone got me sick or I’m patient 0. Not COVID, thankfully. Good test for my immune system to see if I can fight it off.

I guess I’ll finish this like I typically do at this time. During my daughter’s career we had an AQ, were a lock at-large team and were a bubble teams twice. In those bubble years, we were selected once and were passed over once. There is no better feeling than being a bubble team and making it. There is no worse feeling than being a bubble team (or a team that should go) and not make it. There is going to be a team or two today that will be passed over and I won’t be able to tell you why. I guarantee I will look at all the suspect selections, but often they leave us scratching our heads. I believe the NCAA owes an explanation to any team that asks for one. The process, once it’s over, should be transparent. Coaches need to know what went wrong. Often, the process is not transparent as was the case for our team in 2014. I’ve learned a lot more since that time but the process still confuses me when strange results get published. Case in point, I couldn’t accurately get the Region X rankings correct. I guess what I’m saying is that my heart will bleed today for those snubbed and my heart will be overjoyed for those selected. May the selection gods shine for you.