Trine Brings the Thunder

We are supposedly locked into the NCAA Power Index (NPI) for 2-years after this season. Frankly, because it makes the NCAA’s life so much easier, it’s probably here to stay. My hope is that after this year we can add some small safeguards around Strength of Schedule (SOS) and record to prevent very undeserving teams from getting an at-large bid. I don’t think this will happen. My next hope is that we can add these safeguards before a truly undeserving team gets a bid and causes an uproar. I don’t think this will happen. Which brings me to Trine University. Trine is a small private university in Angola, Indiana that plays out of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA). You know the MIAA as the conference that has Calvin and Hope.

From our article yesterday and the NPI Rankings for the week, we know that Trine is currently the 28^th best team in the nation according to NPI. They are currently 12-1 with an SOS of 0.505. Impressive record but an SOS that should make them ineligible for an at-large in my alternate universe. (In my universe Disney World exists in every city no matter the size. Tuba City’s Disney World still has “Stitch’s Great Escape!” so a personal favorite of mine.) Trine has built their record on the backs of Asbury, Marian and Wooster. Look, that’s a great law firm but not schools we think of when talking about the elite in DIII volleyball. Sure, Trine has beaten the teams in front of them and they should be praised for that, but they shouldn’t be rewarded for a schedule that was not constructed to give them an at-large bid. Now, Trine still has Calvin and Hope in front of them in conference so they could prove themselves. (The MIAA only plays one pass through in their conference.) They also have Ohio Northern but that is about it. So, could Trine receive an at-large (if NPIs remained static) with losses to these three teams? (We won’t worry about conference tournaments right now.) Their only loss, by the way, is to Hanover.

Here are the results for Trine:

In this table, you see their opponents, whether they won or not (True = wins), Trine’s current NPI, their opponent’s current NPI, their QWB for the match and the match NPI. Remember that the NCAA multiplies NPI by 100 so the match NPI of 0.634007 for Asbury is really 63.4007.

Losing to Hope, Calvin and Ohio Northern would add in the following NPIs (80% of opponent’s current NPI):

• 0.498006 (Hope)

• 0.472231 (Calvin)

• 0.454222 (ONU)

This would give Trine an overall NPI of 56.07 and would place them 52^nd just above Otterbein and right behind Trinity. They would be out outside the at-large cutoff.

Beating ONU instead of losing, would move their NPI to 57.59 (estimated) and place them 34^th and safely above the at-large cut line. So, our first lesson in all of this is that taking one win from those three schools probably puts Trine safely into the NCAA Tournament. This is remarkably like the Mary Hardin-Baylor examples from previous years. You play a below-average to average schedule, win those matches and take just one important match while losing the other 2 or 3 on your schedule and you are safely in the tournament.

Back to the point of the article and let’s say Trine loses those matches. They currently have 10 wins counting for their NPI and are sitting at (as I stated) 56.07. They win the rest of their matches but some won’t count because the match NPI falls below that number (bad wins). We can safely eliminate Albion, Mount Mary (twice) and Alma.

I add in Bluffton, which allows me to remove the Marian win. Trine’s NPI jumps to an estimated 57.08. For a point of reference, the last team out right now is (oddly) Ohio Northern at 56.78. UW-Eau Claire is the last team in at 57.03 and I think that’s the number to beat in our little experiment just to be safe and with a Bluffton win they did just that. We can add in other wins that help but the NPI only goes higher while removing wins that no longer help. In other words, 57.08 is the low-point even with the four losses as long as they win out the regular season.

Last year we saw that the at-large bid cutoff was around 60 NPI and that’s probably going to be the case this season, as well. There is no telling if Trine’s wins will increase or decrease their NPI as their past opponents play out their schedule. There is no telling if Trine can win the remainder of their matches outside of the big three they have ahead of them. Of course, they may have enough wiggle room to even lose one of them. Bottom line, Trine has an inside track at one of the 21 precious at-large bids. I’m not sure if that would cause the uproar needed that might lead to improvements to the selection process, but it’s disappointing that no one saw this possibility when all of the simulations showed exactly this possibility.

We still have a lot of action ahead of us but the NPI numbers are starting to stabilize. As I’ve written before, the first 15 at-large teams in are easy. The last 5 or 6 or the hard ones and NPI could very well give us some teams that we never would have considered with the past selection system.