West Region Rankings (10/23/17)

I’m in a quandary folks. My intention is to try to match the West RAC but I didn’t agree with the placement of the SCIAC teams. Is that my Texas bias shining through despite my total respect for the SCIAC? I hope it’s just a different approach. Regardless, I will try to anticipate what the RAC will do and explain where/why I would deviate. (Sorry, but it makes for a long post.)

Some book keeping first:

1. NCAA Primary Criteria (pulled from the manual):

   1. Won-lost percentage against DIII opponents.

   2. DIII head-to-head competition.

   3. Results versus common DIII opponents.

   4. Results versus ranked DIII teams…

   5. DIII strength of schedule.

2. Strength of Schedule (SOS) numbers are from last week since the NCAA won’t publish what the RAC uses until Wednesday. The numbers will still be close but there is a risk this will mess me up.

3. Results versus ranked DIII teams is determined by me going through each team’s schedule hoping I don’t miss anyone.

Finally, before we get to the ranking, re-read the Primary Criteria above. Notice the only time the criteria specifically states “percentage” is won-lost. It does not use that word for common opponent or ranked DIII teams, it uses “results”. When I talk about Ranked Wins below I will use the term “face value”, which means using the Ranked Wins percentage as I fear that is what the RAC will do. I will also try to highlight the quality of those teams played, which should be more important to the RAC.

My rank, (my Week 7 rank, AVCA rank, RAC rank), record, key results last week1 (1, 2, 1). Colorado College 25-0 W: Southwestern; Trinity. 2 (4, 8, 2). Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 20-4 W: La Verne; Chapman. 3 (2, 3, 5). Southwestern 24-3 W: [None]; L: Colorado College. 4 (5, NR, 3). Whittier 17-7 W: [None]; L: Cal Lutheran. 5 (3, 5, 4). Trinity 23-5 W: [None]; L: Colorado College. 6 (8, NR, 7). Pacific Lutheran 17-3 W: [None]. 7 (6, 24, 6). La Verne 16-7 W: [None]; L: CMS; Chapman. 8 (7, NR, 8). Mary Hardin Baylor 23-2 W: [None]. Dropped Out: [None]

Last week in this space I was really hoping UTD would have a good week in Oshkosh and although they played well the teams were too strong. I still think UTD might be the 9^th team in the rankings but it will be a struggle to get them selected. They do have wins over UW-Eau Claire and Birmingham-Southern and their best hope is that those two teams get regional ranked high and the West RAC chair can get the above eight teams through quickly. (Side note, UTT with their recent win over UTD could be the 9th team but is blocked by their low SOS and UMHB being so low in the rankings.)

Colorado College is the easy choice at #1 as they beat Southwestern in 5-sets and swept Trinity this weekend.

Last week I talked about CMS, Trinity and Southwestern being really close to each other and then the West RAC dropped Whittier into the #3 spot. After going back and revisiting the comparisons I understand why the RAC did it but for it to make sense it means that they took the criteria at face value without diving into the teams played. This makes my choices here tough. Will the RAC repeat this process again? Whittier has a good Ranked Wins “percentage” so will that be taken at face value? Or will the RAC look at the quality of teams being played? I did the comparisons of the four teams using a face value approach (using Ranked Wins percentage) and got the following:

• CMS is a clear winner over Whittier.

• CMS wins the criteria battle over Trinity but Trinity still has the Head to Head (H2H) win.

• CMS and SU tie in criteria.

• Whittier wins the criteria battle over Trinity and holds a H2H win.

• Whittier wins the criteria battle over SU.

• SU wins the criteria battle over Trinity.

The above means the RAC will probably go with a CMS, Whittier, SU and Trinity ordering (although I hedged my bet above a bit). If you are interested in my ordering, I would go SU, Trinity, CMS and Whittier and here’s why. Southwestern and Trinity are really close in the criteria and their signature ranked wins are pretty even but SU has the more recent win over Trinity and if you look at their Colorado College match, SU went 5-sets while Trinity was swept. SU is just playing better right now. SU and CMS tie in their criteria battle but I like Southwestern’s signature ranked wins better. SU has UW-Whitewater and Chris Newport while Juniata is the CMS big win (outside the SCIAC). With Whittier, I just have trouble with this team being in this top tier when they lose 7 matches and didn’t look good early against Cal Lutheran in a loss. In addition, although Whittier has a better Ranked Win percentage, SU has better signature wins in my mind. With Trinity and CMS it all comes down to what compensates for a direct H2H victory? Their W/L is pretty even. CMS has a small SOS lead but that’s not enough. It really comes down to that 5-set Whittier loss for Trinity and the question which match was the fluke? Trinity’s really close 4-set CMS win or the really close 5-set loss to Whittier? My tiebreaker again comes down to the strength of their signature wins and I like Trinity’s. Having said that, I really don’t have a problem with CMS being ranked ahead of Trinity. With Whittier, as I said above, it comes down to too many losses. In fairness to the Poets and their H2H win over Trinity, I also would not have a problem with them being ranked ahead of Trinity.

Wow…so in summary, for this group I like SU, Trinity, CMS and Whittier or SU, CMS, Whittier and Trinity. It’s that close folks. As you see above, I kind of split the difference between what I think the RAC will do and what I believe. A sure sign that I will be wrong.

The next tier (or group) consists of La Verne, UMHB and Pacific Lutheran as I don’t think UTD, UTT or Chapman will break into that little click. One item of note that worries me a bit is that with the insertion of Ranked Wins this week, you can start to make a case for Pac Lu to move into this first tier of teams over Southwestern and Trinity just because there are not a lot of data points in common. Again, if you look at the overall resume of the teams it should be pretty obvious and it will come down to how the RAC uses the Ranked Wins criterion.

Now for the criteria Battle Royal for these teams:

• UMHB wins the criteria battle over La Verne.

• Pac Lu wins the criteria battle over La Verne.

• UMHB wins the criteria battle over Pac Lu.

Now, again, this was looking at things at face value. If I dive deeper into the ranked win teams and signature wins, I like Pac Lu’s wins more and then La Verne’s. So, if I assume the RAC will go off pure numbers (face value) then they should have UMHB, Pac Lu and La Verne where I might do Pac Lu, La Verne and UMHB. The problem for UMHB is that I only count three matches where they played ranked teams and going 2-1 (wins over Birmingham-Southern and Susquehanna with a loss to Trinity) just doesn’t cut it for me. As you can see from my order above, I think the RAC will balk at moving UMHB higher up their list.

So, where am I wrong? Other than Colorado College the answer might be everywhere! I think we’ll be in agreement on the 8 teams again this week. I think the Cal Lu loss by Whittier might shake the RAC up a bit and I think the Chapman loss by La Verne might do the same. I think the RAC sees UMHB as a good team but one that has run up a great W/L record at the expense of SOS. I will be disappointed if the Whittier loss to Cal Lutheran doesn’t factor in and if we see more of the face value approach that could leave us with (gulp) CC, CMS, Whittier, Pac Lu, Trinity, SU, UMHB and La Verne.