From now until the end of the regular season you may well see a lot of Division III buzzwords floating about on our front page, here in the Daily Dose and on our message boards. Pool A, Pool B, Pool C, OWP, OOWP … what do those all mean?

Pool A, Pool B and Pool C are the labels given to groups (also known as Pools) of bids awarded to the playoffs. The field is 61 men’s teams and 64 women’s teams culminating in the Final Four and national title games in Salem, Va. (men) and Bloomington, Ill. (women).

Understanding Pool A is fairly simple — let’s just pretend that ‘A’ stands for automatic. Those are the automatic bids that are awarded. There are 42 conferences with men’s automatic bids and 43 conferences with women’s automatic bids. Every conference other than the UAA awards its automatic bid to the winner of a conference tournament.

If you are not in one of those conferences, there is one bid set aside for you, which is what’s referred to as Pool B. The best team out of that group, which includes independents and (for men only) the Great South Athletic Conference teams, gets a bid as well.

Every eligible team not already selected is dropped into Pool C, which consists of 18 men’s and 20 women’s at-large bids. At-large bids are determined using the NCAA’s criteria, which includes regional winning percentage, strength of schedule, head-to-head competition, results against common opponents and results against regionally ranked teams.

If your conference has an automatic bid and your team doesn’t win it, then you are only eligible for Pool C bids. If your conference doesn’t have an automatic bid, you are eligible for Pool B or, if you don’t make that cut, Pool C.

Q: Why is the women’s tournament 64 but the men’s only 61?
A: There are more schools with women’s basketball teams than men’s basketball teams. As more schools join Division III (or more women’s-only schools go co-ed), the men’s tournament will grow to 64. In fact, we only need one more eligible team to get a 62-team men’s basketball NCAA Tournament field.

Q: How can my team guarantee it will get into the playoffs?
A: Win your conference’s automatic bid. There’s no guarantees otherwise.

Q: If the two best teams are in the same region, will they be placed in separate brackets?
A: This is at least possible, but highly unlikely. They don’t seed this tournament like a D-I tournament, unfortunately. Teams are placed in groups according to geography and seeded, though keeping teams from having to travel 500 miles in the first round is more important to the NCAA than maintaining proper matchups. We can expect from history that the women’s basketball committee will do its best to separate the top teams. The history in men’s basketball is mixed at best.

Q: There are a lot of criteria to go through. How can I tell where my team stands?
A: The NCAA releases regional rankings over the final weeks of the regular season, starting today. However, being No. 6 in one region doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ahead of a team that’s No. 7 in one of the other seven.

Q: So if I’m ranked seventh in these rankings, I’m in the playoffs?
A: No. There are still the 42/43 automatic bids. They’ll all get in first. Take the automatic bids out of the rankings (and keep in mind some conferences don’t have anyone in these rankings) and one Pool B team, then the remaining 18/20 get in.

Q: We’re ranked in the D3hoops.com Top 25. Since the bracket has more than 60 teams, we should be in, right?
A: Unfortunately, no. We would love to be able to say that’s the case, but remember that there are still all those automatic bids. Plus, the NCAA doesn’t agree with us as to who the best at-large teams are.

Q: Can you explain more about the various playoff selection/regional ranking criteria?
A: Absolutely. We have a whole section of our FAQ devoted to the NCAA Tournament, with that and game dates and the list of conferences with automatic bids.

Q: I have a question you haven’t answered. What do I do?
A: E-mail info@d3sports.com and/or post below in the comments section.

NCAA · Pool B · Pool C · primer · Regional rankings · Tournament

La Sierra’s long trip through the provisional membership process, trying to become a Division III member, took a wrong turn this past fall and finally has come to an end. The NCAA’s Division III membership committee reported that “In regards to La Sierra University, the institution that was instructed to rejoin the process as a year one institution, it is trying to do the right thing and attempting to understand what it takes to be a Division III institution.”

La Sierra, in Southern California, could have been through the four-year process and become an active member of Division III by now, in a spot of the country that could desperately use more Division III schools. Instead, the school has joined the NAIA, according to a release this week.

It isn’t easy to become a Division III school. Many of the schools that start the process are not fully prepared to do so, especially those that have to add sports, in some cases several, to make the minimum. In this case, La Sierra has finally washed out of the process.

joining Division III · La Sierra · NCAA · provisional members · Southern California

I just wanted to write to say it’s a heck of a lot nicer here than the last time I was in Salem, Va.

It’s a beautiful day, with the temperature hitting 70, making me wish I had time to go out and play a round of golf. Or that I were capable of playing golf.

Getting ready for Hoopsville tonight, games tomorrow and the All-American announcement on Saturday. Oh, and the All-Star Game and championship game, too.

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A D3hoops.com reader named Mike Sullivan passed along his essential nickname guide to the NCAA Tournament, also calling it “Musings Over Lunch while avoiding going back to work.”

We know how that goes. His take follows:

In bracket order, beginning with men’s bracket.

SUNYIT Wildcats at Williams Ephs – SUNYIT soccer team more well known, the Wildcat Strikers

Rhode Island College Anchormen vs. Brandeis Judges – prefer the band to the Supreme Court

Wooster Scots at Guilford Quakers – good, the Woos crush Earlham Quakers all year long

Eastern Mennonite Royals vs. Whitworth Pirates – Whitworth higher-seed than cross-town Gonzaga

Texas-Dallas Comets at UW-Stevens Point Pointers – a little creativity problem in dairy country?

Illinois Wesleyan Titans vs. Carthage Red Men – ironic that D-III has the least politically correct nicknames, I thought these were all Liberal Artsy Fartsy colleges

Franklin & Marshall Diplomats at St. Mary’s Seahawks – F&M only team named for a cigar

Randolph-Macon Yellow Jackets vs. DeSales Bulldogs – no NCAA bubble anxiety for these Yellow Jackets

Charging on to the Women’s bracket.

Williams Ephs at Amherst Lord Jeffs – if men and women both win, Williams expands to become Eph U. Rhymes with reef, not with ref? What is it, short for Ephesians?

Gettysburg Bullets vs. Babson Beavers – Gettysburg Bullets basketball teams known informally as the Bay O Nets

Mount Union Purple Raiders at Washington Bears – MU trying to make up for pathetic 2nd place football finish

George Fox Bruins vs. Carthage Lady Reds – why not the Ladies in Red (Are Dancing With Me)

Bowdoin Polar Bears at Kean Cougars – the ultimate who’s the predator, who’s the prey matchup

Christopher Newport Captains vs. Rochester Yellowjackets – always confusing pregame coin-flips with Captains’ captains

UW Stevens Point Pointers at Illinois Wesleyan Titans – women’s teams also known as the Pointer Sisters

Marymount Saints vs. Hope Flying Dutchmen – office colleague and her husband making the 760-mile trek to cheer on the Saints, and why Flying Dutchmen? The Hope Eternal Springs is so much more marketable

OK, I’m worn out. Go Polar Bears! Go Scots! Go Saints!

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Holly Harvey, a junior guard for Illinois Wesleyan, checks in as her Titans get set to host Franklin in the first round of the NCAA tournament. She has lots of reasons to enjoy March and is hoping to add another big one on March 20.

I have always looked forward to the month of March. My birthday is on the 10th and what kid wouldn’t anticipate the one day a year when it’s all about them and they get showered with gifts? Now that I am older and a little more mature March holds my anticipation for a number of other reasons. Our spring break always falls the week of St. Patrick’s Day (another reason to be a fan of March) and I find myself counting down the days to it after the final week of February was filled with tests and papers. These days I also owe my love for this month to college basketball.

I log some of my longest hours of watching TV in March because I try and catch as much of the Division I NCAA tournaments as possible. It’s convenient that the opening days of the tournaments fall during spring break so I do not have to worry about whether or not I’d be able to drag myself away from the TV to go to class. Since I have been at Illinois Wesleyan the highlight of my March has been the Division III NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.

All three of my years we have gotten the automatic bid from the CCIW. We are excited to begin our journey in the NCAA Tournament at our Shirk Center as we are a host for the first two rounds. We have Franklin College in our first game and if we are successful we will face either Simpson College or the University of Chicago. We are familiar with Chicago as we faced them at their place in December and won by 7. Just as we are starting our NCAA journey at Shirk we are hoping to end it there.

We have known for a while now that we are hosting the Final Four. It has been pretty hard to not look forward to those games and see ourselves playing for a national championship on our home court. When we find ourselves daydreaming about being in the Final Four we snap out of it and realize the games leading up to it will not just be handed to us because we are hosting. Every team we might face made the tournament for a reason and will challenge us to perform at our best.

We’ve been working hard all season for these important challenges that are about to come our way. I am confident that we are ready and have the potential to do some amazing things in the tournament. We are just going to take it one game at a time and not look past any of our opponents. Hopefully everything works out for us and March 2010 will be one of the most memorable months of my life.

Illinois Wesleyan · NCAA Tournament