This is it, this is where the playoffs happen.

Last year, on a drive up to Thiel for the Johns Hopkins/Thiel game, Keith McMillan and I wrote down predicted scores for each of the first-round games, compared them and posted them on the blog.

Well, actually, I wrote my scores down. When I was done, I asked Keith for his scores. He was driving, after all.

Long trip.

But anyway, it turned into something we carried through the rest of the playoffs. Interesting to see the varying takes on the game.

Here we are. I invited Keith to e-mail his before he looks at these. We made our picks as independently of each other as possible.

North
Pat: Mount Union 52, Hope 7; Wheaton 42, Mt. St. Joseph 6; North Central 24, Concordia (Wis.) 21, Capital 50, Wittenberg 14
Keith: Mount Union 49, Hope 7; Wheaton 34, Mt. St. Joseph 21; Concordia (Wis.) 24, North Central 21 (OT); Capital 55, Wittenberg 14
Toss-ups: North Central/Concordia (Wis.)

East
Pat: Wilkes 31, Washington & Lee 3; Rowan 34, Hobart 10; St. John Fisher 31, Union 20; Springfield 48, Curry 24
Keith: Wilkes 20, Washington & Lee 0; Rowan 17, Hobart 13; St. John Fisher 42, Union 38; Curry 31, Springfield 28 (OT)
Toss-ups: Curry/Springfield

South
Pat: Wesley 48, Dickinson 12; Millsaps 35, Carnegie Mellon 34; Christopher Newport 28, Washington and Jefferson 27; Mary Hardin-Baylor 31, Hardin-Simmons 28
Keith: Wesley 42, Dickinson 21; Millsaps 35, Carnegie Mellon 28; Christopher Newport 28, Washington and Jefferson 17; Mary Hardin-Baylor 27, Hardin-Simmons 21 (OT)
Toss-ups: None, other than the margin in Delaware.

West
Pat: UW-Whitewater 62, St. Norbert 3; UW-La Crosse 24, Bethel 21; Whitworth 21, Occidental 19; St. John’s 20, Central 19 (OT)
Keith: UW-Whitewater 52, St. Norbert 14; UW-LaCrosse 35, Bethel 28; Whitworth 23,
Occidental 17; Central 23, St. John’s 21
Toss-ups: Central/St. John’s

I’ll be at Springfield, the guy taking pictures in the D3football.com hat. Keith will be calling color on one of our D3football.com broadcasts for NCAASports.com at Carnegie Mellon.

Alright, well, I’ve had the bracket in my hands for almost five hours so I’ve probably come to grips with it, but you guys haven’t had it nearly as long so it’s time to let out those pent-up frustrations.

I would really like to get to the bottom of the Millsaps mileage issue. The folks on the committee told me that the number they got was higher than 500 miles, so I’d like to know what it takes to standardize these distances. There’s a Web site the NCAA mandates schools to use to determine whether a game is in-region and that is indeed the site I used. Why they got different numbers, neither of us is sure.

In the end, it just means we have a regional semifinal one week early.

Looking forward to the potential matchup of Rowan and Wilkes in the second round. That should be a great game. Rowan is just getting its offense in gear and I’m not sure that Hobart, which struggled with William Paterson and others, can keep up. Wilkes is strong on defense as well. I haven’t seen the field since September, so I wonder what it looks like now.

Springfield, as I mentioned on the air, is in shape to play two games on turf, which bodes well for their offense. They need a lower seed to advance out of the other half of the bracket so they can continue to host on turf. They would get that if Rowan were to beat Wilkes, but I also doubt the Springfield/St. John Fisher potential rematch in round two would replicate round one. Springfield will still be favored but that doesn’t mean the game will be the same.

Can anyone aside from Capital hang with Mount Union in the top bracket? Can Capital even do it?

Kind of a neat story to get two long-time playoff drought teams together in round one in Pittsburgh. Contrast in styles, too.

West, two storied programs meet in the first round in Pella, while Bethel tries again to get the first-round monkey off its back.

Floor open for your thoughts.

It’s all over but the number crunching, right?

Some years Pool B is a bear. Pool C is always a bear. And bracketing the teams is often easy to project but distasteful to do thanks to the NCAA’s grip on the pursestrings.

This year, at least, Pool B is easy. Three teams ran the table and finished 10-0, with Washington & Jefferson finishing 9-1. There were no other one-loss teams … or teams with two overall losses … in Pool B. Carnegie Mellon will give the UAA a playoff representative for the first time since 1999.

Pool C was not as easy. There are nine teams with one loss and only seven spots in Pool C. This year our team of bracketologists went one step further in our playoff projections, mocking up the final regional rankings that the committee will work from. We felt this was important with the shuffling in the East Region and especially the West, because Pool C candidates are evaluated in the order in which they are ranked in the region. The top team on the board in each of the four regions are evaluated against each other, and once a team is put in the field, the next team from its region replaces it on the list.

These are the primary criteria (not in priority order) which will be reviewed by the NCAA:
• Win-loss percentage against regional opponents
• In-region head-to-head competition
• In-region results against common regional opponents
• In-region results vs. regionally ranked teams.
Opponents are considered ranked only if they are ranked at the time of the ranking or playoff selection process.
• Quality of wins index–only contests versus regional competition (see Quality of Wins on the left-hand rail for most recent calculation)
• Conference postseason contest(s) is included.

One thing was brought home to me over the past year: Note that some areas say “results” against regional opponents, regionally ranked teams, etc. This does not say winning percentage. It’s possible that merely playing a regionally ranked team and losing is better than going 0-0. Something to keep in mind.

Here’s our best guess at the Field of 32, through the end of the regular season.

Wilkes Bracket
1. Wilkes (A)
2. Springfield (A)
3. St. John Fisher (C)
4. Hobart (C)
5. Union (A)
6. Rowan (A)
7. Dickinson (A)
8. Curry (A)
Hobart and Union are conference rivals, who do not need to meet in the first round as long as the NCAA’s “geographic proximity” is maintained. Curry plays at Wilkes, Dickinson at Springfield, Union at St. John Fisher and Rowan at Hobart. Dickinson moves over because … alas … we do not project Cortland State to be in the bracket. More on those decisions later.

Mount Union Bracket
1. Mount Union (A)
2. Capital (C)
3. Concordia (Wis.) (A)
4. Wheaton (C)
5. Mt. St. Joseph (A)
6. North Central (A)
7. Wittenberg (A)
8. Hope (A)
No shuffling required here. Remember, the NCAA has not flinched in the past at rematches of teams that met in non-conference games. Therefore, Wittenberg playing Capital again and Concordia and North Central meeting up is not a problem. Mt. St. Joseph cost itself a home game with its loss to Thomas More. Again note who’s absent, just the two Pool C teams in this bracket.

Wesley Bracket
1. Wesley (B)
2. Mary Hardin-Baylor (A)
3. Hardin-Simmons (C)
4. Carnegie Mellon (B)
5. Washington and Jefferson (B)
6. Christopher Newport (A)
7. Millsaps (A)
8. Washington and Lee (A)
Wow, Washington and Lee, falling behind a team that wasn’t even in the regional rankings last week. Ouch. Bad way to go into the playoffs. Now, of course, this is a vastly geographically challenged bracket. Millsaps can get to Mary Hardin-Baylor in 491.7 miles according to the NCAA’s approved mapping software (Mappoint, available to all online, with the shortest possible distance setting as always). This opens up a potential flight to bring someone to Hardin-Simmons, and Christopher Newport is seeded perfectly for the task. The two Pittsburgh-area teams play each other … and Washington and Lee goes to Wesley.

Wait, did we just construct a South bracket where the seedings hold true? Stop the presses!

Oh, right, no presses on the Web. So we march on.

UW-Whitewater Bracket
1. UW-Whitewater (A)
2. Central (A)
3. Whitworth (B)
4. UW-La Crosse (C)
5. Occidental (A)
6. Bethel (A)
7. St. John’s (C)
8. St. Norbert (A)
This is another bracket that requires a flight, with Occidental and Whitworth the logical teams to pair. St. Norbert treks to Whitewater, St. John’s to Central and Bethel to UW-La Crosse.

So our seven Pool C teams: Capital, St. John Fisher, Hobart, Wheaton, Hardin-Simmons, UW-La Crosse and St. John’s. The final three teams at the end were St. John’s, Cortland State and Franklin. (Trinity, as the top remaining South team, was also on the board but wasn’t a factor.) All three have very similar criteria.

We pondered some bracket scenarios in case the NCAA selected Franklin. That would put them in the North bracket in the No. 6 spot. North Central, most likely, would lift out of the North and head to the West where they would be a No. 8 seed, behind St. Norbert in most of the criteria. If they selected Cortland, then Dickinson stays in the South as the No. 6, Washington and Jefferson would likely move to the North, likely as the No. 6, and North Central goes to the West.