We’re getting uncomfortably close to Selection Monday and the usual questions are coming up about how the tournament is selected, where it will be held, and the like.
Although this (and many other topics) is primarily covered in our site FAQ, it seems like a front-page summary would be helpful. After all, this is the first season with a significantly different setup.
The women’s tournament expands from 50 to 63 teams. (Why 63? Division III allocates tournament bids equally across all sports, one for every 6.5 schools that are eligible for the playoffs in a given sport.) Thirty-eight conferences get automatic bids (also known as AQs for ‘automatic qualifier’ or less commonly as ‘Pool A’). Four bids are set aside for the schools who are not in those conferences (Pool B). The final 21 bids are for everyone left, in Pool C. In recent years Pool C bids were hard to come by, but the expanded tournament field was essentially entirely allocated to Pool C. One team gets a first-round bye. Two teams play on Wednesday, March 1, with the winner advancing to play that team. This is not a play-in game, it’s a first-round game like any other, the equivalent of an 8/9 game.
The men’s tournament expands from 48 to 59. Thirty-seven conferences get automatic bids, four Pool B bids go to teams outside those conferences and the remaining 18 bids are Pool C. That means five teams get a first-round bye and 10 teams play off on Thursday, March 2 to meet them. These Thursday games are the equivalent of 8/9 games and 7/10 games.
To combat a perceived issue with missed class time, the NCAA basketball committees have compacted the tournament dates. Whereas all first-round games used to be played on Wednesday for women and Thursday for men, now teams will meet in four-team regionals on Friday and Saturday to play first- and second-round games. Follow closely, here’s where it gets confusing:
In the women’s bracket, there are 15 regionals with first-round games on Friday and second-round games on Saturday. The remaining second-round game includes the team that got the first-round bye and is played on Saturday.
In the men’s bracket, there are 11 regionals with first-round games on Friday and second-round games on Saturday. The remaining second-round games includes the five teams that got the first-round bye and are played on Saturday.
The new format strips home-court advantage from 11 men’s teams and 15 women’s teams that would have gotten home games in previous years. First-round games played in great atmospheres in previous years, such as the night Southern Vermont packed the gym in a snowstorm and beat Lasell, when Calvin knocked off Wheaton on the road last season, or when the Case Western Reserve women hit a three at the end to beat Mt. St. Mary, now all get played on neutral floors in front of a couple hundred people. Some schools might never see an on-campus home game in this situation.
Why are there some games played Wednesday or Thursday? So the teams with first-round byes don’t get an inordinate advantage by hosting a team with less than one night to prepare.
The remaining first-round games are played March 3 and all second-round games are played March 4. These are the regionals. The sectionals are the next set of games, played March 10-11 with four teams again meeting at one campus site. Those sites are announced on Sunday, March 5. The winners of those sectionals meet at the Final Four, which is held for men at Salem, Va., as it has been since 1996. The women’s Final Four is at Springfield College in Springfield, Mass. The games are played March 17-18.
It usually takes a pretty decent gym to host sectionals, but I have been told that the standards will be less strict for hosting a regional. They might even used split admissions (clearing the gym between games) in some locations to accomodate ticket demand.
OK, that was pretty complex, but it gets even geekier from here. You may read talk about the NCAA ranking and selection criteria. Here they are:
• In-region winning percentage.
• In-region Quality of Wins Index.
• In-region head-to-head competition.
• In-region results vs. common regional opponents.
• In-region results vs. regionally ranked teams
(Ranked opponents are defined as those teams ranked at the time of the ranking/
selection process only.)
• Conference postseason contest(s) is included.
• Contest versus provisional members in their third and fourth years shall count
in the primary criteria. Provisional members shall remain ineligible for rankings
and selection.
Secondary criteria are as follows. We can’t tell if they actually use these:
• Out-of-region head-to-head competition.
• Overall Division III won-loss percentage.
• Results versus common non-Division III opponents.
• Results versus Division III teams ranked in other regions.
• Overall win-loss percentage.
• Results versus common out-of-region opponents.
• Overall Division III Quality of Wins.
• Should a committee find that evaluation of a team’s win-loss percentage during
the last 25 percent of the season is applicable (i.e., send of season performance),
it may adopt such criteria with approval from the championships committee.
I have probably left something out. Please let me know, or fire questions away. The good thing about the past few years is a lot of fans have become very knowledgeable about the tournament setup as well and can answer if I don’t get to it right away.