Oh yeah … February is here and the final 25 days leading up to Selection Sunday/Matchup Monday are just going to get more and more crazy.
Some of you don’t even check in here until February begins, and while we certainly welcome you, where have you been? You’ve missed a lot. But we have a lot to get to, as well.
Don’t forget, these tournaments expanded last year. There are 59 men’s teams heading to the NCAA Tournament — 37 automatic bids, three Pool B bids which are set aside for teams not in those conferences, and 19 at-large bids for the teams remaining. In women’s action, there are 63 teams going: 39 conferences have automatic bids, four Pool B bids are set aside and there are 20 at-large bids.
New automatic bids go to the North Eastern Athletic Conference men and women and the Great South Athletic Conference women. The new Northern Athletics Conference won’t be eligible for an automatic bid until 2009.
Remember, too, the NCAA is only going to give us the names of the teams in the tournament on Selection Sunday. They can’t come up with pairings on Sunday anymore, so we’ve dubbed the following day, the day we get the brackets, as Matchup Monday.
It’s a little early to give a good read as to who’s on the bubble, though I did get a call from the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun this afternoon and gave them my thoughts on a scenario they proposed in which Wittenberg fails to beat Wooster both this weekend and in the NCAC final. (I suggested it would probably be 50-50.)
We still have about 3,000 games left to be played. It’s going to be wild.
Remember, too, that one of the most important insights into the selection process is the NCAA’s regional rankings. We get the first of these this coming Wednesday, Feb. 7.
As a Wooster grad, I find it quite interesting that the News-Sun would ask such a question. 😀
Why 59 and 63 teams? Why not a round 64? Why should any team get a bye to the second round? Surely there are a few more teams worthy of at-large bids.
The Division III guidelines across the board are one spot for every 6.5 schools that sponsor the sport, with a maximum of 64 (32 for football).
A few more schools come into Division III each year. The tournament is supposed to expand bit by bit.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year….. 😀 😉
The D3hoops.com broadcast crew reporting in from ’99 miles to Philly’ — a cheesesteak place in the Village. 🙂
Ray Martel has seen the Wash U women’s team play a heck of a lot more than I have and he says he’s never seen the Bears look so awful. Painful game to watch from my perspective. NYU defense was just suffocating, especially on the perimeter. Mucho credit to Janice Quinn.
Pat: Is this ’99 miles to Philadelphia’ or ’99 miles to Philly’?
Ray: Why, you blogging?
🙂
I have to say, few places outside of Philadelphia serve really good cheesesteaks though many sully the moniker by trying.
I will now beat my chest while listening to the Rocky theme song.
Well, I was at a hockey game last night, am juggling three games in 3.5 hours today and it is -11 right now in St. Peter, MN.
I could go for a really good authentic Philly cheese steak right about now. 🙂