Last night I started running numbers with the intent of producing a full bracket, but was unable to do so before having to give up and get some sleep. Sleep is precious this time of year — way too much work to do and not enough time to do it.
But I got far enough through it to generate something useful, and that was my Pool C rankings. Here’s were I saw the teams shaking out if the season ended Wednesday night:
Pool C
1 UW-Stevens Point
2 Middlebury
3 Guilford
4 Virginia Wesleyan
5 Wheaton (Ill.)
6 Lycoming
7 Richard Stockton
8 Illinois Wesleyan
9 Colby
10 Brandeis
11 Randolph-Macon
12 Rutgers-Newark
13 Messiah
14 Oneonta State
15 Mary Hardin-Baylor
16 Ithaca
17 Augsburg
18 York (Pa.)
19 Defiance
After that, the teams on the board were Ramapo, NYU, Calvin, Wesley, Western Connecticut, DePauw, UW-La Crosse. Augustana was next behind Defiance.
To do this, of course, I had to pick champions in a bunch of conferences, to determine who the Pool C teams would be. Mostly these are top seeds, or top teams in the regional rankings from each conference.
Pool A Projected winner
AMCC Medaille
ASC Texas-Dallas
CAC St. Mary’s (Md.)
CC Franklin and Marshall
CSAC Cabrini
CUNYAC York (N.Y.)
CCIW Carthage
CCC Gordon
E8 St. John Fisher
GNAC Albertus Magnus
HCAC Anderson
IIAC Central
LAND Merchant Marine
LL St. Lawrence
LEC Rhode Island College
MASCAC Bridgewater State
MIAA Hope
MAC-C Albright
MAC-F DeSales
MWC St. Norbert
MIAC St. Thomas
NESCAC Williams
NEWMAC MIT
NJAC William Paterson
NAC Maine-Farmington
NATHC Aurora
NCAC Wooster
NEAC SUNYIT
NWC Whitworth
OAC John Carroll
ODAC Eastern Mennonite
PAC Thomas More
SLIAC Westminster (Mo.)
SKY SUNY-Old Westbury
SCIAC Claremont-Mudd-Scripps
SCAC Austin
SUNYAC Plattsburgh State
UAA Washington U.
USAC North Carolina Wesleyan
WIAC UW-Whitewater
It’s a rough first draft, and nothing ever accounts for conference tournament upsets. But the further down you are on the Pool C list, the less safe you are is someone on the Pool A list gets upset.
“agree with your top five in Pool C. Next that would rate Ill.Wes., Brandeis Colby, R-M, ahead of Lycoming & Dick Stockton. Beyond that would defer to you on the rest of your list although think that Rutgers-Newark is going home because of last night’s L. to Dick Stockton. Don’t see the NJAC getting 3 in. As far as the rest of the bubble teams, like maybe Wesley, & particularly WesConn who ought to definitely get a look by virtue of #2 in LEC, aided by a run to the title game. Ramapo is out because they got suffocated last night @ Bill Paterson (NJAc again)
Maybe an unmentioned sleeper is Skidmore (young but capable if their 3’s are going down, although they could use a better inside game) to beat St. Lawrence in the LL. NYU is 7-6 or something like that in the UAA, a decent squad, but not anything to writer home about. Can’t comment on the West at large. Haven’t seen them & have no feel. RM.
Clubbo — Western Conn didn’t get in by virtue of their sub-.500 strength of schedule.
I agree the NJAC seems an unlikely conference to get three teams in, but the Atlantic committee has stacked the regional rankings making it impossible to consider any non-NJAC teams out of that region. The NJAC teams have reasonable SOS’s across the board.
Pat: hear you on NJAC’s SOS’s & regional rankings. Think 3’s the limit though. Stand by my WesConn thought because although SOS @469, they are 4-0 vs. Eastern & Mass-dart (both well over 500) pending tonite’s game vs. Eastern. If either Mass-D. or Eastern win, then they would merit consideration. With that
scenario maybe LEC gets 3 in because 5 of RIC’s losses were early on. As far as the rest of the eastern bracket goes, Colby is in a tough spot if they don’t advance, but think nescac is overall tougher than say WPI’s road in the newmac if it comes down to those two. Also that they have more wins than Ithaca, or NYU, and less L’s than LEC runners-up. Note that last nite, Wesley moved on & also because of St. Thomas falling @ home( in the MIAC) that they’re now a high up Pool C addition not contemplated earlier. Wondering -but doubtful – if the GNAC could get two. Saying that if Albertus Magnus wins (@ home) over Emerson, Emerson would a still be a 20 win squad with a decent SOS. Don’t know if that conference is regarded strongly enough to produce two bids. This stuff certainly can give you a headache. Go Panthers. RM.
So are those pool c teams, the ones you think will get at large bids, if they don’t win their conferences?
Right, Pool C is the true at-large teams. So that’s the ranking as to where they stand, in our mind, according to the criteria the NCAA uses to select teams.
St. Thomas getting knocked off changes the list somewhat. A rough estimate through last night:
Pool C
1 UW-Stevens Point
2 Middlebury
3 Guilford
4 St. Thomas
5 Virginia Wesleyan
6 Wheaton (Ill.)
7 Lycoming
8 Richard Stockton
9 Illinois Wesleyan
10 Colby
11 Brandeis
12 Randolph-Macon
13 Rutgers-Newark
14 Messiah
15 Oneonta State
16 Mary Hardin-Baylor
17 Ithaca
18 Defiance
19 Wesley
IWU beats Wheaton… I just don’t see them getting in if there are too many other upsets… I think they were too high at 5 or 6 to begin with, and with this loss, they’ll drop.
On what grounds are they as high as they are…? Wheaton now has 8 regional losses and a .680 winning percentage. La Crosse is at .667 with a higher SOS.
what are the chances of John Carroll University getting in NCAA Tournament seeing that they lost in semifinal game and if they get in will they host any games.
Do the St Lawrence women have a chance of pool c with the ranking 0f 3-0 vs ranked teams?