This is going to be a pretty quick description for now, with more in-depth explainer to come.
As a reminder, we take the automatic bids, and we take the NCAA’s selection criteria, and we project the at-large bids, then create a bracket out of it.
The one Pool B bid went to Chapman and the 20 Pool C bids went as selected, in the following order:
Kean
Bowdoin
UW-Whitewater
Greensboro
Rochester
Johns Hopkins
Louisiana College
UW-La Crosse
Colby
Williams
Eastern Connecticut
Messiah
Hope
St. Vincent
Lewis and Clark
Washington U.
Gallaudet
Medaille
Ithaca
Simpson
The teams left on the board: Mary Washington, Wheaton (Ill.), Oneonta State, Baldwin-Wallace, Gettysburg, Bates and Maryville. Wartburg was next in the West when Simpson was taken with the last spot.
I talked to one former committee member tonight who said that when they were on the committee, if you weren’t ranked, you didn’t get in. In men’s basketball we know that the regional committees rank extra teams so that there are more at-large candidates available in case they run out. In women’s, they said that didn’t happen — if a region ran out, they simply had an empty spot on the board.
I called that “ludicrous” — thankfully I don’t think that’s the case anymore. If it is, Thomas More doesn’t get in.
And from that, here’s our bracket: Projected 2011 women’s basketball bracket
The NCAA makes its announcement starting at 3 p.m. ET on Monday.
Correction to your post– St. Vincent does not get in if the Great Lakes spot on the national board is left blank after Hope gets selected as a Pool C.
Thomas More is the Presidents Conference AQ- they are already in.
St. Vincent did get ranked once by the Great Lakes Regional Advisory Committee, so they are a regionally ranked opponent under “once ranked, always ranked” even if they are not in the top 6 in the Great Lakes. I put up the tourney resume for St. Vincent last night in the women’s Pool C forum to people to review.
Therefore, St. Vincent should be put on the national board in the Great Lakes spot for Pool C consideration after Hope gets a Pool C pick.