The NCAA Division III men’s and women’s basketball committees released their first regional rankings of the 2005-06 season Wednesday afternoon. The first record listed is the record in regional games, followed by overall record, through Sunday, Feb. 5.
The number of teams ranked in the men’s poll is relative to the number of teams in each region.
Men
Atlantic
1. Baruch 18-1 20-3
2. William Paterson 14-5 15-6
3. New Jersey 12-5 14-5
4. SUNY-Farmingdale 12-4 15-4
5. Mount St. Mary 15-4 18-4
East
1. Cortland State 18-1 19-2
2. St. John Fisher 14-1 16-3
3. New York University 16-3 17-3
4. Hamilton 13-3 17-3
5. Rochester 11-5 14-6
Great Lakes
1. Wooster 16-1 20-1
2. Hope 13-1 19-1
3. Carnegie Mellon 13-2 17-3
4. Baldwin-Wallace 16-2 18-2
5. Wittenberg 14-2 19-2
6. Calvin 7-1 16-5
Mid-Atlantic
1. York (Pa.) 16-2 18-2
2. Widener 16-3 17-3
3. Ursinus 15-3 16-5
4. Lincoln 11-4 19-4
T5. Alvernia 14-3 17-4
T5. Johns Hopkins 14-3 16-4
7. Catholic 13-4 15-5
8. Messiah 13-5 14-7
Midwest
1. Lawrence 17-0 19-0
2. Augustana 18-0 19-1
3. Transylvania 17-3 18-3
T4. Carroll 16-2 18-2
T4. Illinois Wesleyan 11-3 17-3
6 Lakeland 14-3 18-5
7. North Central 10-4 16-4
8. Washington U. 10-5 13-7
Northeast
1. Amherst 19-1 20-2
2. Worcester Polytechnic 18-1 19-1
3. Tufts 16-3 17-4
4. Gordon 16-2 17-3
5. Bates 14-3 18-3
6. Williams 16-5 17-5
7. Trinity (Conn.) 13-3 16-4
8. Salem State 14-5 14-6
9. Norwich 12-3 12-5
10. Keene State 11-6 14-6
South
1. Mississippi College 17-1 19-1
2. Trinity (Texas) 12-2 16-5
3. Virginia Wesleyan 18-3 19-3
4. Fisk 9-2 14-7
5. Howard Payne 15-3 16-3
6. Randolph-Macon 14-5 17-5
7. Southwestern 12-4 16-5
8. Maryville (Tenn.) 13-5 17-5
West
1. Occidental 9-1 16-2
2. Puget Sound 12-1 17-3
3. UW-Stout 14-3 17-4
4. UW-La Crosse 15-5 17-5
5. Wartburg 15-3 17-4
6. Willamette 15-3 14-6
7. Carleton 12-4 15-5
8. UW-Whitewater 11-5 15-5
Women
Atlantic
1. Mary Washington 16-0 20-0
2. Mount St. Mary 17-2 19-2
3. Richard Stockton 16-3 17-4
4. Baruch 14-3 16-5
5. Catholic 13-6 15-6
6. New Jersey 12-6 13-7
Central
1. Maryville (Mo.) 10-0 16-4
2. Washington U. 12-2 18-2
3. Wheaton (Ill.) 12-2 17-3
4. Lawrence 14-2 18-2
5. Carroll 14-3 17-3
6. Illinois Wesleyan 12-4 15-6
East
1. Rochester 15-4 15-5
2. St. John Fisher 15-2 17-2
3. New York University 17-3 17-3
4. Cortland State 16-2 17-2
5. Medaille 17-1 18-1
6. William Smith 13-3 15-4
Great Lakes
1. DePauw 15-0 21-1
2. Baldwin-Wallace 17-0 19-2
3. Hope 16-1 19-1
4. Calvin 11-1 18-2
5. Capital 14-3 18-3
6. Otterbein 14-5 16-5
Mid-Atlantic
1. Scranton 14-0 20-1
2. Messiah 16-1 19-2
3. Muhlenberg 18-2 18-2
4. Johns Hopkins 13-2 16-4
5. Moravian 16-4 17-4
6. Gwynedd-Mercy 16-3 17-3
Northeast
1. Southern Maine 18-1 19-1
2. Bowdoin 15-2 18-2
3. Williams 15-3 18-3
4. Brandeis 15-3 15-3
5. Salem State 14-3 17-3
6. Bates 14-5 15-7
7. Wesleyan 14-4 15-6
8. Eastern Connecticut State 14-4 17-4
South
1. McMurry 18-1 20-1
2. Oglethorpe 16-2 18-3
3. Randolph-Macon 17-1 19-2
4. Hardin-Simmons 17-2 18-2
5. Mississippi College 16-3 16-3
6. Bridgewater (Va.) 17-4 17-4
West
1. Puget Sound 15-2 18-3
2. Pacific Lutheran 12-2 17-3
3. Simpson 12-0 17-3
4. St. Benedict 14-3 16-4
5. Concordia-Moorhead 14-4 15-5
6. Chapman 9-3 12-6
Just a reminder that the criteria they use for these rankings are regional record and the Quality of Wins Index (QOWI), as well as:
• 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.
I posted the latest QOWI numbers we had on the message board yesterday.
Men: http://www.d3sports.com/post/index.php?topic=2870.msg477549#msg477549
Women: http://www.d3sports.com/post/index.php?topic=2920.msg477561#msg477561
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.
Pat mentions on another part of this blog that some of the regional records shown above appear to be wrong. I checked the Men’s Great Lakes, and they’re all correct (as of this past Sunday) with the exception of Baldwin-Wallace, listed at 16-2 but actually 17-2 at the time, according to the records on this site.
This again begs the question that I raised a month or so ago in Posting Up: who is responsible for actually determining what is and isn’t a regional game? Is there some staffer in the NCAA office who gets to spend the day playing around with Microsoft Streets and Trips so s/he can answer the Great 200 Mile Question when it comes up? I used to wonder if that staffer just consulted this site for regional games, but it seems clear that they don’t.
It does us no good to understand the terms of the 200-mile rule if we don’t know how it is implemented.
The schools are responsible for posting their schedules on the NCAA’s database. (It’s the opposite way here — the schools are responsible for sending us the schedule but we do the entry.)
Knowing the e-mails and even phone calls we get from SIDs and coaches questioning why we have listed specific games as regional, there are a lot of schools out there who still, after three years, don’t know the rules. If those people are putting the schedules into the NCAA’s web site then the regional committees MUST double-check them. Some schools simply don’t know the rules and post games incorrectly. (And we see it on our site, too, where schools do have the option to post the schedule themselves and occasionally do.)
“Is there some staffer in the NCAA office who gets to spend the day playing around with Microsoft Streets and Trips so s/he can answer the Great 200 Mile Question when it comes up? I used to wonder if that staffer just consulted this site for regional games, but it seems clear that they don’t.” –David Collinge
This leads me to my perennial rant.
The NCAA seems to have no consequences for poor accountability in the administration of the one major product that it sells, namely the championships!
The “Mappoint” database should be done ONCE!
The master matrix for administrative regions should have be done years ago!
The Evaluation Region database by sport should be re-checked and proofed only as needed, and probably only once at the beginning of the summer before the next year!
Why are faulty practices permitted to continue year after year? Why does an organization that touts “best practices” not implement them? Why are the coaches and school personnel who serve long hours on behalf of student-athletes not given better support?
In fact, as a service to the beleaguered athletic departments, I would construct the authoritative and open database show “in-region” status, the nature of “in-region” status, and the mileage for coaches and AD’s to use in constructing their schedules. When it came time to enter the season schedule, in-region determinations would be done automatically. (It may exist that way and I don’t know it, but it doesn’t seem to be that way from these perennial episodes.)
Well, maybe we can put more pressure on the administrative people in Indianapolis to get it right next year.