The committee answers questions

NCAA men’s basketball committee chair Jim Dafler and women’s committee chair Karen Tessmer appeared on our Hoopsville broadcast earlier on Monday and took questions from us and from our listeners. Here’s what they had to say.

Click the play button below to listen. You can load the podcast page in iTunes or can also get this and any of our future Hoopsville podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://d3blogs.com/d3hoops/?feed=podcast

[display_podcast]

Hoopsville Podcast: March 2, Tournament Special

The brackets are announced for both the men and women’s Division III Basketball Championship Tournaments and despite plans, they were done simultaneously! That doesn’t mean we weren’t ready to get those brackets to you and get reaction from the Championship Committee Chairs! If you missed any of the show (or all of it)… take some time to listen to why some teams didn’t make the tourney, where the surprises where, and why some hosting decisions were made accordingly.

Guests included:
– Men’s Committee Chair Jim Dafler
– Women’s Committee Chair Karen Tessmer

[display_podcast]

Hoopsville Podcast: March 1, Selection Sunday

Well… it all came down to the games leading up until we hit the air on whether schools made the tournament or not. For some, too many upsets will leave them on the outside looking in. For others, the fact there is at-large bids will help keep their seasons alive.

So, to get everyone ready for the NCAA Tournament, Hoopsville doubled up and brought in extra help to help you. Gordon Mann and Brett Adams (Stevenson Univ. AD & Coach) came in studio as we previewed what we think will happen when the NCAA announces who is in and who is playing who on Monday.

Guests included:
– Mary Washington Women’s Coach Deana Applebury
– ODAC Commissioner Brad Bankston
– Gettysburg Coach Jeff Petrie
– Brandeis Coach Brian Meehan

Click the play button below to listen. You can load the podcast page in iTunes or can also get this and any of our future Hoopsville podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://d3blogs.com/d3hoops/?feed=podcast

[display_podcast]

Dance card: AQs clinched

The list is filling out and will keep doing so right up through Sunday afternoon. We’ll track who has clinched which automatic bids here throughout the weekend. The team’s conference tournament seeding is shown in parentheses.

Men’s tournament
AMCC: Medaille
ASC: Texas-Dallas
CAC: Wesley (2)
CCC: University of New England (1)
Centennial: Gettysburg
CCIW: Wheaton, Ill. (1)
CSAC: Gwynedd-Mercy (1)
CUNYAC: Brooklyn (2)
E8: Rochester Tech
GNAC: St. Joseph’s, Maine (3)
HCAC: Transylvania (1)
IIAC: Cornell (2)
LL: RPI (3)
LEC: Mass.-Dartmouth (2)
MACC: Widener (1)
MACF: DeSales (1)
MASCAC: Bridgewater State (2)
MIAA: Hope (2)
MWC: Lawrence (2)
MIAC: St. Thomas (1)
NAC: Husson (2)
NATHC: Aurora (5)
NCAC: Wooster (1)
NEAC: SUNYIT (1)
NESCAC: Middlebury (1)
NEWMAC: MIT
NJAC: Richard Stockton (1)
NWC: Whitworth (2)
OAC: John Carroll (1)
ODAC: Virginia Wesleyan (7)
PAC: Thomas More (1)
SCAC: Centre
SCIAC: Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (1)
SKY: St. Joseph’s, L.I. (2)
SLIAC: Fontbonne (1)
SUNYAC: Brockport State (8)
UAA: Washington U. (no tourney)
USAC: Averett (1)
WIAC: UW-Stevens Point (1)

Women’s tournament
AMCC: Pitt-Greensburg (1)
ASC: Howard Payne
CAC: Mary Washington (3)
CCC: Salve Regina (5)
Centennial: Muhlenberg (1)
CCIW: Illinois Wesleyan (1)
CSAC: Cabrini (1)
CUNYAC: Baruch (1)
E8: Stevens (3)
GNAC: Emmanuel (1)
GSAC: Maryville, Tenn. (1)
HCAC: Transylvania (1)
IIAC: Simpson (1)
LL: St. Lawrence (2)
LEC: Southern Maine (3)
MACC: Widener (4)
MACF: DeSales (1)
MASCAC: Westfield State (1)
MIAA: Hope (1)
MWC: Ripon (3)
MIAC: St. Benedict (1)
NAC: Castleton State (3)
NATHC: Concordia, Wis. (2)
NCAC: Ohio Wesleyan (4)
NEAC: Keuka
NESCAC: Bowdoin (1)
NEWMAC: Babson (2)
NJAC: TCNJ (1)
NWC: George Fox (1)
OAC: Capital (1)
ODAC: Randolph-Macon (2)
PAC: Thomas More (1)
SCAC: Oglethorpe (1)
SCIAC: Occidental (1)
SKY: Mt. St. Mary (1)
SLIAC: Maryville, Mo. (1)
SUNYAC: Brockport State (4)
UAA: Washington U. (no tourney)
USAC: Christopher Newport (2)
WIAC: UW-Stevens Point (1)

NCAA must release its data

The most recent NCAA News talks about perhaps the single most important facet of the NCAA championships selection process: the data.

In recent years, the NCAA’s selection process at the Division III level has been, at times, laughable. How else do you explain tournaments where the brackets keep changing after they’ve been released, where the number of teams in each pool needs correction, and the regional rankings are based on incorrect records?

This past offseason, the Capital Athletic Conference proposed a way to end all of this embarrassment: Release the data.

We here at D3sports.com know it is not easy to wrangle the amount of data that we and the selection committee have to deal with. There are more than 11,000 basketball games in a Division III season and while we here at D3sports.com know the rules as to what is a regional game and what is not, not all of the schools do, and everyone with access to the system can change the status of their own games, not to mention report scores, sometimes incorrectly.

However, the beauty of the system is that all of you can see the data and suggest corrections. And you do, frequently.

The NCAA keeps all of this hidden. Not just from the fans, not just from us, but even from the coaches and the schools. They can’t see their OWP or OOWP without coming to our site, or their “official” regional record unless they happen to get into the regional rankings. Only if you are on a regional committee do you get a login to view this information.

So when the CAC suggested opening the data for all to see, we saw it as a great thing.

The NCAA did not. They threw up roadblocks to this request, claiming that it would take six figures worth of budget to allow everyone access, that it would require training and other things that would make it unappealing to the membership. Never mind that they already have a system in place to give some people access to it. It might require more processing power to expand that to all 800 schools, but most of the work involved is in the generation of user accounts.

The benefit is that everyone who creates a schedule in any sport would have the opportunity to be more educated as to how that schedule affects the NCAA Tournament selection process. You’d have instant access to your opponents’ winning percentage and their opponents’ winning percentage. Coaches would see the proverbial man behind the curtain.

Eventually, of course, the proposal was withdrawn.

Our source at the NCAA convention last month told us, “There was a look of distinct relief on the faces of those on the dais.”

Now, admittedly, they have gotten a little better this season, at least in basketball. But how are we to know everything is correct?

Responding directly to the concern about errors, it discussed improving the score-reporting program’s current ability to flag conflicting information submitted by institutions, by adding a function that automatically would trigger e-mails to regional advisory committee (RAC) members and institutional representatives when such errors occur.

Sponsors of Proposal 8 asserted that ranking and selection decisions have been made in the past without resolving such conflicts in data. The Championships Committee wants to clear up such errors before each ranking of teams by a sports committee.

Read the article for yourself. It’s good they are trying to fix things, and indeed, this year’s regional rankings have been based on far more accurate records than in recent years.

But it’s not even close to being enough. The selection process is difficult enough as it is. Let’s at least make sure the right data are being used.