Has anyone taken a look into the NCAA Championship Tournament crystal ball yet?
If you have… you might have noticed a large problem, come March.
If you haven’t… just look at the Top-5.
It might only be mid-January, but already some of us at D3hoops.com and here on Hoopsville are seeing chaos, confusion, and anger in the region’s future.
Quite simply… no one is going to be happy in the Great Lakes Region!
As the Top-25 sits right now, the top four teams are from the same region… and from two different conferences (the MIAA and the NCAC). But, if you have been following Division III Basketball for a long time, or only a few years, you probably already know the answer to this: how many teams from the Great Lakes Region will we see in Salem?
Better be prepared for ONE!
It’s tough to argue right now that some of the top teams in Division III are not in the Great Lakes. And it would be tough to argue not including at least seven teams from that region in this year’s dance. But, this is the DIII tourney and that means our own version of “Survivor”.
Let’s say, for arguments sake, that the following eight teams are selected from the Great Lakes Region, either because they won their conference or deserved a Pool C Bid:
Wittenberg, Wooster, Albion, Hope, Carnegie Mellon, Baldwin-Wallace, Wilmington, and Lake Erie.
Wittenberg and Wooster will be battling it out for the NCAC title, but both will get in. They are both on top of D3 right now. And with a game (or two) against each other left to go this season… those might be the only loses either team has for the rest of the season.
Albion and Hope… same thing. Though, if last week’s game was any indication, it looks like Albion will hand Hope another loss or two.
And of course Carnegie Mellon, Baldwin-Wallace, and Lake Erie will get in on conference titles (at this point).
That leaves Wilmington getting the next Pool C bid from the Great Lakes (for right now).
If the NCAA was smart, they would move at least TWO of these eight teams out of the region… possibly FAR out of the region. Take the second best team from Wittenberg and Wooster and move them to say the Mid-Atlantic/South Region. And how about moving Hope to another region as well.
Why you may ask?
In the recent history of the Division III NCAA Tournament… only ONCE has two teams from the same region, even the same conference, met in the Final Four (Amherst vs. Williams in the 2004 semifinals). To have that happen this year, the NCAA would have to buck its trend and move a Great Lakes team OUT of the region… completely.
Now, I would love to figure out what regional teams should move to what regional bracket. However, the NCAA doesn’t predetermine what region will face what region until they release the brackets on Selection Monday Sounds silly, really. You would think a rotation could easily be worked out.
Ah, but we are forgetting one thing… the almighty dollar.
You see, in Division III there is a cost factor to keep in mind. The NCAA is not going to spend lots of money to fly half the teams around the nation, every year, just to make sure some form of parity is found.
It won’t take a lot of research to see what the Great Lakes Region is facing this year. Just look back at last year’s bracket.
The Great Lakes Region had Wittenberg, John Carroll, Albion, Wooster, and Baldwin-Wallace in the same mini-bracket. That meant by the time we got to the second weekend… only TWO of those teams remained (John Carroll and Albion) and they faced off for a bid to the Elite Eight. Where, by the way, they faced off against regional opponent Calvin for the right to go to Salem.
You can bet this will happen again. The NCAA will not be smart enough to get Wittenberg and Wooster far enough away from each other so that they face each other when the top teams should – the Final Four. That’s because if Wittenberg were chosen to leave the region and shipped to one that allows them the greatest distance in the bracket… it also means the greatest distance of travel. It also means no home games for Wittenberg.
But the NCAA won’t do it. They won’t pay for three East Regional teams to travel to Wittenberg on any weekend; and they won’t pay for Wittenberg to travel to any East Regional site both weekends. This all means airfare. It would be a lot cheaper to us busses and simply make Wooster and Wittenberg travel to face off against each other in say, the Sweet 16 if we’re lucky.
The results will be the same as last year. One team from the Great Lakes is going to have a brutal trip through the bracket, facing probably Top-25 opponents the entire way. While a team like York (Pa.) from last year, has a simple walk to Salem through a very easy Mid-Atlantic/South Region.
If only the Men’s Committee could take a page out of the Women’s Committee selection book. Last year, the best any of us could hope for in a Final Four in Virginia Beach, was four of the top six in the final Women’s Top-25. Guess what we got… four of the top six.
The Women’s Committee made two simple moves that solved the entire thing. With three top teams in Maine, they moved one to an opposite bracket and made sure the other two didn’t face each other until very late (the Elite Eight).
But, according to the book the Men’s Committee has been recently using: two of those teams would have faced off in the second round and then you would have been lucky to see the others play as late as the Elite Eight.
Year in and year out, the Men’s Committee has to make tough decisions on who gets in and who’s left out. This year, they have 11 more choices to make… but they probably won’t make any dramatic travel decisions. Four teams from last year’s pre-tournament Top-25 made it to the Final Four. The highest rated team was #1. But you had to go down as far as #15 before you found your next highest rated team (John Carroll).#4 Wittenberg and #5 Wooster would have faced each other in the Sweet 16, but Wittenberg had #15 John Carroll to deal with first while Wooster had to contend with Baldwin-Wallace (unofficially #28) and #9 Albion, whom they lost to.
To make a comparison, York (Pa.) – who entered the tourney as the #19 team in the nation – only had to play one Top-25 team on the way to Salem… #25 Virginia Wesleyan, who had re-entered the Top-25 that week after only being ranked a total of five weeks during the season, was their second-round opponent. Their next highest ranked, Worcester Polytech who was unofficially #26.
Is it right? Hell no!
Is it going to happen? Hell yes!
Might as well get you seatbelts belted, get your earplugs in, and some prepare some honey for your throat, because for the Great Lakes Region the post-season is going to a rocky, unfair, and twisted. And you are going to go deaf from hearing others complain and horse from complaining yourself.