Tag Archives: NCAA Tournament

Dave’s Top 25 ballot: Week 8

Posted on by

BOOM! That sound sound you may have heard Sunday night or Monday morning was me blowing up most of my Top 25 ballot. Too many teams lost, I had too many questions about a lot of the teams, and things weren’t adding up. There was no way I could shuffle teams around without blowing up the ballot and taking a look at the data again and putting teams in order by what the new data coupled with what I was thinking revealed.

Well… I didn’t fully blow up the ballot. I didn’t even think to change my first place vote and I debated for awhile, but then didn’t change my second place team. After that… it was nearly a complete overhaul. I did keep teams around the area they had been, but moved teams up and down far more willingly then I normally would.

The result… I reshuffled the deck and made some hard decisions. I ended up cutting four teams from my Top 25 even though at least three of them deserved to stay in the poll. I brought in new teams and not just at the bottom, but placed a few midway up the poll. I dropped some teams pretty far despite just one loss while barely moving some others. I raised a couple of teams far higher than I expected before looking at more of the data. And ultimately I gave myself a new perspective.

As you know from previous blogs, I am known for blowing up my ballot a couple of times of year. This may tie for the latest in the year I have made the harsh decision, but it had to be made.

Besides wins, losses, and recent results, I also considered supposed SOS numbers and a version of the RPI that our friend KnightSlappy (alias on the D3boards) puts together. We won’t know if the math is dead on per what the NCAA will have until later next month, but it still gave me an idea of how team’s schedules stack up against one another and how they are doing in their regions. To be honest, I was surprised by some schools who had far higher numbers than I expected (Amherst, Dickinson, Wesley) and others whose numbers shocked me for as low as they were (Williams, Wittenberg). I also considered injuries, traveling or at home, other circumstances.

A quick reminder, here is Week 7’s ballot, before the carnage. And here is a look at this week’s:

1 – UW-Stevens Point (Unchanged)
Until the Pointers are knocked off, I am not going to change my mind. They continue to win in the very difficult WIAC and I wouldn’t be surprised if they do take a loss with UW-Whitewater still to play, but they are the best team in the country right now.

2 – Cabrini (Unchanged)
I seriously thought about moving the Cavaliers down especially with an SOS of .465, but their RPI is .599 and they haven’t lost a game. A big test against Wesley coming up next week, so I really won’t be sure I am comfortable with Cabrini at number two until then.

3 – Amherst (Up 5)
The Lord Jeffs numbers surprised me. Despite two losses (one to a Division III opponent in Emerson), Amherst has an SOS of .600. That is a surprising number to me considering the Lord Jeffs didn’t exactly challenge themselves to start the year. They chalked up their second win over Williams this past week and it was convincing. Amherst may be better than I was giving them credit for in the last few weeks.

4 – WPI (Unchanged)
The Engineers were another team that I thought I was maybe giving too much credit despite the fact they were seemingly playing so well without one of their best players all season. Their numbers were not shockingly good, thus why Amherst moved ahead of them, but they continue to play very good basketball and lead a deep NEWMAC by two games.

5 – Wooster (Down 2)
I didn’t know what to think of the Scots loss to DePauw. That was the second time the Tigers had beaten a ranked opponent in ten days – both of which away games for the ranked teams – and I didn’t expect Wooster to go through the conference slate unblemished. However, I thought they would have made sure to get past DePauw after already seeing them beat Wittenberg. Wooster also had strong numbers which helped offset my gut of moving the Scots down further. And when I thought about it, Wooster does seem like a Top 5 team at the moment.

6 – Illinois Wesleyan (Down 1)
Tough loss for the Titans. Carthage is clearly take no prisoners team of the CCIW this season and tripped up visiting IWU. 15-3 is a good mark overall, but the 5-2 at this point in the conference slate is surprising to me for the Titans. They have strong numbers and I really think this is a top tier program that has a real shot at making the trip to Salem. They just need to button some things up in conference action.

7 – Wash U. (Up 3)
I haven’t been completely sold on the Bears this season, but two weeks ago they beat Brandeis and NYU easily and then followed that up by staying focused and rolling through Case Western Reserve and Carnegie Mellon on the road. Their numbers didn’t shock me, but they were better than I expected (or maybe wanted to initially believe), so I felt comfortable with a big move up the poll. The Bears do have the challenging road trip of going to Rochester and then Emory this coming weekend, so they still bear some watching.

8 – Wesley (Up 5)
As the season has progressed, I have thought more and more that the Wolverines were going to be the real surprise of the season. They lose one of the best players in program history and are now turning in one of the best seasons ever. Wesley continues to take on all comers and beat them with a larger and larger target on their backs. And then I looked at their numbers: .583 SOS and .670 RPI – WOW! This is a team that usually doesn’t get that rewarded for their schedule, but the conference is really coming through this season and the Wolverines are playing better teams. Oh, and those numbers don’t take into account Cabrini who they will play on Monday. This could be one of the games of the year.

9 – UW-Whitewater (Down 3)
I know teams in the WIAC are going to surprise other teams, but I didn’t expect the Warhawks to lose to UW-Lacrosse. The only reason Whitewater didn’t fall further down my poll was because their SOS and RPI numbers are so strong. If not for that, I seriously thought about moving them down to maybe fifteenth because I am just not that sure they can compete with UW-Stevens Point for the top of the conference and thus make a deep run in the NCAA tournament.

10 – St. Norbert (Up 1)

11 – St. Thomas (Down 5)
Yes, the Tommies lost to rival St. John’s (second time in three years) and they probably wouldn’t have fallen too far except there was a lot of moving and shaking going on. I think St. Thomas is a good squad once again this season, but the loss to St. John’s gives me concern they may not be completely in focus on the task at hand. They got back on their horse against Augsburg, but they still have a lot of MIAC games left to play.

12 – Mary Washington (Up 4)
The Eagles just won’t lose. Their two losses this season are to Hampden-Sydney and Wesley and they are playing better and better despite no longer being the underdog. Mary Washington is the biggest reason the CAC is probably one of the top ten conferences in the country this season.

13 – Augustana (Down 1)
They lost to Elmhurst which probably should have forced me to move them down further… but Elmhurst was a buzz-saw this week in the conference. Also, Augustana is probably one of the most talented teams for their youth in the country. Of course, how they respond to that loss could show if their youth is simply something we read on a roster. Better have short-term memory because North Central is looming.

14 – Williams (Down 5)
I just don’t think the Ephs are a Top 10 team… and Amherst showed me reasons to think that. Not only are injuries starting to become a problem, but they just aren’t a sound defensive team. I may have been giving Williams a bit too much credit up until this point and their numbers showed me something I didn’t expect. As good as Amherst numbers were, Williams were not on the same level (.515 SOS and .589 RPI). I am not even sure Williams is a Top 15 team, to be honest.

15 – Brockport State (Unranked)
Hello SUNYAC! I have been pushing Brockport State aside for many reasons including the fact the SUNYAC doesn’t blow my socks off as a conference. However, when your SOS is .578 and your RPI is .666, I’m the one being the devil by not including them in my Top 25. The Golden Eagles continue to win including roaring back to beat New Paltz this week. The only loss Brockport has suffered was the second game of the season to (now) undefeated SUNY Purchase. It seemed pretty obvious for Brockport to fly up my ballot.

16 – Messiah (Down 1)
I was going to ding the Falcons pretty hard for their last second loss to Hood. After all, it was their second loss in three games and despite Hood being a good team, Messiah should have put them away. However, Hood is major player now in the MAC Commonwealth and Messiah’s numbers are pretty solid (.549 SOS and .630 RPI). I like how Messiah plays the game and if they can secure the tight games down the stretch, they are going to be major player in the post season.

17 – Texas-Dallas (Unranked)
The Comets have only lost one game (as of the poll and voting) and are in control of the SCAC. Not sure why it took me this long to get Texas-Dallas onto my poll, but it might be because I have been looking elsewhere. Coach Terry Butterfield always has a team that plays well and has been a surprise around the country… I think this year people may have been looking the other way for too long.

18 – Bowdoin (Up 2)

19 – Oglethorpe (Down 5)
They lost to Centre worried me, not because Centre isn’t a good team, but because I am fearful the Stormy Petrels may get their wings clipped after flying too high too soon. Their SOS numbers are not that spectacular and the only reason they may not have fallen further was because I had them further up in my poll. However, the Centre loss was only their second of the season and the two losses are against teams who are a combined 24-10 – really can’t knock that in this second of the ballot.

20 – Ohio Wesleyan (Unranked)
The Battling Bishops are probably playing better than Coach Mike DeWitt expected this season – especially after a challenging start to the campaign. The biggest key, they are winning the games they are expected to win including against DePauw last week. I think the NCAC is a better conference especially in the last few weeks and could still have some surprises left in it with OWU maybe supplying some of them.

21 – St. Mary’s (Md.) (Up 2)
When I saw the Seahawks numbers my initial instinct was that I was right all along about this team and I better move them much further up the poll. After all, their SOS was .607 and their RPI was .634 – that’s on par with Amherst! However, I quickly reminded myself this St. Mary’s squad has lost four games this season with three of those losses to teams ranked higher and one to a team they shouldn’t have held home court against. I can’t move the Seahawks high up on the poll with those results (though, they got a very good result after the poll came out this week against Christopher Newport).

22 – DePauw (Unranked)
My gut after seeing the Tigers beat Wooster was to push them high up the poll like Brockport State and Texas-Dallas, but I had to temper myself. They beat a Wittenberg squad that may have peaked too early and they couldn’t beat an Ohio Wesleyan squad when the timing was ideal. DePauw has better numbers than Ohio Wesleyan, but I couldn’t move them ahead of the Battling Bishops due to the head-to-head. I am also concerned that DePauw has an unconscious let down after such a huge couple of weeks. Time will tell.

23 – Virginia Wesleyan (Down 6)
Every single time I buy in to the Marlins, they drop another games. Yes, that could simply the ODAC talking, but after last week’s run through the conference, I was hoping to see that trend continue. Instead, they drop a very important game to Randolph-Macon. Furthermore, their numbers weren’t that great: .515 SOS and .574 RPI. There are a lot of good teams in the ODAC and my gut tells me more teams should be on my ballot… and that leaving VWC on my ballot isn’t being fair to Guilford or others.

24 – Dickinson (Down 3)
After losing to sub-par F&M this week, I thought about pulling the Red Devils completely from my poll, but their numbers were actually better than I expected for playing in a bit of a down conference. I like how Dickinson plays the game and so I tempered my quick-trigger mentality… for at least this week.

25 – Whitworth (Unchanged)

Dropped out:

Stevenson (Previously 18)
The Mustangs blew two leads this past week including another massive advantage against Lycoming and a late lead in the game against Elizabethtown. Stevenson’s Achilles heel this season is holding onto leads and playing 40 minutes. I may have tried to ride the Mustangs a bit longer, but their SOS of .510 did not give me any reasons to keep them in my poll.

Wittenberg (Previously 19)
This was a hard decision. The Tigers have looked really good this season, but that might be because their competition hasn’t been that challenging. The Tigers have an SOS of .491! All of those blowout wins may have had an obvious reason to them. Yes, they didn’t lose any games this past week, but when Wooster and DePauw beat you in consecutive games and you had to come from behind to beat Ohio Wesleyan before that… the signs were there that maybe this team isn’t as good as they were perceived.

Calvin (Previously 22)
I told a friend that I had the Knights in my Top 25 after he asked because he thought they were a Top 25 team. I was confident I would keep them in my poll, but I just can’t ignore the .449 SOS and the RPI of .529. Rather, I would have ignored it if Calvin hadn’t lost four games this season with those kinds of numbers. Calvin could be the best team no one is appreciating, but I think they have to prove a lot while probably having to win the conference automatic qualifier to make sure they are in the NCAA tournament.

Dubuque (Previously 24)
Suffer your first loss of the season and you are unceremoniously dropped from the Top 25. It happens and I didn’t feel good about it, but their numbers don’t warrant them staying in the poll… which is also why it took so long for them to get into the Top 25 in the first place.

Other ballots:

Week 7
Week 6
Week 5
Week 3
Week 1

Amherst alum: D3 should stay with D1 on championship weekend

Posted on by

Ben Kaplan played basketball at Amherst when the Lord Jeffs reached the 2008 national championship game in Salem. The next season he gave us an inside look at the Lord Jeffs’ 2009 NCAA tournament run. Four years later, Ben went to Atlanta to watch his alma mater play for the national championship. He describes how the Atlanta experience compared to Salem and gives his take on whether the Division III men’s title game should be regularly played at the Division I Final Four site.

Of all the possible confrontations at Saturday’s Final Four in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, I couldn’t have anticipated the first and only one I would witness. A fifty-ish man in maize, who made the trip with his twenty-ish son from New York, stuck a stubby finger in the face of a sixty-year-old man in purple who sat with his purple-clad daughter one row behind him. A vein pulsed in the man in maize’s forehead and spit flew with each obscenity. Some surrounding fans stepped in and the man in purple quietly stood and summoned security. Hey, you know what they say about Michigan and Amherst fans, right?

For the first time in its history, the NCAA celebrated 75 years of March Madness by crowning the Division II and III champions on the same weekend and in the same city as the D1 Final Four. If public sentiment has any say, it’s a change that the NCAA will make permanent. The D1 and D3 worlds pretend to exist on parallel planes when in fact they collide more often than you might expect. Bringing them together in one event is a fitting and well-deserved honor for the little guys.

The three most recent tournament coaching darlings, Butler’s Brad Stevens, VCU’s Shaka Smart, and Andy Enfield, formerly of Florida Gulf Coast, all played their college ball at Division III schools. Enfield made 92% of his free throws at Johns Hopkins to become the all-time Division III free-throw percentage leader, Smart set Kenyon’s career, season, and single-game assist records, and Stevens contributed for four years at DePauw.

The trio fit the popular D3 mold – scrappers who overcome size and athleticism deficiencies with intelligence, hard work, and often one special skill. D1 fans who dropped by the title game between Amherst College and University of Mary Hardin-Baylor probably expected the crisp passing and sharp shooting Amherst rode to the title, but they probably didn’t expect Amherst wing and Final Four Most Outstanding Player Allen Williamson to grab an offensive rebound on the block, take one dribble to gather himself, and rise up over a defender’s outstretched hand for a thunderous dunk. They probably didn’t expect Mary Hardin-Baylor star Thomas Orr, a lanky lefty who used a variety of crossovers and stepback moves en route to a team-high 24 points, to take off for a slam after a top of the key isolation move in the half court. And they definitely didn’t expect lumbering Amherst center Pete Kaasila to meet him at the rim and send the dunk attempt back. (OK so they called it a foul, but I not-so-objectively thought it was clean. Regardless, it was the second most impressive mid-air meeting in Atlanta called for a foul this weekend.)

Division III normally crowns its champion in Salem, Virginia, a town that hosts the D3 basketball and football championships. This year, the Elite Eight and Final Four were played in Salem two weeks prior to last Sunday’s title game. As a player at Amherst, I attended the 2008 Final Four. It was the school’s third trip to Salem in a row, and the previous year the team won their first national championship.

To get to Salem, we flew a chartered plane instead of our usual bus. A camera crew greeted us when we landed, instructing us to “act naturally” while they filmed. As we waited almost an hour for our coaches to pick up the rental cars, they interviewed a few players about the upcoming weekend. Instead of the usual motel or Howard Johnson, we stayed in a hotel with leather furniture and a fancy restaurant in the lobby. We dealt with never-ending TV timeouts for the first time all year, attended a banquet, and the starters spoke at official press conferences after the game. Little girls play “house,” and that weekend we played “D1 basketball.”

In Atlanta, this year’s Amherst team had a bus waiting for them at an airport and a police escort on each and every trip they made. When I ran into Amherst’s iconic coach, David Hixon, in the hotel lobby, he immediately told me about how thrilled the players were with the lengthy autograph sessions, media interviews, and TV footage shoots. The schedule was wonky, with a pair of two-week layoffs during the tournament, and the weekend was a minefield of distractions, but the players and coaches wouldn’t have had it any other way. For one weekend, they truly got their time on the big stage.

The weekend’s charms weren’t limited to the players. The Final Four hosts the National Association of Basketball Coaches clinics and conferences, which nearly every NCAA coach attends, so I had the pleasure of seeing and speaking to the Amherst graduate assistants from the past seven years who have now moved on to other schools. I sampled the Atlanta nightlife with alums who, myself included, probably wouldn’t have come had the game been in Salem. The D1 Final Four and accompanying activities, like the pop-a-shot games at Bracket Town or the free Ludacris concert at The Big Dance, provide more of an incentive for students and alums to make the trip to support their team. The academic toll of two long trips and a longer season may cause some educators to complain, but the two Amherst players I saw studying for an economics midterm next to the table of NCAA Merchandise in the hotel lobby seemed to manage the juggling act just fine. Half an hour of studying is a small price to pay for a weekend as a VIP at the Final Four.

The game itself took place at Phillips Arena instead of the Georgia Dome for the same reason that ping pong tournaments aren’t held on Centre Court at Wimbledon. National press stopped by to cover the game, and some wrote glowingly about the talent on the floor. They learned a well-kept secret, that the things like late growth spurts, injuries, and a desire for playing time that force bracket busters to attend mid-majors also contribute to low-D1 talents playing on the D3 level. One such talent, Amherst All-American Willy Workman, who had a hip injury in high school that kept him off the D1 radar, spoke at a reception honoring the players after their championship win. He said, “Playing at the D3 level, we don’t get a ton of support, so you guys are our everything. Thanks for being our parents, friends, fans, cooks, laundry-doers, and everything else we needed to get to this point.” Williamson, the Final Four MOP, talked to me about his desire to continue his playing career overseas, as more than a dozen alums in the past have done. “It’s getting a lot more competitive,” he told me, “so hopefully I’ll land somewhere.” To the media, a few Amherst players talked about how they always dreamed of playing in the NBA, and since that was out the window, winning a championship in an NBA arena was next-best thing.

Around 6,000 fans filed into the lower bowl of the Atlanta Hawks home while the upper bowl was curtained off, so the teams got the thrill of playing in a large arena without having it feel empty. At the Dome the previous night, screaming seas of maize, yellow, orange, and red dominated the stands, but at the D3 game the following afternoon, a few rowdy Amherst fans and a screaming Mary Hardin-Baylor student in a purple tutu holding an “Amherst Likes Nickelback” sign were the exception rather than the rule. Physicality and speed didn’t dominate the game as it did on the Division I level, but finesse, athleticism, and tremendous skill were still on display. On my road trip from Chicago to Atlanta, I marveled at the beauty of rolling green hills and the black structures and yellow lights of skylines. Both different, both majestic in their own way. I felt the same about the atmosphere and the on-court performances on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.

Which brings me back to the confrontation during the Michigan and Syracuse game. The Amherst fan expected his 200-level seats to the Division I Final Four to provide respite from the rowdy student sections. After all, he’s from Amherst, where basketball games are best enjoyed with quiet amusement and occasional polite clapping, preferably with a book on hand. The Michigan fans, who called the players by first name and referred to the team as “we”, wanted to celebrate each basket with a jump, a fist pump, and a high-five. Speaking from personal experience, post-graduation D3 fanhood is more a source of quiet pride than loud and boastful cheers. When “we” used to play on the team and actually know each player by first name, the wild rowdiness seems to us, for whatever reason, a bit over the top. Not that I look down on it. Quite the contrary. I envy it. I wish Amherst results put me in a wild frenzy. I wish I could go to a bar in Chicago on Saturdays and cheer with friends as Amherst beats Middlebury in football. I love when my school wins, and I hate when they lose, but the lack of fanfare and smaller stage puts the game in a different perspective for us.

In the end, both men overreacted. The Amherst alum shouldn’t have grabbed the younger Michigan fan and nudged him down to his seat when he stood up to celebrate a Mitch McGary layup. The older Michigan fan shouldn’t have responded by pushing and swearing at the Amherst alum.

At the heart of that clash were two parents who didn’t want a once-in-a-lifetime experience with their kids at all compromised. The father and son decked out in maize, the father and daughter in Amherst sweaters, my father and me a few seats over, the two Michigan grad students who bought our tickets to Monday’s finals – we were all living out a weekend we would remember and laugh and talk about forever. Watching Amherst win was great, but sharing that experience with my old teammates, seeing the big hugs and bigger smiles on the court, and the tears of the new generation of team parents made it truly special.

That’s why this past weekend should be the beginning of a new tradition. Other Division II and III schools deserve this chance, and other alums should get to experience what I did. Between the overload of endorsements and allegations of athlete exploitation, the NCAA creates these unforgettable shared experiences between athletes and fans alike. Why not maximize them?

Who’s in the men’s tournament?

Posted on by

Here are the 42 conferences with automatic bids to the 2013 NCAA Division III men’s basketball tournament and winners, when clinched. Each team’s seed in the conference tournament is noted in parentheses. Congratulations to Concordia-Texas, Fitchburg State, St. Vincent and Spalding on earning their first ever trip to the NCAA Division III men’s basketball tournament.

For teams not in one of these 42 conferences, there is one bid set aside (Pool B). There are 19 at-large bids (Pool C) that make up the rest of the field.

Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference: Penn State-Behrend (3)
American Southwest Conference: Concordia, Tex. (West-2)
Capital Athletic Conference: St. Mary’s, Md. (1)
Centennial Conference: Dickinson (2)
City University of New York Athletic Conference: Staten Island (1)
College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin: North Central, Ill. (2)
Colonial States Athletic Conference: Cabrini (1)
Commonwealth Coast Conference: Curry (1)
Empire 8: Ithaca (2)
Great Northeast Athletic Conference: Albertus Magnus (2)
Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference: Rose-Hulman (1)
Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: Dubuque (3)
Landmark Conference: Catholic (1)
Liberty League: Hobart (1)
Little East Conference: Rhode Island College (1)
Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference: Fitchburg State (5)
Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association: Calvin (1)
Middle Atlantic Commonwealth: Alvernia (1)
Middle Atlantic Freedom: Delaware Valley (2)
Midwest Conference: St. Norbert (1)
Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: St. Thomas (1)
New England Collegiate Conference: Elms (1)
New England Small College Athletic Conference: Amherst (1)
New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference: WPI (1)
New Jersey Athletic Conference: Ramapo (1)
North Atlantic Conference: Husson (2)
North Coast Athletic Conference: Ohio Wesleyan (2)
North Eastern Athletic Conference: Morrisville State (1)
Northern Athletics Conference: Aurora (2)
Northwest Conference: Whitworth (1)
Ohio Athletic Conference: Marietta (2)
Old Dominion Athletic Conference: Randolph-Macon (3)
Presidents Athletic Conference: St. Vincent (1)
St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: Spalding (1)
Skyline Conference: SUNY-Purchase (2)
Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: Redlands (1)
Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference: Trinity, Tex. (1)
State University of New York Athletic Conference: Cortland State (1)
University Athletic Association: Washington U. (no tournament)
Upper Midwest Athletic Conference: Northwestern, Minn. (1)
USA South Athletic Conference: Christopher Newport (1)
Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: UW-Whitewater (2)

Who’s in the women’s tournament?

Posted on by

Here are the 43 teams with automatic bids to the 2013 NCAA Division III women’s basketball tournament. Each team’s seed in the conference tournament is noted in parentheses. Congratulations to Cornell, FDU-Florham, Huntingdon, Lancaster Bible, New Paltz State, St. Scholastica and Texas-Dallas on earning their first ever trip to the NCAA Division III women’s basketball tournament.

Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference: La Roche (1)
American Southwest Conference: Texas-Dallas (East-2)
Capital Athletic Conference: Marymount (1)
Centennial Conference: Gettysburg (1)
City University of New York Athletic Conference: Baruch (1)
College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin: Carthage (1)
Colonial States Athletic Conference: Cabrini (1)
Commonwealth Coast Conference: University of New England (1)
Empire 8: Ithaca (1)
Great Northeast Athletic Conference: Emmanuel (1)
Great South Athletic Conference: Huntingdon (1)
Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference: Hanover (3)
Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: Simpson (1)
Landmark Conference: Catholic (1)
Liberty League: St. Lawrence (2)
Little East Conference: Southern Maine (1)
Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference: Bridgewater State (1)
Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association: Hope (1)
Middle Atlantic Commonwealth: Lebanon Valley (3)
Middle Atlantic Freedom: FDU-Florham (1)
Midwest Conference: Cornell (1)
Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: St. Thomas (2)
New England Collegiate Conference: Regis (Mass.) (1)
New England Small College Athletic Conference: Amherst (2)
New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference: Babson (1)
New Jersey Athletic Conference: Montclair State (1)
North Atlantic Conference: Colby-Sawyer (2)
North Coast Athletic Conference: DePauw (1)
North Eastern Athletic Conference: Lancaster Bible (1)
Northern Athletics Conference: Wisconsin Lutheran (1)
Northwest Conference: Whitworth (2)
Ohio Athletic Conference: Ohio Northern (1)
Old Dominion Athletic Conference: Guilford (2)
Presidents Athletic Conference: Thomas More (1)
St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: Westminster, Mo. (1)
Skyline Conference: Farmingdale State (4)
Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: Cal Lutheran (1)
Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference: Trinity, Tex. (1)
State University of New York Athletic Conference: New Paltz State (1)
University Athletic Association: Emory (no tournament)
Upper Midwest Athletic Conference: St. Scholastica (4)
USA South Athletic Conference: Christopher Newport (2)
Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference: UW-Stevens Point (3)

Our projected women’s bracket

Posted on by
JHU tips it up with Muhlenberg
Johns Hopkins is hosting games in our bracket. Why?

Well, here we are, another Selection Monday.

Hoping that Matt Snyder’s projected men’s field would whet appetites for a while, we started with the projected women’s bracket this year. And this year, it turned out nothing was particularly easy to figure out.

As a reminder, this is equal parts what we think the committee WILL do and what they SHOULD do. It’s meant to give readers some idea what might happen on Monday at 2:30 p.m. ET, when the selection show is scheduled to start. (Show will be linked from the front page of D3hoops.com.)

We talked extensively on Hoopsville about a glut of teams with very similar resumes, and that was the most difficult group to parse out. But after selecting St. Joseph’s (Bklyn.) as the only Pool B team, here was how Pool C broke down, in the order selected:

Kean
Washington U.
Juniata
UW-River Falls
UW-Whitewater
Tufts
Rochester
Southern Maine
U. New England
Hartwick
Johns Hopkins
Louisiana College
St. Vincent
Bowdoin
York (Pa.)
St. Lawrence
Colby
Carthage
Simpson
Lewis and Clark

Left on the table were Rutgers-Newark, Buffalo State, UW-Eau Claire, Hope, King’s, Williams, Virginia Wesleyan and Gustavus Adolphus was next up in the West. It was once thought King’s was in, but the Monarchs played just one game against a regionally ranked opponent, and lost that one at that. Messiah was trapped behind King’s because King’s had a better record against common opponents (8-0 to Messiah’s 7-1) and Virginia Wesleyan lost to Messiah.

St. Vincent moved itself out of the glut of teams with a win against Messiah and another against Misericordia. Colby edged in over Rutgers-Newark with two wins against Williams, while Rutgers-Newark was 0-1 against the Ephs. Carthage edged out Simpson with a 2-2 record against common opponents, although both eventually got in, and Lewis and Clark was lucky to find a spot still there when they came up. They have a pretty good strength of schedule (.539) but were 0-3 against regionally ranked opponents.

Bracketing was even more fun, trying to spread out New England teams that had played each other quite frequently. In fact, Rhode Island College’s first-round opponent changed twice just while copying names into the bracket.

Take a look at the full bracket.

Bear in mind that William Paterson and Amherst wouldn’t be able to host the opening weekend in women’s basketball this year because their men’s teams are expected to host games.