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.