2017 South Atlantic

Started by Goldenrj, August 31, 2017, 01:05:06 PM

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Gregory Sager

Quote from: lastguyoffthebench on November 01, 2018, 12:54:08 PMI have a terrible memory, and I know it has been pointed out, but if they are not on the NCAA Regional Rankings, I don't think they are brought to the National level.... I could be wrong, but I don't think in tournament history, and unranked team has made the dance.

It's theoretically possible to give Pool C slots to sides that didn't get ranked in the region, after all of the region's ranked sides have been slotted into the field. The D3 men's soccer pre-championships manual explicitly states that there is no restriction upon the number of sides that can be included from a region.

Of course, just because it's theoretically possible doesn't mean that it's happened before, or ever will happen.
"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

Ejay

Quote from: lastguyoffthebench on November 01, 2018, 12:54:08 PM
WPU absolutely has a chance, albeit a small one.   4 wins vs ranked opponents and an SOS near .600
However, I think with New Paltz dropping to Brockport, their window in closing.  Wins over Haverford and Eastern are huge.


ODAC, to me, is a one bid league at this point... Committee has shown no love for Lynchburg and if W&L falls in the final, they are likely to slip a spot to 9 or 10 within the region.   I have a terrible memory, and I know it has been pointed out, but if they are not on the NCAA Regional Rankings, I don't think they are brought to the National level.... I could be wrong, but I don't think in tournament history, and unranked team has made the dance.

W&L losing to Lynchburg in ODAC final and getting passed over for WPU would be a travesty. 
W&L has 3 losses (all in an 8 day period in the first 9 days of September) and 2 of those were in OT (Emory & F&M).
WPU has 7 losses which include a lopsided 0-3 home loss to the same F&M team, a 1-2 loss to sub .500 Stockton and 1-3 losses to MSU and RUC.

Flying Weasel

It's not fair, but I can't see how the ODAC gets a sniff of a Pool C berth given the Regional Rankings.  Never (starting with 2007 when the current SOS formula was instituted) has a team that was unranked in the third weekly rankings been selected.  I can't see reason to think that will change this year.  So Lynchburg, much less Bridgewater and Roanoke, are AQ or bust. And it could very well be true that the last team ranked has never been selected, but I haven't tried to verify that.  Regardless, it's hard to see how W&L climbs enough to get a Pool C berth without winnng the ODAC title and AQ.

Lynchburg is a victim of (a) some very unfortunate circumstances and (b) a process that is extremely quantitatively with very limited room for discretion.  Oberlin's unpredictably bad 1-16-0 record is hurting Lynchburg's SOS.  Just two years ago in 2016 Oberlin was 15-4-1 and probably just missed out on an at-large tournament berth.  But one team alone doesn't kill a team's SOS and I wasn't sure why Lynchburg's SOS trailed W&L's as much as it did given they largely play the same ODAC schedule (not identical as teams only play 10 of the other 12 teams in a given season) and Lynchburg played some good team's out of conference.  By the way, head-to-head, they tied 1-1.

The ODAC opponents that the two did not play are a wash: neither played Ferrum (10-7-0) and W&L missed out on Shenandoah (6-10-1) while Lynchburg didn't play Hampden-Sydney (6-8-2), so the SOS difference must be in their non-conference schedules.  Unexpectantly, Christopher Newport has had an extremely down year at 7-8-1 (CNU hasn't been under .700 in the past 10 years), but W&L also played CNU, so again, that's a wash. Also from the CAC, Lynchburg played Mary Washington (13-1-4) while W&L faced York (10-6-2), so Lynchburg has the advantage there. Versus the Centennial, W&L played F&M while Lynchburg played Dickinson, so deserved edge to W&L there. W&L played Emory (9-7-1) which would have been expected to boost their SOS much more than it did, while Lynchburg played Averett (4-13-1) and aforementioned Oberlin (1-16-1), so there's a big advantage to W&L.  And finally, the other misfortune for Lynchburg.  Both scheduled two SAA opponents: Oglethorpe (12-2-0) and Sewanee (7-9-1) for W&L, Oglethorpe (12-2-0) and Berry (10-4-2) for Lynchburg.  Problem is, Hurricane Florence resulted in both Lynchburg's matches being cancelled while W&L only missed out on the Sewanee match. So W&L gets their SOS-boosting game and is spared their SOS-hurting match while Lynchburg losses out on two SOS-boosting matches.  Oberlin and the two missed SAA matches explains much of the difference between the two team's SOS.

Between Oberlin's horrendous season and the two cancelled mathces due to Hurricane Florence, Lynchburg's SOS took about a 0.030 hit if you conservatively assume Oberlin should have been good for at least a 6-11-0 season instead of 1-16-0 (in other words, 5 more wins).  If Lynchburg had a .541 SOS (.511 + .030), how much would that change their ranking?  Let's conservatively assume Lynchburg would have beaten Berry and lost to Oglethorpe, their record would be 14-2-2.  So where would Lynchburg be ranked with a 14-2-2 record, .541 SOS, and 1-1-1 R-v-R (Dickinson W, Oglethorpe L, Mary Wash T)?  The SOS is still on the low side, but very much in line with many of the other South Atlantic ranked teams (MSU .543 SOS, Mary Wash .535. Ramapa .542, Oglethorpe .542, W&L .554). And if Lynchburg would have beaten Oglethrope, then their record would be 15-1-2 and the R-v-R 2-0-1.

It's not the committee's job to speculate on how Lycnhburg would have done, but the inflexibility of the process means Lynchburg's not getting a fair shake, IMO.

PaulNewman

Great explanation....and describes perfectly IMO why the cmtes or cmte should have wiggle room or ability to waive a criterion for one slot per region or 2-3 spots nationally.  Although perhaps not as severe as Lynchburg's situation there are other teams having great seasons with low SoS or with 1 or 2 ranked wins that may get squeezed by teams with mediocre records but holding 3-5 ranked wins (which seems to be getting heavy emphasis).  BTW, Kenyon had a SoS of .590+ until getting Hiram and Oberlin added in which dropped them to .560 in just a week.

PaulNewman

Sort of joking, but Oberlin may knock out more teams than they beat.

jknezek

Quote from: PaulNewman on November 01, 2018, 03:51:44 PM
Great explanation....and describes perfectly IMO why the cmtes or cmte should have wiggle room or ability to waive a criterion for one slot per region or 2-3 spots nationally.  Although perhaps not as severe as Lynchburg's situation there are other teams having great seasons with low SoS or with 1 or 2 ranked wins that may get squeezed by teams with mediocre records but holding 3-5 ranked wins (which seems to be getting heavy emphasis).  BTW, Kenyon had a SoS of .590+ until getting Hiram and Oberlin added in which dropped them to .560 in just a week.

They have the wiggle room. We keep saying this. They could add Lynchburg in and pull out WPU or Oglethorpe or Rowan or RUC. All they have to do is decide that winning percentage is more important than SOS or RvR. They are choosing not to do this. What they don't have the room to do is add more teams than the region is allowed. There is no reason, per the criteria that Lynchburg CAN'T be there, but if they include Lynchburg they have to pull someone else, all of whom can also be there per the criteria. The South Atlantic gets 8. That's it. Lynchburg in means someone else out.

PaulNewman

Quote from: jknezek on November 01, 2018, 04:08:45 PM
Quote from: PaulNewman on November 01, 2018, 03:51:44 PM
Great explanation....and describes perfectly IMO why the cmtes or cmte should have wiggle room or ability to waive a criterion for one slot per region or 2-3 spots nationally.  Although perhaps not as severe as Lynchburg's situation there are other teams having great seasons with low SoS or with 1 or 2 ranked wins that may get squeezed by teams with mediocre records but holding 3-5 ranked wins (which seems to be getting heavy emphasis).  BTW, Kenyon had a SoS of .590+ until getting Hiram and Oberlin added in which dropped them to .560 in just a week.

They have the wiggle room. We keep saying this. They could add Lynchburg in and pull out WPU or Oglethorpe or Rowan or RUC. All they have to do is decide that winning percentage is more important than SOS or RvR. They are choosing not to do this. What they don't have the room to do is add more teams than the region is allowed. There is no reason, per the criteria that Lynchburg CAN'T be there, but if they include Lynchburg they have to pull someone else, all of whom can also be there per the criteria. The South Atlantic gets 8. That's it. Lynchburg in means someone else out.

Right. I'm very aware that teams can't be added and that chances are poor if you aren't in top half or top third.  You keep saying there's wiggle room.  It's not wiggle room if it's never used.  Do you have evidence of wiggle room ever being utilized? And, additionally, what is your own personal opinion about what should happen with the loser of another Lynchburg versus W&L game should one eventuate?

jknezek

Quote from: PaulNewman on November 01, 2018, 04:34:48 PM
Quote from: jknezek on November 01, 2018, 04:08:45 PM
Quote from: PaulNewman on November 01, 2018, 03:51:44 PM
Great explanation....and describes perfectly IMO why the cmtes or cmte should have wiggle room or ability to waive a criterion for one slot per region or 2-3 spots nationally.  Although perhaps not as severe as Lynchburg's situation there are other teams having great seasons with low SoS or with 1 or 2 ranked wins that may get squeezed by teams with mediocre records but holding 3-5 ranked wins (which seems to be getting heavy emphasis).  BTW, Kenyon had a SoS of .590+ until getting Hiram and Oberlin added in which dropped them to .560 in just a week.

They have the wiggle room. We keep saying this. They could add Lynchburg in and pull out WPU or Oglethorpe or Rowan or RUC. All they have to do is decide that winning percentage is more important than SOS or RvR. They are choosing not to do this. What they don't have the room to do is add more teams than the region is allowed. There is no reason, per the criteria that Lynchburg CAN'T be there, but if they include Lynchburg they have to pull someone else, all of whom can also be there per the criteria. The South Atlantic gets 8. That's it. Lynchburg in means someone else out.

Right. I'm very aware that teams can't be added and that chances are poor if you aren't in top half or top third.  You keep saying there's wiggle room.  It's not wiggle room if it's never used.  Do you have evidence of wiggle room ever being utilized? And, additionally, what is your own personal opinion about what should happen with the loser of another Lynchburg versus W&L game should one eventuate?

Here's the thing. You say they aren't using wiggle room because Lynchburg isn't in. I say they are using wiggle room because WPU is in. Basically you are setting it up to say that the only way they use wiggle room, is if they agree with you. That's a logical fallacy. The wiggle room exists because they have chosen one criteria over the other, but we have seen other years where SOS wasn't the dominant criteria. I'm not sure how else to explain it to you.

What you keep insisting is about wiggle room really doesn't seem to be what you are saying. What it seems to be about is the criteria they find important, which is not the criteria you want them to find important. That is a completely different thing.

The loser of the W&L/Lynchburg game is probably a tough team out. It happens. If W&L had won just one of those 3 they lost, they probably wouldn't be a bubble team. If they had won 2 of them, they would be sitting pretty. They didn't, so  if they want to go to the tournament, win the conference tournament. The AQ is foolproof for qualifying conferences. Everything else is about second chances. When you are asking for second chances, there is a possibility, even a likelihood, of disappointment. But you had a fair chance, you just didn't execute. And W&L didn't execute for those 8 days, especially the 8th day.

Do I wish we didn't have conference tournaments and the AQ went to the regular season champion? Absolutely. Soccer, to me, is not really a single elimination tournament sport. Too many variables in a game to game situation. But it is what it is, and because the ODAC is too large for soccer, it isn't a full round robin. Both W&L and Lynchburg know what they have to do to make the tournament, no questions asked. It's exactly what they knew they had to do on August 1st. Win the ODAC Tournament.

PaulNewman

Nope, not personally invested in Lynchburg (other than my fondness for Joe Hurtzler).  And of course any of us can go to the "they all know about the AQ if they really want to make the tournament."  But I assume you would concede that many of these teams also try to position themselves for the Pool C criteria, and sometime despite obvious serious efforts things don't always work out (not to mention that it is kind of weird to have teams chasing their tails around the criteria trying to guess what teams will have their usual strong seasons or a poor one in terms of trying to create a strong SoS and predicting what teams will get ranked.

If wiggle room for you means a certain application of the criteria for all teams then that's not wiggle room.  You keep saying they could just put Lynchburg in if they wanted.  Wiggle room to me is a team not meeting a criterion as needed but with explainable reasons and with strengths that outweigh an unforeseen/unplannable deficit.

I know a thing or two about logical fallacies.  You're making one by concluding that wiggle room means agreeing with me.  Not the case.  If they had true wiggle room, which implies being able to go outside a strict application of criteria and waiving something if they see fit, then they might ultimately decide a couple of teams are more deserving overall than "my team.". You're not actually talking about real wiggle room and that's the disconnect.

jknezek

What criteria do you think is being applied too strictly?

Flying Weasel

The wiggle room you talk about is changing how each criterion is weighed.  In other words, an adjustment that is applied across the board to all teams in the region.  That's not the wiggle room some of us are asking for.  I think the committee should have their collective idea of how much to weigh each criterion before they get started and before they look at the data.  That is, I don't want them to fundamentally change how much they weigh the different criteria after they have looked at the data and begun to apply it, just so they get the end result (i.e. the teams ranked) that they want.  So the wiggle room you talk about, if applied during the evaluation process instead of prior to getting started, is a type of wiggle room that I think is undesirable and not what I (and I think others) are looking for. 

What I think some of us believe is needed at a minimum (I would go further personally, but . . .) is some leeway/discretion for extenuating circumstances for certain individual teams.  As it stands, the committee needs to be able to justify all their selections in a quantifiable manner.  Sometime exceptions to that are needed, and I think we should trust the committees with some discretion to make those exceptions.  And I think the Lynchburg situation is a great example of when this would be appropriate.  Two games lost to a hurricane that couldn't be rescheduled and happened to be two of their toughest non-conference games.  It cost them around .020 in SOS which is plenty to be the difference between being selected or not.  Rather than lower the SOS standard for all teams, why not allow the committee to grade Lynchburg (not the entire region) on a curve with respect to SOS.  No one's asking the committee to speculate on whether Lynchburg would have won those games and would have improved their wining pct. or more importantly their Results versus Ranked Teams, but simply saying that some acknowledgement of the fact that Lynchburg was disadvantaged by something wholely out of their control well beyond an opponent having an off-season (that's something many teams are faced with and sometimes that works the other way with an opponent being better than expected--that's a whole other story).

I guess you can say that's a slippery slope.  I don't think so.  And the regional rankings provide some transparency and time for the committee to be questioned and held accountable should they misuse whatever discretion/leeway that have.  The whole set-up and process ensures it's can't be like back int he day with the "old boy's club", so I'm not concerned about a return to that.

And I don't agree with the perspective that since at-large berths are just "second chances" that it doesn't matter if the process sometimes doesn't result in the best remaining teams getting selected.

We're not going to agree about this, that's clear.  The current set-up is vastly superior to what we had 2 decades ago, but I see different areas to further improve it.  One I have been repeating for several years is to restrict low OWP's to .350 or something.  Any OWP lower than the selected threshold get replaced with the threshold in the SOS calculations. For the level of teams in the running for at-large berths, what's the real difference between playing 5-10-1 opponent or a 1-15-1 opponent?  But one is much more damaging to your SOS.  Those opponents are not who determines if your team tested itself.  So why should they influence one's SOS so much.  Just one of my ideas.

Ejay

Aren't tournament PK's considered a draw?  What if W&L wins ODAC on PK's and therefore hands Lynch a draw so they finish with a record of 14-1-3.  Do you still keep them out with 1 loss?

PaulNewman


PaulNewman

The way it's set up, where there isn't true wiggle room, like everyone in the room agrees a team should be in but the algorithm (so to speak) they're using doesn't put them in and so they can't get them in, really does have some poor consequences, like when the away multiplier was being used teams were having less and less home games.  How could have less home games be good for the athletes, fans, parents, etc, etc?  And yet programs were and are being forced to model themselves after the criteria.....and even then some still can't plan around them because they are in conferences that are too weak (like with St. Joe's and now we know that the coach is on the cmte).  I always had a vague sense that the ODAC was a strong conference...but they almost always fare poorly on the criteria.  I recall a few years ago when Randolph had a stellar season and yet were miles and miles away from a bid.

jknezek

I guess we are just going to disagree. Personally I think the system works well but there are always ways to improve. I think the OWP suggestion has merit. It's quantifiable and I think it should stay that way. Any kind of "well... because we think so" is a slippery slope and I'm glad it's mostly not allowed. I haven't found cases where the criteria has excluded a team in favor of an unjustifiable alternative. I don't think Lynchburg is that case either. Everyone on the South Atlantic list is justifiable. There simply aren't enough slots. There is always a last team out. One of the ODAC teams is likely to play or be close to that role this year. That doesn't mean the system is wrong. Someone will ALWAYS be in that role, regardless of the system so long as there are finite berths. And there will always be a way to justify that last team out even though they didn't get in.