2018 NCAA Tournament

Started by Ralph Turner, February 25, 2018, 07:33:27 PM

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Gregory Sager

Whitman managed to grind out an 89-84 overtime win over a gritty CMS squad to round out the field of 16.

Howell atoned for his end-of-regulation clankitude from the charity stripe by hitting all six of his OT throws, including four in the final twenty seconds.
"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

ronk

Quote from: Rofrog on March 03, 2018, 11:46:55 PM
I'm not sure if they care about the mileage at this time.I remember last year on the women's side they shipped Scranton,Tufts and I think Oshkosh to St Louis way over 500 miles for them two teams.But who knows!

Oshkosh and Washington were the only 2 of the 4 within 500 miles of each other, so Wash U was the higher seed and got to host; Scranton and Tufts were flying(2 flights) no matter which was chosen. Geography(< 500 miles) is a major factor in the sectional host choice.

AllStar

Through the first weekend:

AndOne

Although I know things unfortunately aren't going to change, I can't help but thinking it's a shame that geography plays such a vital role in site determination. That's because the result is often that a team gets it's first four games all at home. If the NCAA wants a true national championship tournament they need to move a percent or two of the multi million dollars they make from the D1 tournament and spent it on a few flights for D3 teams. Otherwise if they allow a team to host both the first two weekends they may just as well call it the (insert team name) Invitational instead of the National Tournament. It just seems inherently unfair to let a team potentially have four home games to get to the Final Four. Any team put in such an advantageous position should be ashamed if they don't make it to Salem.

I understand others might have a differing opinion, and I have no problem with that. I only ask if such is the case, that you please explain your thinking 🤔. Thanks.

AndOne

Quote from: AllStar on March 04, 2018, 12:58:02 AM
Through the first weekend:


Nice work, AllStar. Did you major in something like interactive media technology or convergent media?  8-)

Greek Tragedy

Hosts were 14-2 in the 1st round (Wash U and St. John's)

They were just 6-8 in the 2nd round.
Pointers
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Greek Tragedy

Interestingly, the two teams that beat host schools in the 1st round, Bethany Lutheran over St. John's and Aurora over Wash U, neither won their 2nd round game. Bethany Lutheran lost to Stevens Point 82-44 and Aurora lost to Nebraska Wesleyan 82-61.
Pointers
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TGHIJGSTO!!!

Titan Q

Quote from: BobbyO on March 03, 2018, 10:44:06 PM
Looking at map quest it appears that Emory is a little over 500 to John Carroll, Augie and Oshkosh barely under 500.  Emory is the highest ranked at 6th, Augie is 9th, John Carroll is 20th and Oshkosh is 23rd.  I doubt that the NCAA would fly Augie and Oshkosh to Atlanta.  Emory would be the only one that would have to be transported via air.  If the look at rankings it should be at Augie.  John Carroll is the most central to other schools.  I am pulling for Rock Island IL at the Carver Center.

The D3hoops.com Top 25 rankings are not a factor.  Just the numbers from the official selection/seeding criteria.

I believe the seeding order of these 4 teams is:

http://www.d3hoops.com/notables/2018/02/men-regional-rankings-final

1. Augustana: .815 (22-5)/.572/8-3  Central #1
2. John Carroll: .821 (23-5)/.544/7-2  Great Lakes #2
3. Emory: .840 (21-4)/.530/4-2  South #1
4. UW-Oshkosh: .741 (20-7)/.555/4-4  Central #5

Since this is a 2 flight situation either way, there is no reason to not give it to the highest seed.

Gregory Sager

#173
Quote from: AndOne on March 04, 2018, 12:58:51 AM
Although I know things unfortunately aren't going to change, I can't help but thinking it's a shame that geography plays such a vital role in site determination. That's because the result is often that a team gets it's first four games all at home. If the NCAA wants a true national championship tournament they need to move a percent or two of the multi million dollars they make from the D1 tournament and spent it on a few flights for D3 teams. Otherwise if they allow a team to host both the first two weekends they may just as well call it the (insert team name) Invitational instead of the National Tournament. It just seems inherently unfair to let a team potentially have four home games to get to the Final Four. Any team put in such an advantageous position should be ashamed if they don't make it to Salem.

I understand others might have a differing opinion, and I have no problem with that. I only ask if such is the case, that you please explain your thinking 🤔. Thanks.

Well, then, I guess that all of the men's basketball tournaments that D3 has held since the division's inception in the mid-'70s have not been "true national championship tournaments", because higher seeds have been hosting multiple rounds since the very beginning. What's more, since this model is followed by a large number of the other D3 sports as well for their championships, I guess that the football, volleyball, women's basketball, lacrosse (men's & women's), etc. national championship tournaments have all been fake as well. It seems a shame that so many of us have spent so many years following fake championships, and that so many people over the years have derived so much pleasure from seeing their teams win something that obviously isn't valid. Perhaps some good can come of this, however, by taking all of those Walnut & Bronze trophies that apparently have no value whatsoever to the schools that clearly didn't earn them properly, due to the tournaments being fake, and giving them to other organizations to be re-purposed. I'll bet that, with a little modification, they'd make dandy Employee of the Month trophies for the local Office Depot, Jo-Ann Fabrics, and Burger King franchises located near the schools that won those fake championships.

Since D3 championships are funded on D1's dime, and since D1 owes nothing whatsoever to D3 in return, the desire for D1 to cough up more money to fund either several extra flights or the rental fees for neutral-site sectional venues that will be largely empty constitutes nothing more than wishful thinking. Personally, I'd rather spend my time and energy conversing about pragmatic, real-world aspects of D3 championship tournaments than making conjectures about something that will never happen ... but perhaps that's just me.

I also don't see the point of wishing for more flight money if the purpose is to prevent an "(insert team name) Invitational", because that's a completely separate issue. What's the reasoning behind flying three teams to Walla Walla in that case? Whitman's already hosted a pod. All you're doing is defeating your own purpose, which is to prevent teams from hosting two weekends' worth of games.

I don't see the competitive logic in the other alternative, which would be to award sectional hosting privileges to teams that didn't host first-weekend pods, which means, in effect, disqualifying teams that hosted pods from hosting sectionals. That completely throws seeding right out the window.
"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

Greek Tragedy

Is there any leniency on the 500 mile rule? University Heights to Rock Island is 507 on Google maps (I know that's not what the NCAA uses). I just think they'd save a plane full of money by making JCU bus an extra 15 minutes.
Pointers
Breed of a Champion
2004, 2005, 2010 and 2015 National Champions

Fantasy Leagues Commissioner

TGHIJGSTO!!!

Greek Tragedy

Regarding the new poll:

I considered three teams. I thought about F&M because they were one of the three teams, I feel, were underdogs in both games. However, there was some argument that CNU shouldn't have even hosted, being ranked lower than Swarthmore, who got shipped to Wesleyan. I nearly picked Springfield since they were probably one of the last Pool C teams picked and many experts didn't have them making the field. However, Cabrini was probably one of the weakest hosts, barely getting by Staten Island. So, I ended up with Oshkosh. Now I realize they are from the WIAC, but they finished 3rd and didn't make the conference final. They played Marietta in the 1st round and were probably underdogs and then played host Wittenberg.
Pointers
Breed of a Champion
2004, 2005, 2010 and 2015 National Champions

Fantasy Leagues Commissioner

TGHIJGSTO!!!

Gregory Sager

Quote from: Greek Tragedy on March 04, 2018, 08:17:18 AM
Is there any leniency on the 500 mile rule? University Heights to Rock Island is 507 on Google maps (I know that's not what the NCAA uses). I just think they'd save a plane full of money by making JCU bus an extra 15 minutes.

No, there isn't. The 500-mile-radius rule is arbitrary -- there's no reason why the NCAA couldn't have set the radius at 510 miles, or 490 miles, when it made the rule -- but there are a lot of rules in life that are arbitrary. The point, however, is to set the marker and keep it there, so that everybody understands it and knows well ahead of time what the rule is. If you make exceptions here and there for the sake of a few miles, then the rule ceases to have any meaning. It stops being a rule altogether, and then you have the anarchy of a team complaining, "Hey, you let Team A fly last year when it was 480 miles from the site ... well, we're only 479 miles from our site, so why do we have to take the bus?"

There's no reason why JCU has to fly. Blue Streaks head coach Pete Moran, or the JCU athletic director, could opt to bus his team to Rock Island instead. It's certainly not unheard-of for teams to take the busing option even when the NCAA offers the team the opportunity to fly on the NCAA's dime. If I remember correctly, Grey Giovanine has elected to have Augustana bus to Salem, for example, for Augie's two Final Four trips over the past three seasons.
"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

Titan Q

Quote from: Greek Tragedy on March 04, 2018, 08:17:18 AM
Is there any leniency on the 500 mile rule? University Heights to Rock Island is 507 on Google maps (I know that's not what the NCAA uses). I just think they'd save a plane full of money by making JCU bus an extra 15 minutes.

No leniency on the rule in terms of making these decisions.  But teams can choose to bus instead of fly if it works better for them.

Like John Carroll to Augustana.  There is no great way to flight that.  You either go Cleveland to Detroit to Quad Cities, or Cleveland to Chicago and then drive 2.5 hours.  You'd actually get there faster by just getting on the bus and doing the 7:30 drive.


Titan Q

By the way, there is a direct flight from Atlanta (Emory) to Quad Cities.

Onward on, John Carroll

#179
Quote from: AndOne on March 04, 2018, 12:58:51 AM
Although I know things unfortunately aren't going to change, I can't help but thinking it's a shame that geography plays such a vital role in site determination. That's because the result is often that a team gets it's first four games all at home. If the NCAA wants a true national championship tournament they need to move a percent or two of the multi million dollars they make from the D1 tournament and spent it on a few flights for D3 teams. Otherwise if they allow a team to host both the first two weekends they may just as well call it the (insert team name) Invitational instead of the National Tournament. It just seems inherently unfair to let a team potentially have four home games to get to the Final Four. Any team put in such an advantageous position should be ashamed if they don't make it to Salem.

I understand others might have a differing opinion, and I have no problem with that. I only ask if such is the case, that you please explain your thinking 🤔. Thanks.

Are you suggesting they go to pre-determined neutral sectional sites? If so, I don't think that is a good idea. First, I do not think there would be many schools or communities that would want to bid for these games as the financial impact of 4 schools arriving for two days and 3 basketball games would be minimal. Second, the atmosphere (admittedly because of the home court advantage you want to avoid, provides it) would consist of a friends and family crowd in gyms devoid of excitement for the most part. The only exceptions would be, in my opinion, when a team with a nice fan base is assigned to a pseudo local site.

The NCAA could tell schools that if you want to host, and apply to host, you are agreeing to host and staff games that are assigned to you regardless of your school's participation. Then the NCAA could assign games to a place "in the middle" to avoid the flights as much as possible. For example, the JCU-Emory-Auggie-UWO sectional could be at Wabash so three schools instead of two could drive. This, of course, is sensitive to the money issue that you think shouldn't be an issue but it takes away home court advantage.

I think you're confusing two issues. I don't think the budget increasing solves the home court issue, necessarily. But, admittedly, going to neutral predetermined sites could increase costs (it could also give us really bad sites, inconvenient for all schools). Assigning the sectional games to neutral sites which limit flights would solve home court advantage but it would strip the games of any excitement. Have you ever been in a gym on a Saturday for a sectional final after the home team loses on Friday? I have and the amount of people and atmosphere in the gym reminded me of a non conference game in December while the students are on Christmas Break. I'm short, it doesn't scream "Elite Eight!!"  While that happens even under the present system, you are almost guaranteeing it to it happen with neutral sites 90% of the time, I would guess.