The D3 Womens bracket selections

Started by knightrdr, March 24, 2008, 09:33:21 PM

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knightrdr

Okay it's all over and I want to vent a little.  Yeah, my team didn't win but as I look back at it it seems like the selection committee did Hope no favors.  How does the #1 team in the country, in fact how do any of the top 4 teams in the country wind up in the same brackets in the tournament?  To my way of thinking there is no way that Hope and Howard Payne should have been placed in the same bracket. Those two teams were the odds on favorites in most everyone's eyes to meet for the championship in the final four.  Instead they played in the sectional finals and played like two championship teams should, a close, hard-fought battle not decided until the final minute of play. That is what should have unfloded in Holland.  The committee missed an opportunity here.  They could have set the tournament up to pit the top teams in the final four and odds are that Hope would have been there and they would have garnered a packed house each of the two nights.  How does that thinking work?  They claim it has something to do with geographical location but the sectional tournament had a school from Texas, Michigan, Oregon and Pennsylvania so that theory flies right out the window. Had this been an odd year Hope would have hosted the sectional but would the same four schools have congregated in Holland prior to the Final Four?...I doubt it. 

Okay, I have vented.

Pat Coleman

It would've certainly been nice if the NCAA committee had realized what the rest of us already knew.
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Quote from: old 40 on September 25, 2007, 08:23:57 PMLet's discuss (sports) in a positive way, sometimes kidding each other with no disrespect.

Ralph Turner

#2
Quote from: knightrdr on March 24, 2008, 09:33:21 PM
Okay it's all over and I want to vent a little.  Yeah, my team didn't win but as I look back at it it seems like the selection committee did Hope no favors.  How does the #1 team in the country, in fact how do any of the top 4 teams in the country wind up in the same brackets in the tournament? 

Because Hope was not the #1 team in the Great Lakes Region by the criteria that has been selected by the member institutions in D3.


To my way of thinking there is no way that Hope and Howard Payne should have been placed in the same bracket. Those two teams were the odds on favorites in most everyone's eyes to meet for the championship in the final four.  Instead they played in the sectional finals and played like two championship teams should, a close, hard-fought battle not decided until the final minute of play. That is what should have unfolded in Holland.  The committee missed an opportunity here.  They could have set the tournament up to pit the top teams in the final four and odds are that Hope would have been there and they would have garnered a packed house each of the two nights.  How does that thinking work?

Yes, pray tell!  How does the NCAA go about putting those objective  characteristics of excellence into a formula that reflects the move away from the "smoke-filled" rooms of the pre-pool days?  For what it's worth, the #1 South Region men's seed going into the last weekend was sent 495 miles to Jackson MS for its sectional games.  UMHB did not even get a chance to host!  It is called geographic proximity!


Precisely what criteria need to be added in the Handbook to correct the grievance about which you rant?  If Hope was not the #1 team in the region going into the last weekend, where did Hope fall short in the eyes of the Regional Evaluation Committee?  Actually, I would love for the committee to answer that question, if for no other reason than to educate us D3fans what our schools need to do to earn a home court for the regionals and the sectionals.  Maybe we can have that answer on Hoopsville on Tuesday (unless I have missed it elsewhere).


They claim it has something to do with geographical location but the sectional tournament had a school from Texas, Michigan, Oregon and Pennsylvania so that theory flies right out the window. Had this been an odd year Hope would have hosted the sectional but would the same four schools have congregated in Holland prior to the Final Four?...I doubt it.

I agree.  There would have been another configuration that might have impacted the Hope men.

Okay, I have vented.
I covered some of these points in my post on the MIAA board here.

What's more, if you think that you have grievances with the brackets, I dare you to take your slight at the hands of the Selection Committee to the SCIAC men's message boards.   :D

Practically speaking, there will always be unbalanced brackets because of budget constraints and regional maldistribution of quality teams in D3.  The western half of the Great Lakes Region, the upper portion of the Midwest Region and the West Region just have better teams, year-in and year-out.

And selling out DeVos on two nights still would have left the NCAA with a budget shortfall on getting three teams to an isolated location such as Holland MI.

Congratulations to Holland.  I hope that next year's tournament is even better.  :)

pointlem

Ralph, thank you for your ever-gracious and informed commentary.  FYI, here's an articulate commentary that appeared in Holland, Michigan's paper, expressing, from what I could tell, the sentiments of most folks here. 

NCAA needs to change way it determines tournament schedule

By JEFFREY JAPINGA

The powers that be in the NCAA got to experience this past weekend what we've known all along -- that the Division III women's basketball Final Four at DeVos Fieldhouse would be a first-class event.

And why wouldn't it be? Hope College, its host, and the college's athletic department, consistently do things well and do things the right way. That's in part why Hope basketball has developed such a strong and loyal following, and why this Final Four sold more advance tickets than any other in D-III women's basketball tournament in history.

But if people know a good thing when they see it -- and hats off to Hope and its volunteers for a job well done -- they also know when something isn't right. That's why all around DeVos last weekend, spectators of all stripes kept asking the same question: Who calls a foul on the people who created the tournament?
Much about the NCAA and its tournament is a mystery. But last weekend, this much was clear. All season long, three D-III women's basketball teams had cleared every single hurdle their schedule had set in front of them during the regular season. Two of those teams -- Hope College and Howard Payne University -- were the clear juggernauts, both undefeated, often winning by wide margins, the consensus top two teams in the nation. And yet, when the tournament draw was released, one of those teams got home court, the other didn't. And while other teams could skate toward the Final Four without any top-12 competition, the two best teams would be forced to play each other in a sectional round. How could this be?

The answer, it appears, is both simple and complicated. Most simply explained, the NCAA doesn't care about rankings, consensus or common sense. Instead, it uses its own system to evaluate the strength of teams, one that takes a team's overall record, then discounts that record if the other schools that team has played -- and the teams those teams have played -- haven't won enough games. In the NCAA's system, Hope was nowhere close to a top team; in fact, it was only the third-best in just our small region of the country, behind a team that had lost three times.

How can that be? Because, in the logic of the NCAA, if other schools in Hope's league, the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, don't win enough non-league games, then Hope's wins must not mean as much either.

The NCAA says its system is the best way to compare teams in a division where teams don't -- and shouldn't -- play national schedules. Does it work? This year, that system produced a tournament in which nine of the top-12 rated teams (according to Massey, the nationally-respected computer poll) ended up in the same half of the tournament draw. Where two teams, Hope and Wisconsin-Whitewater, each had to play three top-12 teams for the chance to reach the Final Four, while the other three teams in the Final Four played only one top-12 team. Combined. A tournament where one of the consensus best two teams in the nation was guaranteed not to make the Final Four.

Worst of all, this system produces a tournament that, intentionally or not, plays favorites with certain schools, handing out preferential draws and home-court advantage based not on records or rankings, but on flawed information and favorable geography. Consider: The senior class at Hope, with a record of 110-10 over four years and a national championship, never played a home tournament game -- the ultimate reward for strong play -- in their four years of basketball. By comparison, DePauw University, with nearly an identical record and NCAA tournament profile to Hope, played seven.

The Final Four was a first-class event this year, and it will be again next year when it returns to Holland. The real question is whether the NCAA has the will to find a new way forward that will make the tournament itself as classy as the institutions hosting it and the teams playing in it.

By insisting on using only its own system to the exclusion of all other input, the NCAA ensures that, for all the excitement this tournament generates every year, it is not and cannot be the fair test of the basketball ability they have promised to its member schools and players. And when that happens, it's the players, the very student-athletes the NCAA pledges to support, who end up the real losers.

Click here to return to story:
http://hollandsentinel.com/stories/032608/sports_20080326075.shtml


airball1

Pointlem:
I responded to you in the MIAA page as follows:

Pointlem:

Although you made some interesting points in your essay, some of your facts need to be verified. Like the one that the final four teams only faced one Top Twelve team combined (and I am assuming you mean HPU/Hope). If you look at Oglethorpe's road to the final four, you will see NO home games and a victory over #3 Thomas More on their home court and a victory over #10 Kean (who I think was a #3 pre-season) on their home court. Throw in a victory over #20 Wm. Smith and it's obvious which team took the hardest road without complaints. Oglethorpe did not show well in the Final Four and there has been much ado about lacking an inside game but they also showed they could win without an "inside game". It just didn't happen on the Final Four weekend.
One Fact you did get right: Hope College and the People of Holland, Michigan did an outstanding job putting on the event. A BIG THX from Hotlanta for your gracious Southern style hospitality.

Just realized your comments were based on an article in the Holland Sentinal. Sorry, did not mean to put words in your mouth but the facts remain as stated above.
THX

Wydown Blvd.

Quote from: airball1 on March 29, 2008, 05:52:59 PM
Pointlem:
I responded to you in the MIAA page as follows:

Pointlem:

Although you made some interesting points in your essay, some of your facts need to be verified. Like the one that the final four teams only faced one Top Twelve team combined (and I am assuming you mean HPU/Hope). If you look at Oglethorpe's road to the final four, you will see NO home games and a victory over #3 Thomas More on their home court and a victory over #10 Kean (who I think was a #3 pre-season) on their home court. Throw in a victory over #20 Wm. Smith and it's obvious which team took the hardest road without complaints.

Just realized your comments were based on an article in the Holland Sentinal. Sorry, did not mean to put words in your mouth but the facts remain as stated above.
THX

I believe that the rankings the author used were based on the Massey Ratings (as stated in the article). The author of this article is using the correct facts. Maybe you misread the article. Check the Massey Ratings: http://www.masseyratings.com/rate.php?lg=cbw&sub=III&mid=6

Pat Coleman

Using final rankings to analyze brackets created three weeks ago ... I see ... no wonder it was confusing.

This was the ONLY ranking that the author could have used and been "correct" in his facts. Smacks of selective analysis if you ask me -- the other two polls both disagreed with the computer.

It also used the less-accurate of the two Massey rankings. This is the one that is a more accurate predictor, the one which uses MOV.

http://www.masseyratings.com/rate.php?lg=cbw&sub=III&mid=1
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Quote from: old 40 on September 25, 2007, 08:23:57 PMLet's discuss (sports) in a positive way, sometimes kidding each other with no disrespect.