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Started by Pat Coleman, September 22, 2005, 03:16:50 PM

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Pat Coleman

Quote from: fightingscots13 on October 26, 2011, 12:25:44 PM
Would be interested in some insight from the ATN Board..  Monmouth College's Alex Tanney threw for five TDs in last Saturday's game and now has 141 career touchdown passes to move within one of the NCAA Division III record.  He's also within a few hundred yards of the NCAA Division III record for career passing yards (with two regular season games to play).

My question - how big of a deal is this in D-III circles?  It doesn't seem to be on d3football.com, as I couldn't find any mention of it.  Your thoughts??

We also talked about it in the Around the Nation podcast this week.

http://www.d3blogs.com/d3football/2011/10/24/atn-podcast-all-about-the-defens/
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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.

Ryan Tipps

Quote from: Pat Coleman on October 27, 2011, 11:29:36 AM
Quote from: fightingscots13 on October 26, 2011, 12:25:44 PM
Would be interested in some insight from the ATN Board..  Monmouth College's Alex Tanney threw for five TDs in last Saturday's game and now has 141 career touchdown passes to move within one of the NCAA Division III record.  He's also within a few hundred yards of the NCAA Division III record for career passing yards (with two regular season games to play).

My question - how big of a deal is this in D-III circles?  It doesn't seem to be on d3football.com, as I couldn't find any mention of it.  Your thoughts??

We also talked about it in the Around the Nation podcast this week.

http://www.d3blogs.com/d3football/2011/10/24/atn-podcast-all-about-the-defens/

And it's going to be highlighted in Triple Take tomorrow morning.
D3football.com Senior Editor and Around the Nation columnist. On Twitter: @NewsTipps

2.7 seconds. An average football player may need more time to score; a great one finds a way. I've seen greatness happen.

jknezek

Nice job putting together and explaining the regional rankings. A good learning tool for many and a very good refresher for others. I also liked the Nifty 50 list. Twice as many teams makes for twice as many arguments! Thanks for putting it all together.

ExTartanPlayer

Quote from: jknezek on October 26, 2011, 11:43:19 AM
...get rid of the unneccessary "in-region" designation...

In general, I don't get the emphasis on "regional" games for a couple of reasons:

1) Division III doesn't cleanly split into regions, leading to #2...
2) The distinction of what counts as a "regional" game is so arbitrary
3) With only 10 games, it seems ridiculous to throw away results or to value some more than others.
I was small but made up for it by being slow...

http://athletics.cmu.edu/sports/fball/2011-12/releases/20120629a4jaxa

Ralph Turner

Quote from: ExTartanPlayer on October 27, 2011, 08:09:41 PM
Quote from: jknezek on October 26, 2011, 11:43:19 AM
...get rid of the unneccessary "in-region" designation...

In general, I don't get the emphasis on "regional" games for a couple of reasons:

1) Division III doesn't cleanly split into regions, leading to #2...
2) The distinction of what counts as a "regional" game is so arbitrary

3) With only 10 games, it seems ridiculous to throw away results or to value some more than others.

Respectfully, I think that "In region" is consistent with the other sports.

Ralph Turner

Quote from: Ralph Turner on October 27, 2011, 10:54:50 PM
Quote from: ExTartanPlayer on October 27, 2011, 08:09:41 PM
Quote from: jknezek on October 26, 2011, 11:43:19 AM
...get rid of the unneccessary "in-region" designation...

In general, I don't get the emphasis on "regional" games for a couple of reasons:

1) Division III doesn't cleanly split into regions, leading to #2...
2) The distinction of what counts as a "regional" game is so arbitrary

3) With only 10 games, it seems ridiculous to throw away results or to value some more than others.

Respectfully, I think that "In region" is consistent with the other sports.


From this week's ATN...

Quote
...
Remember, the records above are in-region against D-IIIs, so even though UW-Whitewater is 7-0 overall, they are 5-0 in-region, with Franklin being a non-region game and Campebellsville not being a D-III opponent. The criteria was created to keep D-III teams playing each other, and to keep them from being forced to crisscross the country on limited travel budgets to play the games that will get them into the playoffs. UW-Whitewater's success has worked against it in this regard, as the trouble filling its schedule with D-IIIs hurts come playoff time.

K-Mack

Quote from: jknezek on October 26, 2011, 11:43:19 AM
It is nice that they list the criteria. All I can say, however, is there are enough loopholes in the headline paragraph for each grouping to let the committee do whatever they want.

I am continually surprised by the emphasis on regional results and yet the lack of emphasis on actual region when building the brackets. Focusing on teams playing in region seems to be the best way for the committee to get enough data to come up with a logical way to set up regional brackets. However, by continually violating the regions with the seedings, I no longer see the point in emphasizing "in region" games. The committee is just picking the 4 best national teams, in their opinion, and building around them. Clearly they don't have much use for all the regional results to help set up the brackets, they just want the 4-12 best teams nationally and the related travel distances of every other qualifier.

The more I think about it, the bigger problem I have with this. If the rules are going to continue to specify teams should play "in-region" to get the best consideration, then we shouldn't be moving teams around when seeding the playoffs. Not that I think it matters in the end, it just seems like a logical conclusion to the guidelines. Otherwise, get rid of the unneccessary "in-region" designation and continue to build brackets based on the assumed best teams. I don't really care what they choose, either method can be hammered or defended, I just want some consistency between the guidelines and the results.

I see it completely differently.

The emphasis on in-region games I always interpreted for football to mean that a team doesn't have to blow its travel budget searching far and wide for games. D-III doesn't want to get in a situation where teams feel compelled to spend more than they have to get the wins that impress the committee. Play the good teams that are close to you and win and you'll get in.

Once the field is being established though, I think they're absoultely doing the right thing with number one seeds. If a team is within 500 miles of one another, why wouldn't we try to get the Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 teams in the country as top seeds rather than Nos. 1, 3, 4 and 15? I mean I know those numbers are arbitrary, and the East folks argue that they should have their "own" bracket a lot, but I don't agree.

You have to beat the best to make a Stagg Bowl anyway. Why should we penalize a great team because it's in a loaded region just to make a subpar 9-1 team a No. 1 because of where it's located?

It is a national championship tournament.

As for getting rid of the regional distinction entirely, I think for football I wouldn't have a problem with it. It's definitely something of a stretch, as the regions, the in-region games and the four not-regional brackets can confuse people.

I imagine though for other sports the focus on in-region competition makes sense. Basketball teams can play in Christmas tournaments or whatever without damaging their playoff chances. Anyone but me could probably speak more knowledgeable about that though
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ExTartanPlayer

Keith, Ralph, excellent comments by you both.

After reading your thoughts, I agree that the regional distinction seems to be a criteria established with good intentions; I'm just not sure that it actually achieves the stated goals (again, because the "regions" don't break down very nicely). 

For example, UW-Whitewater would have been better off scheduling a nonconference game against Lewis & Clark (across of the country, but in-region) than the game against Franklin (~300 miles away, but out-of-region).  I know that I'm cherrypicking one example, but I still stand by my comment that I don't think the criteria really helps very much.
I was small but made up for it by being slow...

http://athletics.cmu.edu/sports/fball/2011-12/releases/20120629a4jaxa

jknezek

Quote from: K-Mack on October 28, 2011, 03:02:51 AM

The emphasis on in-region games I always interpreted for football to mean that a team doesn't have to blow its travel budget searching far and wide for games. D-III doesn't want to get in a situation where teams feel compelled to spend more than they have to get the wins that impress the committee. Play the good teams that are close to you and win and you'll get in.

I hadn't thought about this. With the number of AQs versus the number of Pool Cs I think it's a bit of an odd argument. I agree that it makes sense, but I don't think there are too many teams dreaming of a run to the playoffs that are going to set up their schedule "in case" they are playing for Pool C consideration. The goal has got to be to win your conference, and you set up your early season non-conference games for a variety of reasons but I would think the most important are 1) historical rivalries 2) schedule holes and 3) whether you believe playing tough games early makes you a better team or getting a good head of steam and confidence helps the most.

Quote from: K-Mack on October 28, 2011, 03:02:51 AM
Once the field is being established though, I think they're absoultely doing the right thing with number one seeds. If a team is within 500 miles of one another, why wouldn't we try to get the Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 teams in the country as top seeds rather than Nos. 1, 3, 4 and 15? I mean I know those numbers are arbitrary, and the East folks argue that they should have their "own" bracket a lot, but I don't agree.

You have to beat the best to make a Stagg Bowl anyway. Why should we penalize a great team because it's in a loaded region just to make a subpar 9-1 team a No. 1 because of where it's located?

It is a national championship tournament.


Agree completely. Except they emphasize playing regional games so that they can structure the best regions top to bottom. What good is doing that if you are just going to start importing teams when ever convenient? Lets say you build a bracket around UMU and it requires 2 or 3 North teams and 5 or 6 East teams. We have a pretty good idea that UMU belongs at the top, and we know how the other North teams are comparable to UMU since we have some in-region data, but how do we slot the north teams among the East teams since we have limited cross-region data? That second or third north team is just slotted in somewhere on a fun guess. Meanwhile, the 5 or 6 east teams are correctly slotted relative to each other, but someone could be getting hammered on the seedings versus the geographically convenient North teams. Or maybe they are getting completely lucky and getting a North patsy.

I said in my original post that I didn't really care if they either stopped screwing with the regions during seedings or got rid of the regular season emphasis on "in-region". I stand by that. Do one or the other but don't tell me that scheduling in region is important because we need to know who the best teams in the region are for playoff seeding and then build some hybrid mess that has limited crossovers and is built around the top teams in the country. It's just too contradictory.

I think you are right that doing away with the regional focus is a much better and simpler idea. You guys did a great job putting up a speculative set of regional rankings. Can we get a list of the 50 top teams nationally using the same criteria? Tiebreakers wouldn't be wins against RRO, but rather "any" ranked opponent and in-region no longer matters. I would, however, keep the emphasis on D3 games. Might be fun to compare the 40 regional rankings to a top 50 national rankings.



02 Warhawk

#2244
Quote from: ExTartanPlayer on October 28, 2011, 08:09:08 AM
Keith, Ralph, excellent comments by you both.

After reading your thoughts, I agree that the regional distinction seems to be a criteria established with good intentions; I'm just not sure that it actually achieves the stated goals (again, because the "regions" don't break down very nicely). 

For example, UW-Whitewater would have been better off scheduling a nonconference game against Lewis & Clark (across of the country, but in-region) than the game against Franklin (~300 miles away, but out-of-region).  I know that I'm cherrypicking one example, but I still stand by my comment that I don't think the criteria really helps very much.

You're exactly correct on the Whitewater example. Unfortunately, the regional boundaries are split up the way they are b/c of the abundance of DIII schools in the north eastern part of the country. Which makes just about everything west of the mississippi river the West Region.

ExTartanPlayer

Quote from: jknezek on October 28, 2011, 09:16:19 AM
...how do we slot the north teams among the East teams since we have limited cross-region data? That second or third north team is just slotted in somewhere on a fun guess. Meanwhile, the 5 or 6 east teams are correctly slotted relative to each other, but someone could be getting hammered on the seedings versus the geographically convenient North teams. Or maybe they are getting completely lucky and getting a North patsy.

jknezek,

Fundamentally, I agree that it's difficult to properly slot those teams.

From a practical standpoint...if the teams are seeded slightly "out of order" in one of the sub-brackets, that will correct itself fairly quickly, usually within a round or two.  If the only consequence is that a powerful North team gets seeded behind the top two East teams and loses to UMU in the round of 16 instead of in the quarterfinals, I think that's a relatively small issue.  As Keith said, it is a championship tournament, and if you're one of the top 4-5 contenders, you'll win anyway.

Suppose you have three North teams and five East teams in one region.  Call them N1-N3 and E1-E5.
Suppose that N1-N3 are ALL better than E1-E5, but due to seeding juxtaposition, they are seeded as such:

N1, E1, E2, N2, E3, E4, N3, E5

First round:
N1 def E5
N2 def E3
E2 def E4
N3 def E1

Second round:
N1 def N2
N3 def E2

Quarterfinal:
N1 def N3

Can you really say that any of those teams has been badly wronged in this scenario?  Perhaps N2 got stuck playing N1 a round too early, or N3 got a bit of an "easy ride" to the quarterfinals, but justice is ultimately served in the end.  Yes, some teams might get screwed with a really tough early matchup, but I don't think that any bona-fide national championship contender is going to squabble about that...
I was small but made up for it by being slow...

http://athletics.cmu.edu/sports/fball/2011-12/releases/20120629a4jaxa

jknezek

I agree that it won't affect the outcome in the long term, but over the last decade or so NOTHING has affected the outcome of the tournament. I've also said that the vast majority of teams that make the playoffs are essentially bracket fillers. There is little to no hope of a team ranked lower than 3rd in any region winning.

So essentially we could pair the tournament down to say 12 teams and get the same results we get now. We don't do that because playing in the post-season tournament is a reward in itself. Likewise, the seeding and progression through EACH round is a victory for most teams. Since we aren't limiting the tournament to ONLY teams with a chance to win, there are a ton of symbolic victories along the way, and I believe this is part of the point of the tournament.

Therefore, while I agree with your argument that the vast majority of seedings don't matter in the end, I'd argue that it does matter to the players on the field whether they get shafted by a random cross-region seeding. The tournament is for the players, as are all D3 sports, so we should try and get it right.

Now there are at least two ways to get it "right", which is an inherently subjective term. One is the way it is currently done where we are seeding to get the best 4 teams into the final. I don't have a problem with that. I just have a problem with the in-region emphasis during the season since we aren't sticking with the regions. In your example you put:

"Suppose that N1-N3 are ALL better than E1-E5"

and this where I have a problem. My problem is that the focus on in-region games makes this supposition useless. There is no encouraged cross-over, very little actual cross-over, and no data to use to make this supposition other than "I believe". The whole purpose of creating the emphasis on "in-region" and to create "regional" brackets and "regional" rankings was to provide enough data through h2h, one and twice removed games, to try and limit "I believe".

So, either use the data created by your encouraged "in-region" or get rid of it. You can make a lot of ancillary arguments, but the facts on the ground are as follows:

The NCAA encourages "in-region" games to help with decisions about the post-season. When post-season comes along, in-region becomes a secondary criteria to how do we get the best 4 teams into the final while limiting travel costs. A worthy goal in and of itself, but one largely incompatible with the emphasis on "in-region" during the season.

Pat Coleman

Quote from: ExTartanPlayer on October 28, 2011, 08:09:08 AM
Keith, Ralph, excellent comments by you both.

After reading your thoughts, I agree that the regional distinction seems to be a criteria established with good intentions; I'm just not sure that it actually achieves the stated goals (again, because the "regions" don't break down very nicely). 

For example, UW-Whitewater would have been better off scheduling a nonconference game against Lewis & Clark (across of the country, but in-region) than the game against Franklin (~300 miles away, but out-of-region).  I know that I'm cherrypicking one example, but I still stand by my comment that I don't think the criteria really helps very much.

Every map has lines. From Pittsburgh you could go five hours to play someone in Philadelphia or an hour to play someone in Ohio. Yet one is in your state and the other is not. You have to draw lines somewhere.
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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.

Pat Coleman

One thing to keep in mind is that Division III does things the same for every sport, jknezek, so some things that apply well to sports with large seasons don't necessarily do so for football. The committee seems to counter this in football by going to the secondary criteria more often.
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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

Thanks for the comments above.

IN-Region emphasis is D-III to cut down on time away from the classroom.

I will cut the UAA some slack!  They are of the same mission and vision.  The WIAC is of the same mission and vision.  The same goes for the NCAC and the SCAC and the new SAA and even the ECFC which wants to offer a "competitive" league for its student-athletes at those peer institutions!

The whole self-assessment that D-III went thru* settled most of the identity issues, or focused on the differences that were not worth breaking up a pretty good thing.

If we stop at Region Championships, and cut the season short by 2 weeks by at most 4 teams sop as to get the students back into the classroom sooner, then this is not an issue.  It is we fans (and instituions and student-athletes) who want a national champion who are bringing up these issues and idiosyncrasies.

(*Please start with Page 1 of the Future of Division III message board for that chronology and discussion.)