Pool B

Started by Ralph Turner, October 01, 2005, 02:12:36 PM

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hickory_cornhusker

Quote from: Pat Coleman on April 30, 2013, 03:21:51 PM
Quote from: Gray Fox on April 29, 2013, 05:48:37 PM
Will that help schools like Austin complete a schedule where they don't have to double up on teams?
The MIAC now needs games.

It doesn't really change MIAC schedules. Macalester has played two or three MIAC schools a year since they left the MIAC for football a decade ago and it looks like they could continue to play two (say, rival Carleton and area beatable opponent Hamline). That really only leaves one MIAC school with one game to fill.

And all the other MWC schools will now need an additional non-conference opponent.

Gray Fox

thanks hickory,
That's what I thought I read in the press release.
Fierce When Roused

Ralph Turner

Quote from: hickory_cornhusker on April 30, 2013, 11:54:45 PM
Quote from: Pat Coleman on April 30, 2013, 03:21:51 PM
Quote from: Gray Fox on April 29, 2013, 05:48:37 PM
Will that help schools like Austin complete a schedule where they don't have to double up on teams?
The MIAC now needs games.

It doesn't really change MIAC schedules. Macalester has played two or three MIAC schools a year since they left the MIAC for football a decade ago and it looks like they could continue to play two (say, rival Carleton and area beatable opponent Hamline). That really only leaves one MIAC school with one game to fill.
And all the other MWC schools will now need an additional non-conference opponent.
...which they can find in the NATHC, the UMAC, and the IIAC.

Ralph Turner

I know it is early to start a Pool B watch, but Texas Lutheran beat Trinity TX, and has a favorable schedule until the Louisiana College game on 11/02.  It is plausible for the Bulldogs to go 9-1 on the season, 7-1 in-region.  (Do games against Mississippi College who is going D-2 still count as 'in-region?)

Pat Coleman

Quote from: Ralph Turner on September 15, 2013, 12:41:06 AM
I know it is early to start a Pool B watch, but Texas Lutheran beat Trinity TX, and has a favorable schedule until the Louisiana College game on 11/02.  It is plausible for the Bulldogs to go 9-1 on the season, 7-1 in-region.  (Do games against Mississippi College who is going D-2 still count as 'in-region?)

http://www.d3sports.com/notables/2013/09/on-further-review-mc-goes-d2
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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.

ExTartanPlayer

Too early to take our first look at Pool B hopefuls?  Or shall we wait another week to get most teams up to 5 games played?
I was small but made up for it by being slow...

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

wally_wabash

I was going to start projecting the at-larges next week...keeping my fingers crossed for a strength of schedule link to pop back up after Saturday's action.   :)
"Nothing in the world is more expensive than free."- The Deacon of HBO's The Wire

Pat Coleman

Quote from: wally_wabash on October 02, 2013, 11:55:39 AM
I was going to start projecting the at-larges next week...keeping my fingers crossed for a strength of schedule link to pop back up after Saturday's action.   :)

We can probably manage that. Remind me if you don't see it.
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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.

wally_wabash

Quote from: Pat Coleman on October 02, 2013, 06:45:48 PM
Quote from: wally_wabash on October 02, 2013, 11:55:39 AM
I was going to start projecting the at-larges next week...keeping my fingers crossed for a strength of schedule link to pop back up after Saturday's action.   :)

We can probably manage that. Remind me if you don't see it.

Just a reminder about the SOS link.  Thanks for getting all of that info out...couldn't play around with stuff like the at-large projection without it. 
"Nothing in the world is more expensive than free."- The Deacon of HBO's The Wire

Ralph Turner

Quote from: wally_wabash on October 07, 2013, 04:15:21 PM
Quote from: Pat Coleman on October 02, 2013, 06:45:48 PM
Quote from: wally_wabash on October 02, 2013, 11:55:39 AM
I was going to start projecting the at-larges next week...keeping my fingers crossed for a strength of schedule link to pop back up after Saturday's action.   :)

We can probably manage that. Remind me if you don't see it.

Just a reminder about the SOS link.  Thanks for getting all of that info out...couldn't play around with stuff like the at-large projection without it.
Aw shucks. I was hoping for your projections when I saw that you had posted.

My three as of today.

Wesley on strength of schedule.
Millsaps, currently leading the SAA
Texas Lutheran, currently leading the SCAC.  TLU has been on my watch list since they beat Trinity TX

wally_wabash

Alright, I'm going to go ahead and post my selections here...kind of fudging a little bit for this first week because there are so many undefeated teams left.  I'll explain some of the fudge factor a little further down.  First, the AQs. 


   League   
Team
   ASC   
   UMHB   
   CC   
   Johns Hopkins   
   CCIW   
   North Central   
   ECFC   
   Gallaudet   
   E8   
   St. John Fisher   
   HCAC   
   Franklin   
   IIAC   
   Coe   
   LL   
   Hobart   
   MAC   
   Lycoming   
   MIAC   
   Bethel   
   MWC   
   Illinois College   
   MIAA   
   Adrian   
   NACC   
   Concordia (Wis.)   
   NCAC   
   Wabash   
   NEFC   
   Salve Regina   
   NJAC   
   Rowan   
   NWC   
   Linfield   
   OAC   
   Mount Union   
   ODAC   
   Hampden-Sydney   
   PAC   
   Thomas More   
   SCIAC   
   Cal Lutheran   
   UMAC   
   Greenville   
   USAC   
   Huntingdon   
   WIAC   
   UW-Whitewater   

Obviously we have a lot of ties for first place as many leagues have only played 1-2 conference games and many more of those have tremendously backloaded the schedule with the juicy games.  So where we have ties, I used my discretion as to which team I think is best and will win.  This is one of the few attempts at predicting the future that I'll do here. 

Now we pick Pool Bs.  There are three this year...Here are the three:

Millsaps 4-0
Wesley 4-1
Texas Lutheran 3-0

Spot on, Ralph.  I really don't see any way around these three at the moment.  Chicago could have made an interesting choice had they won on Saturday.  I kind of think Wesley is out of the woods.  They do have a non-trivial game left at Rowan, but given that that game means everything to Wesley and kind of means very little to Rowan (in terms of qualifying for the postseason), I would expect Wesley to win there.  TLU has a tough game left with Louisiana College and maybe Hardin-Simmons as well...so they aren't quite out of the woods yet.  In any case, these are the three Pool B's as of today. 

Pool C...so much competition here.  Only five spots available.  Here are my picks, in order of selection:

Concordia-Moorhead 4-0
UW-Oshkosh 4-0
John Carroll 4-0
Wheaton 4-0
Pacific 4-0

Here's kind of where the fudge factor comes in.  I'm not taking more than one at-large team from any particular conference.  As the season plays out, there aren't going to be 5 undefeated or 1-loss teams from the MIAC or WIAC or CCIW or NWC.  They just haven't played through enough of the schedule to separate yet.  In any case, when all is said and done here, there's really only going to be (at most) one viable at-large team from these leagues, so I'm taking one (where appropriate) and kind of dismissing the rest.  So sorry to St. Thomas and Heidelberg and IWU and Platteville. 

So how did I get to these five?  Moorhead I think has the best win of anybody in the at-large pool having beaten St. Johns on the road (who beat St. Thomas, which makes it pretty easy to make an MIAA pecking order at the moment). 

Oshkosh is the second team off the board.  I'm cheating a little bit and giving them quite a bit of credit for thrashing Marian which really doesn't count per the criteria, but that result is hard to ignore completely, particularly this early on when we only have 40-50% of our total data set. 

Eyeballing the schedules, it looks to me like John Carroll has played a slightly stronger schedule than the rest of their North region teams so they hit the top of the North region list.  That win against St. Norbert gets better all the time...St. Norbert could win a share of the MWC (they don't play Illinois College...both could conceivably go undefeated in league play).  Interestingly, I'm currently voting Heidelberg in front of JCU in the north region poll, but I think per the selection criteria, JCU grades out better than Heidelberg.  Heidelberg has big fat Alma donut dragging their SOS down while JCU's non-league game is 4-1 St. Norbert.  Which now that I think about it isn't a regional game.  But even still...no data at all in your SOS is better than 0-5 in the OWP part of your SOS.  And if Norbert gets to 7-1 or 8-1 and is undefeated in West region play, they've got a good chance to be reginoally ranked, which does matter. 

So that leaves one.  On the board here are Ursinus (5-0), Hartwick (4-0), Wittenberg (3-1, 3-0 in D3 play), and Pacific (4-0).  I'm tossing Wittenberg because their D3 schedule doesn't hold up at the moment and they can't get any sympathy points from the Butler game they took.  Have to show better than that to get "good loss" points.  Of the three remaining, they all have kind of middling looking schedules, except for one result: Pacific beating Adrian.  That's by far the best result amongst these three and that's going to be the reason that I pull the trigger on Pacific. 

Certainly we can quibble about why I'm putting Pacific ahead of PLU or Willamette or anybody else in the West region, but the fact is that they have a road win against a team that is probably going to sweep a much-improved MIAA.  That's impressive.  And Adrian should be regionally ranked when we get that far, which plays in Pacific's favor...for now at least. 

So that's my first peek at the field of 32.  The first one is tough...it gets much more analytical the further down the road we get- much less conjecture on my part. 
"Nothing in the world is more expensive than free."- The Deacon of HBO's The Wire

Pat Coleman

SOS page is up:
http://www.d3football.com/seasons/2013/schedule?tmpl=sos-template

One big caveat: I will be marking ALL D-III games as regional in order to get that number since overall D-III SOS is a primary criterion this year. So this will change.
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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.

hickory_cornhusker

I have a question. As Pat mentioned, Overall D-III SOS is primary criteria. Is Overall D-III record primary criteria? The reason I ask is because unless I missed something Chicago is still undefeated in regional play. Rhodes is in the SAA, South Region, and Administrative Region 3. Chicago is in the UAA (until 2015? when they join the SAA), North Region, and Adminsitrative Region 4.

I still wouldn't put Chicago in the top 3 of Pool B but just curious. Also history doesn't exactly bode well for a UAA team in this situation. Case Western Reserve went 9-0 in region in 2011(?) and lost to Rochester out of region and missed the Pool B bid.

WarhawkDad

Quote from: wally_wabash on October 08, 2013, 10:50:53 AM
Alright, I'm going to go ahead and post my selections here...kind of fudging a little bit for this first week because there are so many undefeated teams left.  I'll explain some of the fudge factor a little further down.  First, the AQs. 


   League   
Team
   ASC   
   UMHB   
   CC   
   Johns Hopkins   
   CCIW   
   North Central   
   ECFC   
   Gallaudet   
   E8   
   St. John Fisher   
   HCAC   
   Franklin   
   IIAC   
   Coe   
   LL   
   Hobart   
   MAC   
   Lycoming   
   MIAC   
   Bethel   
   MWC   
   Illinois College   
   MIAA   
   Adrian   
   NACC   
   Concordia (Wis.)   
   NCAC   
   Wabash   
   NEFC   
   Salve Regina   
   NJAC   
   Rowan   
   NWC   
   Linfield   
   OAC   
   Mount Union   
   ODAC   
   Hampden-Sydney   
   PAC   
   Thomas More   
   SCIAC   
   Cal Lutheran   
   UMAC   
   Greenville   
   USAC   
   Huntingdon   
   WIAC   
   UW-Whitewater   

Obviously we have a lot of ties for first place as many leagues have only played 1-2 conference games and many more of those have tremendously backloaded the schedule with the juicy games.  So where we have ties, I used my discretion as to which team I think is best and will win.  This is one of the few attempts at predicting the future that I'll do here. 

Now we pick Pool Bs.  There are three this year...Here are the three:

Millsaps 4-0
Wesley 4-1
Texas Lutheran 3-0

Spot on, Ralph.  I really don't see any way around these three at the moment.  Chicago could have made an interesting choice had they won on Saturday.  I kind of think Wesley is out of the woods.  They do have a non-trivial game left at Rowan, but given that that game means everything to Wesley and kind of means very little to Rowan (in terms of qualifying for the postseason), I would expect Wesley to win there.  TLU has a tough game left with Louisiana College and maybe Hardin-Simmons as well...so they aren't quite out of the woods yet.  In any case, these are the three Pool B's as of today. 

Pool C...so much competition here.  Only five spots available.  Here are my picks, in order of selection:

Concordia-Moorhead 4-0
UW-Oshkosh 4-0
John Carroll 4-0
Wheaton 4-0
Pacific 4-0

Here's kind of where the fudge factor comes in.  I'm not taking more than one at-large team from any particular conference.  As the season plays out, there aren't going to be 5 undefeated or 1-loss teams from the MIAC or WIAC or CCIW or NWC.  They just haven't played through enough of the schedule to separate yet.  In any case, when all is said and done here, there's really only going to be (at most) one viable at-large team from these leagues, so I'm taking one (where appropriate) and kind of dismissing the rest.  So sorry to St. Thomas and Heidelberg and IWU and Platteville. 

So how did I get to these five?  Moorhead I think has the best win of anybody in the at-large pool having beaten St. Johns on the road (who beat St. Thomas, which makes it pretty easy to make an MIAA pecking order at the moment). 

Oshkosh is the second team off the board.  I'm cheating a little bit and giving them quite a bit of credit for thrashing Marian which really doesn't count per the criteria, but that result is hard to ignore completely, particularly this early on when we only have 40-50% of our total data set. 

Eyeballing the schedules, it looks to me like John Carroll has played a slightly stronger schedule than the rest of their North region teams so they hit the top of the North region list.  That win against St. Norbert gets better all the time...St. Norbert could win a share of the MWC (they don't play Illinois College...both could conceivably go undefeated in league play).  Interestingly, I'm currently voting Heidelberg in front of JCU in the north region poll, but I think per the selection criteria, JCU grades out better than Heidelberg.  Heidelberg has big fat Alma donut dragging their SOS down while JCU's non-league game is 4-1 St. Norbert.  Which now that I think about it isn't a regional game.  But even still...no data at all in your SOS is better than 0-5 in the OWP part of your SOS.  And if Norbert gets to 7-1 or 8-1 and is undefeated in West region play, they've got a good chance to be reginoally ranked, which does matter. 

So that leaves one.  On the board here are Ursinus (5-0), Hartwick (4-0), Wittenberg (3-1, 3-0 in D3 play), and Pacific (4-0).  I'm tossing Wittenberg because their D3 schedule doesn't hold up at the moment and they can't get any sympathy points from the Butler game they took.  Have to show better than that to get "good loss" points.  Of the three remaining, they all have kind of middling looking schedules, except for one result: Pacific beating Adrian.  That's by far the best result amongst these three and that's going to be the reason that I pull the trigger on Pacific. 

Certainly we can quibble about why I'm putting Pacific ahead of PLU or Willamette or anybody else in the West region, but the fact is that they have a road win against a team that is probably going to sweep a much-improved MIAA.  That's impressive.  And Adrian should be regionally ranked when we get that far, which plays in Pacific's favor...for now at least. 

So that's my first peek at the field of 32.  The first one is tough...it gets much more analytical the further down the road we get- much less conjecture on my part.
Very interesting.  In the WIAC you currently have 3 undefeated teams; UW-Whitewater, Oshkosh, and Platteville.  Although UWW has been a perenial power, they lost a step last year and Oshkosh won the conference.  Platteville was projected to be the conference winner this year at the beginning of the season.   I do believe the WIAC, due to strength of conference and strength of schedule has a great chance of getting two into the post season, it will be a dog fight for the two spots.  We could very easily have a 3 way tie with all of them tied at 9-1 for the Conference Championship and the AQ.

WarhawkDad
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d-train

#974
Generally, those are the five conferences that I'd expect to get serious Pool C consideration if they have an obvious (1-loss) runner-up.  I'd predict it'll be Willamette or Pacific Lutheran 'on the discussion board' at 8-1 from the NWC (rather than Pacific - though we'll see). I understand how you are approaching this analysis from a slightly different angle (some prediction, but lots of 'as of now'). Nice job!