How does the NESCAC POY NOON not get all-american, 15 goals etc etc. This really proves that coaches are shunning amherst program and not giving their players votes.BTW the POY is voted on by players not coaches. While its immature to take this out on the players one can see how much Serpone is disliked by his peers. That much is obvious.

However, Amherst had two players make All-Region who weren't 1st Team All-NESCAC.  Jae Hoe and Alejandro Sucre made 2nd Team All-New England North despite only being 2nd Team All-NESCAC.  So that runs counter to your suggestion of anti-Serpone (anti-Amherst) voting in general (beyond the NESCAC coaches). 

Also, Spencer Noon did make 1st Team All-New England North.  At that point, I'm not sure how many of Serpone's peers have anything to do with the decisions of which All-Region 1st teamers are selected as All-Americans.  I must admit ignorance on how that works, but I had the impression that was decided by the national NSCAA D-III All-American committee (that is, all the regional chairs). 

2nd Team All-American defender Phil Vestergaard (Williams) was only 2nd Team All-NESCAC?!?!?!?

So who got this one wrong--the conference or the NSCAA?

I understand that most conferences base their honors on only conference play, but to be one of 30-some All-Americans out of approaching 10,000 D-III soccer players, how could your performance in conference play (typically representing at a minimum 1/3 of your regular season) be such that you do not make 1st-Team all-conference, but your full-season performance gets you All-American recognition?  That just defies reason.  Deep, strong teams often have All-Region caliber players that do not make 1st Team all-conference, especially in the stronger, deeper conferences.  There's reasons for that.  I get it.  But an All-American caliber player not on the all-conference 1st Team?!?  Now something's wrong.

In the specific case of Vestergaard, Williams had a 10-game NESCAC regular season schedule  and their full season was only 16 games.  So for 10 or 16 games he wasn't on of the best 4 defenders in his conference, but in the additional 6 games he did enough to prove himself one of the 7 best defenders in the nation.  Just does NOT make sense.

Any thoughts?  Is he that good (AA caliber)?  If so, why do you think he only got 2nd team All-NESCAC.

So how do you explain a team that for the third year in a row does way better in the tournament than the season's results would lead one to expect?

Mmmm.  Where have I heard it put that way before? 

And maybe your question is rhetorical, meant to imply that the expectations have been off.  But I don't think so.

It is rather remarkable the way Calvin has elevated their game in the tournament and avoided whatever caused them to stumble during the season.  In 2009 when they reached the title game, they seemed to be a title contenders for parts of the season, but had a stretch late where they really didn't play well at all.  So hard to know what to expect heading into the tournament even though you know the potential is there.  I can only figure their coach really knows how to get the team focused come NCAA time and really knows how to game-plan for specific opponents on short notice.  But who knows.

I can only imagine it has been wonderfully exhilarating for the Calvin fans these past few years.

No doubt, trying to achieve a high SOS is much more difficult the further west you are without spending a lot more (time and money) on travel.  The NWC schools and SCIAC schools have it the worst.  As a result they play the conference slate twice which means two matches against the bottom-half-of-the-table teams, killing the SOS instead of going out of conference to play decent opposition as is so easy here in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.  And that's why I think the committee's high priority on SOS is a little unfair to some schools.  (I won't even go into how I don't think the SOS formula does that good a job gauging toughness of a schedule.) 

The double posting of Misericordia in Pool A and C has been corrected to show that Baldwin-Wallace got a Pool C berth.

As to Carleton being left out, I had them as on being as on the bubble as anyone, together with Baldwin-Wallace.  Not sure it came down to those two or not, as I didn't even have Salisbury in my discussion.  My reasoning for not including Salisbury much less pick them is that the committee had them down at No. 6 in the South Atlantic the past two weeks (7th the first week), and they lost to York in the CAC final meaning at best they would flip-flop with Wm. Paterson (who also had a 1-1-0 final week) one more time to move up to No. 5 and I just didn't think at No. 5 they would get a strong look given they had only 1 win against ranked teams and an SOS on the lower end. 

Now that said, I'm not of the opinion that Salisbury doesn't deserve a berth, just that I didn't see it coming given the regional rankings this year and what I have observed over the past several years with at-large selections.  But, I guess being able to correctly predict 18 of 19 Pool C picks means that the rankings are serving their purpose of foreshadowing the selections and removing surprise.   

Who I had incorrectly included was Rochester.  And the funny thing is that I personally would not have taken them, but I thought the committee who had them at No. 5 in the East last week would like their high SOS enough.  Not upset that I was wrong on that count.

Back to Carleton.  6 in-region losses is a lot and normally you shouldn't be in the running.  The reason I thought they would be on the bubble despite that is because of a decent SOS and 3 wins against ranked teams and having been ranked No. 5 and possible moving up ahead of Augsburg into No. 4 in the last week.  Normally 4 in-region losses is the max. you can have, and only Trinity (Conn.) got in with more than that with 5.  But their SOS was quite high and they had four wins over ranked teams. 

Not sure I agree about the quandary in how to schedule.  Put together a mixed non-conference schedule with a some really good tests and some moderate competition (doing a killer schedule like what Wheaton has traditionally done is not necessary).  Then the team has to win some important matches and not lose too often, certainly less than six times in-region.

November 6, 2011
At-Large Berth Analysis and Predictions
Who's in the running for the 19 Pool C and 1 Pool B at-large berths to the men's NCAA tournament? Who will be dancing and who's season will end?
By Christan Shirk

The first part of the article is up with the regional ranking table color coded for AQ's and Pool B and C.  More analysis and predictions to come.

A dark horse in this all could be Wis. Superior who beat St. Olaf in the early parts of their season and have a higher s.o.s then Oshkosh. Just something to think about.

That is a great call on UW-Superior. 

• UW-Whitewater 11-7-0 (.611) in-region record | 0.571 SOS | 0-3-0 (.000) in-region vs. ranked teams
• UW-Superior: 11-6-2 (.632) in-region record | 0.555 SOS | 1-1-2 (.500) in-region vs. ranked teams
• UW-Oshkosh:  9-4-2 (.667) in-region record | 0.498 SOS | 0-0-1 (.500) in-region vs. ranked teams

If you forget about the head-to-head (which is a primary criteria, just not one they can put in the regional data table), you'd be justified in questioning why Whitewater is ranked over Superior.  Superior maybe has a lower SOS, but it's still a good SOS and I wouldn't think different enough to completely cancel out the better record vs. ranked teams that they have.  Even looking at which specific ranked teams they played doesn't throw this in Whitewater's favor.

• UW-Superior: St. Johns L0-2, St. Olaf W1-0, Chapman T1-1, Augsburg T1-1
• UW-Whitewater: Loras L2-4, North Park L0-2, Chapman L1-2

It probably came down to head-to-head, and two times this season Whitewater has beaten Superior (not to mention that they also lost both times to Oshkosh).  And not sure even if Oshkosh defeats Whitewater if that would be enough for Superior to nab the Pool B berth.  But it 100% can't be ruled out.  I just think the head-to-head will be too much again on selection Sunday if it already was in this week's rankings.  They very well may already be behind Oshkosh given the pair of head-to-head losses (not sure because of Oshkosh's low SOS), so an Oshkosh win would only solidify that. 

Maryville's SOS most certainly is too low (0.481) to be considered.  Is was just last year that they didn't want to rank teams that had SOS's under .500.  And UC-Santa Cruz really has no category in which they beat any other candidate.  Low in-region record, low SOS (but over .500 at .507), no wins against ranked teams, no resume-boosting win. 

It really is Whitwater's to lose, and even a loss to Oshkosh might not make a big difference. It's a real shame the the Pool B selection is somewhat a case of the best of the OK instead of the best of the best.