I wanted to get some input from our diehard fans on a section of our website.
A few years ago we started posting the "Conference Guidebook," first for men (http://www.d3hoops.com/guidebook/index) and then for women (http://www.d3hoops.com/guidebook/women/index). When I put the first one together, the information in it was much harder for the casual fan to find. Only a few conferences had historical information online in a digestible and easy-to-find format. One sent me their information in the mail because that was the only way to share it. The list of team-by-team NCAA tournament results was also hard to find, unless you got your hands on a hard copy NCAA's bulky media guide. No one tracked non-conference results or conference tournament results in a central location.
Fast forward to 2016 and a lot of that information is more readily available. We track conference tournament results in a central location (http://www.d3hoops.com/seasons/men/2015-16/conference-tournaments/index). Conferences do a much better job sharing their historical information. Someone who wants to know a program or conference's history in the NCAA tournament is more likely to find it on the team or conference's website.
So my question is, "Is this resource still worth assembling?"
I'm not fishing for compliments. I'm looking for honest input on whether our time is better spent on this resource or something else.
I think the most useful parts of the guidebook are the conference-by-conference NCAA tournament results (http://www.d3hoops.com/guidebook/2015-16/NCAA_tournament_records.pdf) and the non-conference records.
The tournament results don't take long. The women's conference guidebook only has those and it's already done for next season.
Compiling the non-conference results (http://www.d3hoops.com/guidebook/2015-16/Non-conference_records.pdf) and non-conference results against Division III opponents (http://www.d3hoops.com/guidebook/2015-16/Division_III_Non-Conference_Records.pdf) takes much longer. I try to account for all the non-conference games between conference opponents. Some occur regularly, like the Little Three games played outside the NESCAC schedule. Others are buried in random spots (i.e. two PAC teams playing each other on the second day of a third team's tournament). And going through the NWC, NEAC and UMAC schedules to pull out all those games against Evergreen State, Penn State-Brandywine and Valley City State is a real grind, but worth if it people actually care about that stuff.
Maybe there's a better way to identify those games so that the non-conference records are still accurate without scanning 400-something schedules. Maybe someone on these boards has already done that work so that I could repost it.
Any thoughts?
Quote from: gordonmann on May 05, 2016, 12:09:49 AM
Maybe there's a better way to identify those games so that the non-conference records are still accurate without scanning 400-something schedules. Maybe someone on these boards has already done that work so that I could repost it.
Any thoughts?
The work is already done for about 95% of the 2015-16 men's season for non conference activity... I could go back and finish up with about a day's effort, accounting for tourney games which are mostly non conference... obviously the chat room D3 vs D1/D2/etc.... supplies this info... unfortunately, some years I do the spreadsheet work, some years I don't... PM me if interested, I can probably find time next week to finish it up for 2015/16.
I'll be honest, I referenced the conference guidebook twice all last season, and one of those times I remember not finding what I was looking for. So... if it were me, I probably would not put that much work in, although it's darn impressive - if only for historical purposes.
Quote from: gordonmann on May 05, 2016, 12:09:49 AM
The list of team-by-team NCAA tournament results was also hard to find, unless you got your hands on a hard copy NCAA's bulky media guide.
Do we have the team-by-team results online now? Would also be cool to see the historical brackets since Wikipedia's records (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_III_Men%27s_Basketball_Championship) are incomplete.
Yeah, the NCAA's Division III postseason media guide is now available only online (at least for the women). I assume it's available for the men too. I'll try to find the links and post them here.
10 minutes later...
Hm, I can't find the link on my own. The NCAA had a handout with a link to the women's records along press row at the women's final four, but that's obviously not easily accessible to anyone else. So I guess that's one part of the conference guidebook worth keeping alive.
Here's the 2015 post-season record book - http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketball_champs_records/2015/d3/D3.pdf
I feel like most of this is available on d3hoops.com, but some isn't. This was where I found the post-season records to confirm Dan Fanelly's record-tying shooting night.
Thanks. Figured it was out there somewhere.
Hope everyone is having a good Mother's Day.
Hopefan, when you have a second, I sent you a PM.
I also posted links to the D3 NCAA tournament record books for men and women off our playoff archive page -- http://www.d3hoops.com/archives/index