Your 22 at-large teams in the 2025 tournament:

Springfield sneaks in after being on the outside looking in for the last few days. George Fox fell out after this morning's loss to Lewis & Clark. 3 of the first 4 out were from Region 10 (GFU, Trinity, Hardin-Simmons).

1   Christopher Newport
2   Huntingdon
3   Redlands
4   Texas Lutheran
5   Salisbury
6   UW-Whitewater
7   Gettysburg
8   Baldwin Wallace
9   CWRU
10   Simpson
11   Ramapo
12   Randolph-Macon
13   Central
14   Eastern
15   Lewis & Clark
16   Williams
17   UW-Stevens Point
18   RPI
19   Emory
20   Wartburg
21   UW-Eau Claire
22   Springfield

Quick look at the NCAA Tournament picture as it currently stands:

Current AQ qualifiers: St. Thomas (TX) (SCAC), Belhaven (CCS), Messiah (MAC Commonwealth), Lebanon Valley (MAC Freedom), Immaculata (Atlantic East)

Current at-large bid picture if the season ended today (using NPI through 5/5):

Selection Order    Team
1   Christopher Newport
2   Huntingdon
3   Salisbury
4   Texas Lutheran
5   WashU
6   UW-Oshkosh
7   Chapman
8   Ramapo
9   Swarthmore
10   Randolph-Macon
11   Tufts
12   Emory
13   Lewis & Clark
14   Eastern
15   Central
16   UW-Stevens Point
17   Wartburg
18   RPI
19   UW-Eau Claire
20   Rochester
21   Hardin-Simmons
22   George Fox

First 4 Out (courtesy of @D3Softball on X): Nebraska Wesleyan, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Catholic, Trinity (TX)

I'll just leave this here for those interested.

Complete NPI report from the NCAA, detailing the dials being used for the formula AND explanation for how the committee decided on each specific dial: https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/championships/sports/baseball/d3/2024-25D3MBA_NPIReport.pdf

If you're interested in going further in-depth, this is an NPI webinar from the NCAA for all interested (targeted at coaches, SIDs, ADs specifically), detailing the above information directly from those who are overseeing NPI for D3 Baseball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG_TXUXLb1c

This info is readily available to the public...found it in about 30 seconds with a google search at the beginning of this season.

Quote from: Teddy_Ballgame on May 05, 2025, 07:13:58 PM

Quote from: Ron Boerger on May 05, 2025, 06:46:16 PMIt's a strict numerical formula.  The non-pool A teams will be selected in ranked numerical order until no pool C bids remain.

Sure, but who controls the formula, the data it's being fed, and the results it spits out? I won't accept any rankings or values I disgree with unless Frank Pericolosi or Scott Winterburn can replicate the alleged rankings with a calculator and graph paper.

Nobody is "controlling" the formula. It's a numerical formula that has been publicly published to the public. And there is no way for the committee to change that formula in any form or fashion. The data is purely the results of all D3 games, so there's no manual input of any results into the system.

I only say that because the idea that the committee could manipulate data to somehow alter who gets in is just false. As we've seen in fall and winter sports, NPI can be replicated to a T by non-committee members (such as Matt and Zac Snyder and Scott Peterson), which tells you that it's a completely straightforward approach from the NCAA based purely on the NPI information that has been published.

That was a terrific game. SCAC Tournament has been awesome the last two days. Credit to Concordia for weathering the storm and immediately responding in the Top of the 10th. Now we'll see if they can get past Trinity and force another game tomorrow!

McMurry's season isn't necessarily over, but man, it'll be a long week for them watching the rest of the conference tournaments play out. Warhawks will obviously be squarely on the bubble, and have to hope for a max of 2-3 bid thieves, based on the way things look right now.

Austin College is in a position for a major turnaround. Bringing in Phillips gives the 'Roos that 1-2 punch in the post with Brooklyn Matthews being the other go-to in the frontcourt. Matthews is set up to have a huge senior season. On top of that, the guards/wings are all experienced and talented in their own right. Having depth in the rotation shouldn't be an issue, which is something they'll need if they indeed go more up-tempo than they have in years past. Excited to see how Coach Hunt's first year in Sherman plays out.

UMHB has announced its new head coach, as Sam Patterson, most recently an assistant at D1 Oral Roberts, is taking the reins of the program. Also spent 13 years at Baylor, including 7 as the video coordinator.

Press release from UMHB: https://cruathletics.com/news/2025/4/21/mens-basketball-sam-patterson-named-mens-basketball-head-coach.aspx

Yes, that's a good point on the athletic fees, Ron. Completely my bad on misinterpreting the scholarship structure. It does appear MavChamp was correct in noting that in Texas, funding is given to state schools for athletic operating expenses, but scholarships themselves stem from the athletic fees, fundraising, and donations. I do remember Sul Ross needing approval from the Texas State System Board of Regents before it could apply and begin the transition to Division II, because at the time, it sounded like their athletic budget would need to be expanded, and the board would need to approve that aspect before steps towards D2 could be fully taken.

I think the D3 model makes better sense, especially at a football school, for a number of reasons. It wouldn't be the biggest surprise if SRSU eventually opted to return to D3...it would certainly help if a couple of LSC schools decided to go D3 as well and expand the ASC's West Texas footprint.

Agreed. I just think from their standpoint, scholarships go a long way in recruiting, especially as a public school. Not impossible to recruit without them, considering they were D3 for as long as they were, but it's hard to see where the benefit would be to SRSU returning to D3.

And yeah, the travel thing may have been used more for PR reasons than it actual reality, but I think about the future ASC setup. If SRSU returned to make it 7, they'd still need 4 non-conference football games and 13 non-conference basketball/soccer/volleyball.  In non-football sports, you hardly even have to play outside your league in the LSC. That saves money, because you're not spending several thousand to fly your men's basketball team to Colorado/Oregon/California or bus them to Arkansas for two games. Financially, it'd work fine with football...but it's all the other sports that would be of concern compared to the LSC schedule.

UMHB WR TJ Rone enters the portal. Played in 20 games over 2 years in Belton, with 63 receptions for 625 yards between 2023 and 2024. First-Team All-ASC this past season.

https://x.com/TerrenceRone/status/1912165929779146908

Fair points! I wouldn't mind seeing SRSU return to D3.

What I will say is that, as we all know, recruiting to SRSU is ridiculously hard. Let's be honest, building a winner in Alpine takes some recruiting ingenuity and a coach who builds a culture that makes players want to buy in. Winning conference championships just isn't the expectation there. Not from fans, administration, or those in the community. Winning is great and celebrated there, but there's real financial implications involved here that go beyond W/L records.

Going D2 as a public institution opens up your recruiting pool significantly more than in D3, and combined with shorter travel, saves money in the process. Now you have more interest from prospective student-athletes (because of the scholarships), which helps with retention. You don't have to drive to ETBU or LETU any longer, which cheapens the cost of bus fees and hotel stays. Getting non-conference games becomes easier because the LSC is so large, the majority of your games in all sports come in conference play.

If it was a private school, that'd be a different story. But the scholarship money is coming from the state. And the state will continue to fund those scholarships, whether they're having success or not. It's 1 trip per year (for football only) to the Pacific Northwest. Which is doable when you're basically staying on the western side of the state for the rest of your schedule.

I think there's a missing part of this conversation too. With NPI, you simply cannot afford to lose games. There's less emphasis on SOS with the current dials and more emphasis on win percentage. If you're advising a team with playoff hopes on who they should play (especially in a league with at least one other true playoff contender), you're absolutely going to advise playing Southwestern over UMHB. It's simple math.

The reward for beating Southwestern compared to beating UMHB is less (if we're just looking at it based on expected season performance). But you run a much lower risk of taking a loss. For as much as the scheduling struggles disappoint me, you can't fault head coaches of other programs for just doing what puts their team in the best position to earn a playoff bid.

Oh, for sure. I'd love to see UMHB go up against a first-year FCS program and see how they stack up. No doubt it'd be competitive and something both fan bases would enjoy (from a UTRGV perspective, UMHB has the recent national titles, deep playoff runs, etc, so it'd be a quality opponent both ways).

The timing is what concerns me. Bethel will be very good again, potentially better than last year with a few of the guys returning for them. UW-Whitewater will no doubt have their same, hard-nosed, strong personnel and likely in the top 2 of the WIAC. Putting another massive challenge in the middle of that and risking injury for a game that won't help your playoff resume in any way is the only aspect that would make me cautious about that. There's no shame in playing 8 or 9 regular season games.

This is unpopular, but in the NPI era, there's zero reason to play teams outside D3. It counts for nothing other than your own record. Has no bearing on making the playoffs, getting a better playoff seed, etc. While it's good to get in-game reps and play a full schedule, the question becomes how much you want to risk injury to key players in a game that doesn't matter.

An FCS program would be a great test, no doubt. But what's the point of playing an FCS team right before you play what will potentially be your only D3 non-conference game 7 days later?

UMHB is hosting Bethel (TN) on Sept. 6 at 6 pm. So Week 1 is already accounted for.