2022 NCAA Regional Rankings

[jknezek]

Western Conn's problem is a very low SOS (.516) in a region full of high SOS's.

They need to quantify this preference.  It's not rocket science and the NCAA has full time statisticians on their payroll to do this work.

Second highest winning percentage in the country. Unless they've played absolutely no one, that should count for something. I think it's a bit silly and makes Region 1 look ridiculous.

On the other hand, if your goal as a Regional Committee is to get as many of your Region teams into the playoffs as possible, ranking all the NESCAC schools gives them the best possible resumes for Pool C consideration. The committee may be playing the odds that Western Conn goes through on a Pool A bid, and having more NESCAC's ranked gives them more ranked wins, increasing the odds of the bottom ranked teams in the region getting those key Pool Cs.

It's Chess not Checkers, but it's also a bit of b.s. in my opinion.

[paclassic89]

Western Conn's problem is a very low SOS (.516) in a region full of high SOS's.

They need to quantify this preference.  It's not rocket science and the NCAA has full time statisticians on their payroll to do this work.

On the other hand, if your goal as a Regional Committee is to get as many of your Region teams into the playoffs as possible, ranking all the NESCAC schools gives them the best possible resumes for Pool C consideration. The committee may be playing the odds that Western Conn goes through on a Pool A bid, and having more NESCAC's ranked gives them more ranked wins, increasing the odds of the bottom ranked teams in the region getting those key Pool Cs.

It's Chess not Checkers, but it's also a bit of b.s. in my opinion.

Hit the nail on the head

[4samuy]

Yup. Region 1 is an absolute joke.  NCAA should be ashamed.

[PaulNewman]

Imo this is very related to the points FW and I have made in response to one another about poll rankings....who is most deserving, and how one defines deserving, versus I suppose going down each and every spot and asking who would win head to head.

I view W CT as totally deserving, and J&W (.527 and 1-1-0 RvR) maybe too.  But if we slot any of the seven (eight) NESCACs in a first round match with W CT (or J&W) what percentage of folks here would pick all of the NESCACs to prevail.  I probably would.

And I'm sure the NESCACs believe Region 1 should get 9-10 spots and that NESCAC should always get 7 or 8 of them.

[d4_Pace]

I have been incredibly busy the last week months so I haven't had much of a presence here. But catching up on this thread, I thought I would throw my two cents in. I have been on the regional rankings calls and can tell you its a lot less interesting with less intrigue and politicking than people are implying here. The committee has strict criteria they are examining and they essentially come up with each spot on the rankings in isolation. They decide who the number 1 team is, consider all the options, make their choice, and then start figuring out number 2.  They aren't considering who to put at spots 6 and 7 in order to maximize the chances of teams #4 and 5. They have strict bylaws to operate by and people on the call are constantly making sure they are following those rules.

I can see how it is frustrating when you end up with a list of all NESCAC teams, but without knowing who the exact voters are this year, I would imagine there are a few non-nescac coaches involved with the committee. And while we look at the "eye test" of who do we think would beat who in a hypothetical matchup that is not allowed to come into play.

From what I've seen, the factor that garners a lot of consideration is record vs ranked. It is important to note that the criteria is record vs ranked, not wins vs ranked. Whether you agree with it or not, it seems like the committee looks favorably on teams with a lot of ranked games. IE a team that is 1-0-5 vs ranked (Williams) is looked upon as more favorably than a team that is 1-0-1 vs ranked (Western Conn).  And finally, while there is no minimum SOS teams with a really low SOS are often pretty much dismissed outright. I would imagine there are very few if any teams ranked across the country with a SOS less than .520

[PaulNewman]

I believe everything D4 just wrote is true.

And when you scan through Regions 2 thru 5 (the regions most likely to slot into brackets the NESCACs will be in) you can definitely see how six or seven NESCACs could get bids.  Not sure anyone in Region 2 would beat them out, and maybe Oneonta in Region 3 and one more but not obvious, and then not sure after the first 2-3 in Regions 4 and 5.  I know it's not just about Regions 1 thru 5, but that is usually where the teams come from in those brackets and tbh there aren't many teams in other regions beyond the few obvious suspects who would clearly beat out the #6, #7, ore even #8 NESCAC for a spot.

[4samuy]

I agree with you.  I guess my point is that putting a region together that in many sports, will have one conference dominate many of the spots in the regional rankings is just wrong regardless of  the criteria involved. They're  still on the board. Nothing against the other conferences and teams in the region, but let's be realistic from historical data, IMO it is the most unbalanced region in the country. I kinda feel that is a bit embarrassing.

[d4_Pace]

I agree with you.  I guess my point is that putting a region together that in many sports, will have one conference dominate many of the spots in the regional rankings is just wrong.  Nothing against the other conferences and teams in the region, but let's be realistic from historical data, IMO it is the most unbalanced region in the country. I kinda feel that is a bit embarrassing.

Yeah I think thats a fair point. This is also a fairly recent change. I know when I was there, so as recently as 2018, there were fewer, bigger regions. This lead to a team like Babson always being regionally ranked on top of the NESCAC teams. I'm not sure what the impetus was for the change.

[4samuy]

I agree with you.  I guess my point is that putting a region together that in many sports, will have one conference dominate many of the spots in the regional rankings is just wrong.  Nothing against the other conferences and teams in the region, but let's be realistic from historical data, IMO it is the most unbalanced region in the country. I kinda feel that is a bit embarrassing.

Yeah I think thats a fair point. This is also a fairly recent change. I know when I was there, so as recently as 2018, there were fewer, bigger regions. This lead to a team like Babson always being regionally ranked on top of the NESCAC teams. I'm not sure what the impetus was for the change.

[4samuy]

Yes.   I do recollect when the regions were changed, and honestly I could not believe what region 1 looked liked, regardless of Criteria involved in NCAA selection criteria, and it has beared out.  IMHO not a good look.

[4samuy]

Not one team in the region, currently, has the ability to block a NESCAC team from coming to the table for an an at large bid. Very strange.

[Christan Shirk]

From what I've seen, the factor that garners a lot of consideration is record vs ranked. It is important to note that the criteria is record vs ranked, not wins vs ranked. Whether you agree with it or not, it seems like the committee looks favorably on teams with a lot of ranked games. IE a team that is 1-0-5 vs ranked (Williams) is looked upon as more favorably than a team that is 1-0-1 vs ranked (Western Conn).  And finally, while there is no minimum SOS teams with a really low SOS are often pretty much dismissed outright. I would imagine there are very few if any teams ranked across the country with a SOS less than .520

Actually it's not even record versus ranked teams, it is results versus ranked teams.  The data sheets list the record vs. ranked teams because it is a nice concise piece of data to fit in a table, but that it not the criterion per se.  So the committee has a lot of latitude with this criterion.  For example, they can consider if a result came against the #1 or #2 team in a region or a team at the bottom.

Regarding the SOS, there is no official threshold (they did apply one many years ago, but their was strong backlash because a couple widely accepted top teams nationally that were not even making the regional rankings (i.e., Dominican, Calvin).  Historically, SOS's below .550 or 540 usually meant a team was going to have make a more compelling case with the other criteria just to make the rankings and wasn't going to be in the top half.  And anything near .500 or below had virtually no shot (Lancaster Bible making the cut this weak is noteworthy because of how rare it is for a team with a SOS that low to be ranked).  What it takes to make the regional rankings now with 10-region alignment and with the new-this-year 7-team cap is something we are still learning. There's quite a bit of variance in the strength and depth of the regions--probably more so than before with the 8-region alignment. So naturally, the SOS needed to be in contention for a spot in the rankings in regions that are relatively week overall or only have a handful of strong teams is going to be considerable lower than in strong, deep regions.  And there's Region X (the old West region) that has large (costly) hurdles to putting together strong non-conference schedules which means you're going to see ranked teams with lower SOS than in other regions.  Also, we're still getting used to the new reality with no OT in the regular season which is bringing winning percentages down a little and therefore SOS's down a little as well.  So we may see lower SOS's in the rankings than in the past due to that effect.  And on top of all that, the UAA is having it's weakest season in a long time and the NESCAC is, at the least, seeing more parity than ever if not being a tick down from their norm, so were not getting some of those outrageously high SOS's those conferences usually produce.  Putting all that together, it's likely we see lower SOS's in the rankings this year and maybe teams getting selected for the tournament with lower SOSs than usual.

[Christan Shirk]

I can see how it is frustrating when you end up with a list of all NESCAC teams, but without knowing who the exact voters are this year, I would imagine there are a few non-nescac coaches involved with the committee.

Region I Advisory Committee
David Kulik, chair  -  Head Coach @ Johnson & Wales (GNAC)
Mitch Capelle  -  AD @ Colby Sawyer (GNAC)
John O'Connor  -  Head Coach @ Castleton (LEC)
Kyle Dezotell  -  Head Coach @ Tufts (NESCAC)
Joe Machado  -  Head Coach @ SUNY Cobleskill (NAC)

[Flying Weasel]

I agree with you.  I guess my point is that putting a region together that in many sports, will have one conference dominate many of the spots in the regional rankings is just wrong regardless of  the criteria involved. They're  still on the board. Nothing against the other conferences and teams in the region, but let's be realistic from historical data, IMO it is the most unbalanced region in the country. I kinda feel that is a bit embarrassing.

But how do you fix that?  What could and should the NCAA do to fix this "embarrassment"? 

One way to keep a very strong and deep conference from dominating a region is to make the region big enough (numerically) to catch enough top teams from other conferences.  In other words, reduce the number of regions.  But we just moved from 8 to 10 regions to address other issues.  Besides, back when there were 8 regions and New England was the largest region numerically, the NESCAC still held 5 of the top 7 spots in the final rankings in each of the last three years (2017, 2018, 2019) before the re-alignment.

Another option in the case of the NESCAC would be to swap the NEWMAC from Region II to Region I, but this year that would probably only displace on NESCAC school and it would leave Region II even weaker than it already is.  What other options are there?  Terminate the policy of keeping conferences together in the same region so the NESCAC teams could be split between Regions I and II (and Hamilton in  Region III)?  That would result in the top half of two regions being dominated by the NESCAC in a year like this.

The nation's strongest, deepest conference is going to dominate its region no matter what you do unless another one of the nation's top conferences is in the same region.  That's just natural.  Unfortunately, the extent of parity in the NESCAC this year, which is not normal, is ironically making the conference dominate the rankings more then it usually would.

[paclassic89]

I think one of the main issues is the NESCAC is too large and does not allow for enough non-conference games to create "correspondence" between conferences and results in discrimination based on conference strength.  So, one solution would be a conference realignment to reduce the number of teams (never gonna happen haha)

Another potential solution is to change the SOS formula to reduce the impact of OWP and go to a 50-50 SOS

You could also have region and conference bonuses and penalties to minimize discrimination

https://sites.google.com/site/rpifordivisioniwomenssoccer/modified-rpi?authuser=0 

This is a good technical discussion on the issue from a D1 women's POV and includes some potential solutions that I simplified above.