About My Bracketology System
The basis for my picks is the regional ranking projections that I do every week. Usually there are one or two regions that are really hard for me to fit (that is to say, match the committee’s ranking) using my data. The difficulty for me probably comes down assessing common opponents. I don’t adjust the regional rankings to reflect head-to-head and common opponent games (I haven’t found a good way to automate that, and it’s too much work to look through by hand each week), but I’ll try to do some of those adjustments (while still spending a minimal amount of time) for the bracketology updates. I’m guessing that we’ll see a sharp change in both the regional rankings and the bracketology once the NCAA starts ranking the regions (and I can add in results versus regionally ranked opponents).
The main goal of this post isn’t so much to determine exactly who’s in and who’s out, but to give a good general idea of who’s in and who’s on the bubble. It’s also worth noting that the last two years (the only years in which I’ve done bracketology like this) I’ve had the exact same accuracy rates as the “(un)official” d3hoops.com projection put out by Pat Coleman (I think we both hit 16 of 19 Pool C teams two years ago and 16 of 18 last year).
I’ll list the Pool A teams (autobids) first. I’ll award the bid to the team with the best conference record. In the case of a tie, I’ll award it to the team with the best RPI in Division III games.
Pool B gets one bid. These are the teams that don’t have a Pool A bid to compete for (independents and teams from non-AQ conferences). I’ll also list the “next two” possible picks. A few Pool B teams will run into an interesting situation whereby we won’t be 100% certain if they’re eligible for tournament selection. The championship manual stipulates that team must play a minimum of 50% of their games against in-region Div. III competition to be eligible, but there is a waiver that schools can submit to bypass this rule. I’ll mark schools who may fall into this category with an asterisk (*).
Pool C is where the real fun lies. We get 19 bids this year. I’ll list my top 15 in alphabetical order, and then list the “last four in” as well as the “last four out” and “next four out”. This should represent the bubble pretty well.
Through games of 2/12/2012
Pool A
AMCC -- Medaille
ASC -- Mary Hardin-Baylor
CAC -- St. Marys (Md.)
CC -- Franklin and Marshall
CCC -- Salve Regina
CCIW -- North Central (Ill.)
CSAC -- Cabrini
CUNYAC -- Staten Island
E8 -- Hartwick
GNAC -- Albertus Magnus
HCAC -- Transylvania
IIAC -- Luther
LAND -- Scranton
LEC -- Keene State
LL -- Hobart
MACC -- Messiah
MACF -- Misericordia
MASCAC -- Salem State
MIAA -- Hope
MIAC -- Gustavus Adolphus
MWC -- Lake Forest
NAC -- Maine-Farmington
NATHC -- Concordia (Wis.)
NCAC -- Wittenberg
NEAC -- Morrisville State
NECC -- Becker
NESCAC -- Amherst
NEWMAC -- MIT
NJAC -- Richard Stockton
NWC -- Whitworth
OAC -- Capital
ODAC -- Virginia Wesleyan
PrAC -- Bethany
SCAC -- Birmingham-Southern
SCIAC -- Claremont-Mudd-Scripps
SKY -- St. Josephs (L.I.)
SLIAC -- Eureka
SUNYAC -- Oswego State
UAA -- Washington U.
UMAC -- Bethany Lutheran
USAC -- Christopher Newport
WIAC -- UW-Stevens Point
Pool B
Maryville (Tenn.)
First Out
St. Joseph's (Bklyn.)
Next Out
UC Santa Cruz*
Pool C
Eastern Connecticut
Emory
Middlebury
New Jersey City
Randolph-Macon
Rhode Island College
Rochester
UW-River Falls
UW-Whitewater
Wesleyan
Western Connecticut
Wheaton (Ill.)
William Paterson
Wooster
WPI
Last Four In
Illinois Wesleyan
New York University
Ohio Wesleyan
Wabash
First Four Out
Guilford
Mary Washington
St. Thomas
Widener
Next Four Out
Grinnell
Keystone
Nazareth
Ramapo
Dropped Out
Castleton State
Mary Washington
Penn State-Harrisburg
St. Thomas
Thiel
UC Santa Cruz*
Webster
Bids By Conference
LEC-- 4
UAA -- 4
NCAC -- 4
CCIW -- 3
NESCAC -- 3
NJAC -- 3
WIAC -- 3
NEWMAC -- 2
ODAC -- 2
Bids By Region
NE -- 14
WE -- 8
MW -- 8
GL -- 7
EA -- 7
SO -- 7
MA -- 6
AT -- 5
Discussion
The race for the very last spot (as I see things) looks incredibly tight. I picked Ohio Wesleyan, but according to my numbers Widener, St. Thomas, and Mary Washington are right there as well. Really, though, I have a hard time seeing a clear line in any of the numbers. Lots of teams are still alive, and I'm not sure any of the "in" teams are all that safe.
As far as "locks" go, it's probably safe to consider Amherst, Middlebury, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Cabrini, and UW-Whitewater safe. But I'm not sure beyond that. Hope is probably safe as well (especially considering their remaining schedule), but that's all the team's I'd commit to at the moment.
I'm saying Ohio Wesleyan and Wabash are both "in", but I don't think that they can both actually get in via Pool C. They still have one game remaining versus each other, so the loser of that game should be focused on winning the league tournament.
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