Elmhurst Tournament Pairings Released

According to the Elmhurst athletics page, the host Blujays will face off against the Ripon Redhawks on the first night of the Bluejay Classic Tournament (Friday, December 28). That means Calvin will be matched up with fellow a Great Lakes Region member: the Wabash Little Giants.

Ripon and Elmhurst both count as out-of-region for the Knights, so it's cool to see the Calvin get the one possible in-region game as a guarantee. This brings their in-region total to 18 games, with a possibility of adding North Park (in the Calvin Tip-Off Tournament) as well as up to two MIAA tournament games. I'm just working off the top of my head here, but I don't recall Calvin having more than 19 in-region games in any recent year (and that's including three MIAA tournament games).

19 feels like a good target for the upcoming years. Division III is soon going to require teams to play 75% of their schedule against in-region D3 competition. In a 25-game schedule that number works out to be 18.75 games. I don't know if they'll round or truncate the decimal, but a target of 19 would be safe (and reasonable). Of course, it's unreasonable that games against Wheaton and Elmhurst would all be out-of-region, but I've already ranted on that too many times to begin again right now.

Of course, Hope reportedly has a game against Covenant (Lookout Mountain, GA) which would be counted as in-region due to Georgia and Michigan being in NCAA Administrative Region #3. Michigan schools can't play in-region games against most Chicagoland teams (200-220 miles) because "think of the students", but we'll just declare Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Puerto Rico to be fine. Silver lining: there are talks of impending regional realignment.

So, yeah. regional games are good, and Calvin will have one against Wabash. I wasn't really planning on trying to make it to Elmhurst on Friday afternoon, but I guess plans change.

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Wabash and Ripon to fill out Elmhurst Tournament Field

The tournament pairings haven’t been announced yet, so we don’t know who exactly they’ll play, but some internet sleuthing (h/t: sac) has revealed that the Wabash Little Giants (NCAC / Indiana / Great Lakes Region) and the Ripon Red Hawks (MWC / Wisconsin / Midwest Region) will join Calvin at the Elmhurst tournament in late December.

Calvin and Ripon are listed as 361 miles apart (and they’re in different geographic and administrative regions), so this game would not be in-region for the Knights. Ripon finished 2012 with a 14-9 record (apparently playing just 23 games). Their season started out with a bang, winning eight of their first ten (including a 19 point win over a future Final Four team in Illinois Wesleyan), but they struggled in the heart of conference play, finishing just 6-7 and missing out on the Midwest Conference Tournament (they also just take the top four teams). Ripon had three seniors listed last year, two were in the team’s top three for points per game.

As I stated in the early look at Calvin’s schedule, host Elmhurst is almost definitely now out-of-region for Calvin (despite being Calvin’s seventh closest non-conference opponent). At one time, the NCAA’s official mileage calculator distanced the schools at 198 miles, but it’s now showing up a couple of miles on the other side of the dreadful 200-mile barrier. Calvin could potentially play five non-conference games versus the closest 16 options (Manchester, North Park, Elmhurst, Wheaton, Carthage, all within 255 miles), but only two of them would count as in-region games. There are precisely two non-conference Great Lakes Region teams inside of 255 miles (and none within 230 miles), but I’m trying not to make this another of my rants against the regional definition.

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Elmhurst Classic Preview

	Elmhurst Classic
Who	Benedictine (NathCon)
	DePauw (SCAC)
	Elmhurst (CCIW)
Where	Elmhurst, IL
When	Wednesday
	Benedictine -- 6:30 PM
	(DePauw vs. Elmhurst) -- 9:00 PM
	Thursday
	Consolation -- 6:30 PM
	Championship -- 9:00 PM
Web	Audio
Web	Video
Live Stats	Stats
Tickets	$6, $3 students & seniors
Directions	Click

I'm actually pretty freakin' excited about this Elmhurst Tournament. It's been three and a half weeks since Calvin's last action against a Division III opponent. I love me some D3 games. This week's holiday tournament features four D3 teams: Benedictine from the Northern Athletics Conference (midwest region), DePauw from the Southern Collegiate Athletics Conference (south region), and host Elmhurst from the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (midwest region).

Calvin's paired up with Benedictine in the opening round. This game will not count as an in-region game. The Eagles are defined in the Midwest region (Calvin is in the Great Lakes), they're from Illinois, which is in NCAA "Administrative Region #4" (Calvin is in #3), and their campus is 205 miles from Knollcrest (in-region cutoff is 200 miles).

The Knights will face either the DePauw Tigers or the Elmhurst Blue Jays on Thursday. Either opponent would be in-region. DePauw is in Indiana which is in the same administrative region as Michigan (Region #3). Elmhurst's campus falls within 200 miles from Calvin, so they're granted regional status due to proximity.

Learning the NCAA's regional criteria is a 300 level class, so don't worry if it's not immediately intuitive.

Back to the games at hand. I would say that Calvin and DePauw enter the tournament as favorites to meet in the championship game, but that's not to say that all the games will be easy.

Kenneth Massey (masseyratings.com) is currently giving Calvin a 69% chance of beating Benedictine and DePauw a 52% chance of beating Elmhurst. He then favors Calvin over DePauw in the championship with 70% confidence. Let's hope so.

I've been tracking RPI for D3 teams this season. Using my numbers (which are much less sophisticated than Massey's), the teams rate as follows (using only results versus D3 opponents):

Benedictine -- 0.607
DePauw -- 0.598
Calvin -- 0.505
Elmhurst -- 0.443

Let's take a look at the matchups. The following chart is how the Knights currently stack up statistically with the other three teams in the tournament.

Matchup	Calvin	Benedictine	Adv.	DePauw	Adv.	Elmhurst	Adv.
Calvin eFG% vs. opp. DeFG%	0.511	0.534	Calvin	0.512	Calvin	0.525	Calvin
Calvin DeFG% vs. opp. eFG%	0.493	0.528	BU	0.537	DePauw	0.465	Calvin
Calvin TOr vs. opp. DTOr	0.21	0.23	BU	0.20	-	0.20	-
Calvin DTOr vs. opp. TOr	0.19	0.22	-	0.20	-	0.21	-
Calvin ORb% vs. opp. DRb%	0.37	0.69	Calvin	0.76	DePauw	0.72	-
Calvin DRb% vs. opp. ORb%	0.68	0.26	Calvin	0.32	-	0.34	-
Calvin FTr vs. opp. DFTr	0.31	0.40	-	0.26	DePauw	0.35	EC
Calvin DFTr vs. opp. FTr	0.33	0.42	BU	0.25	Calvin	0.43	EC
Calvin OEff vs. opp. DEff	106.2	102.6	Calvin	99.0	Calvin	103.3	Calvin
Calvin DEff vs. opp. OEff	103.4	99.4	BU	105.9	DePauw	98.8	EC

Benedictine
It seems that the Eagles shoot the ball well and get to the line with frequency, but oddly, that doesn't look to have turned into points. They're offensive efficiency (points per 100 possessions) is just 99.4. the MIAA is averaging right around 100 as a conference, so Benedictine looks to be a hair below average. They turn the ball over just slightly more often than Calvin does, but I think the main deficiency they have on offense is on the glass.

The Eagles are only pulling down 26% of the available offensive rebounds. An average MIAA team grabs 32% of offensive rebounds, and so far this year, Calvin's at 37%. That 11% difference equates to about four extra possessions per game.

I'm going to give Calvin the advantage on this one. As long as they put forth a strong effort on the glass, they should keep themselves in the driver's seat.

Elmhurst/DePauw
A potential matchup with DePauw looks like it would be more of a struggle for the Knights. The stats look pretty even, with the only real advantage going to DePauw by way of defensive rebounding.

I don't think the Knights would have too much trouble with Elmhurst. The stats look fairly even in terms of number of advantages and disadvantages, but it's important to keep in mind that shooting percentage correlates much more to winning than, say, free throw rate does.

Sure-To-Be-Wrong Prediction
Calvin over Benedictine by 7
Calvin over DePauw by 3

The name of the game here is to win the regional matchup. A win over DePauw in the championship round would be ideal, but even a win over Elmhurst in the consolation would be OK in the end. Winning on day two may end up being a critical factor in a potential at-large NCAA Tournament selection.