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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