Hopefully absolutely everyone has recovered from the insane day that is Collection Monday! It was a establish-up of anticipation as a result of meeting tournament week and certainly on Sunday evening heading into Monday’s announcement. It was a good deal of enjoyable to be aspect of the WBB panel that tried to the right way forecast all 21 Pool C bids (as nicely as the Pool B bid!) on Hoopsville on Sunday evening and it led into an endeavor at bracketology that I posted Monday morning, which took us appropriate up to the variety display alone.
1st issues initial, I think this bracket was nicely-carried out and provides us some intriguing matchups we aren’t most likely to see in the standard time, like Baldwin Wallace/Trinity (CT) and Vassar/Washington and Lee. That’s generally a entertaining aspect of the D3 tournament! We really have a countrywide bracket, even with some of the mileage constraints that definitely arrived into enjoy this yr. This is honestly a single of the very best brackets I’ve noticed, and it’s a credit to the complete national committee, and more specially, Megan Wilson, previous calendar year’s committee chair, who led the bracketing this 12 months. We’ve bought a terrific event field established up, which should really direct to some remarkable initial weekend matchups.
We reviewed some of these factors on Monday’s exhibit on Hoopsville, but I can go into a little bit more detail on my feelings in this article. And there is loads to examine, each from the precise alternatives to the bracket by itself.
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In our Pool C picks, we effectively experienced 20 of the 21 appropriate, only lacking on Ohio Wesleyan. So close…for the next straight 12 months. Not like on the guys’s aspect, where by I feel the stress of obtaining Stockton in around Illinois Wesleyan is legit, this is much more easy to understand. It arrived down to OWU and Loras, and in the end, we went Loras contemplating the Duhawks’ SOS and get share were the best at the table among the 4 teams we have been thinking about. Certain, the committee has produced it distinct that they don’t increase up wins in main criteria types, but we nonetheless believed Loras’ .852 win percentage and .542 SOS would get over the 1-3 history vs regionally-ranked opponents. But as it turned out, we didn’t foresee Denison becoming ranked in Region 7. As a final result, OWU extra two RRO wins, bettering to 5-5 v/RROs whilst losing 13 factors of SOS and 74 points of acquire proportion. But the committee this calendar year was actually digging into all those success vs regionally-ranked opponents, looking for both high-quality and quantity. Loras didn’t have as a lot quantity as OWU, and while the excellent facet involved a few games against Wartburg, Loras went -3 in those contests. You have to win a lot more than one particular RRO game, and the committee definitely shown that. I don’t disagree with OWU as the select there.
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In terms of bracketing, I believe the committee did a fantastic work of definitely trying to place collectively pods the place 2 or 3 areas had been represented. It was more durable this 12 months far too, looking at we appeared to have much less mid-atlantic hosting resumes, specifically with the NYU guys and Catholic males both of those hosting in a 12 months the place the guys’s match experienced internet hosting priority in the opening weekend.
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With NYU and Catholic not able to host, the committee on the girls’s aspect seemed to pivot to the No. 17 and No. 18 hosting resumes, instead than picking to shift the internet hosting duties to the No. 2 websites in both equally of all those pods. That is how we ended up with DeSales and Washington & Lee each web hosting, as all those had been two teams on the fringe of becoming No. 1 seeds who were being shifted to getting No. 2 seeds. I’d also add that incorporating a fifth midwest pod (at DePauw) as nicely as a Texas pod (at Hardin-Simmons) contributed to that as nicely, but in the end, with NYU and Catholic unable to host, it labored out perfectly geographically to slide DeSales and W&L in.
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There have unquestionably been mixed viewpoints, especially in the DeSales situation, on the draw there. There really weren’t several selections for the committee when it arrived to where NYU could go to, and DeSales created feeling mainly because of what I had referenced higher than. It gave DeSales the option to host, and it permitted for NYU to journey within just two hrs of NYC. It does produce a extremely tricky likely next-spherical match, but with that reported, DeSales would probably have gotten NYU in the third round in any case. At the very least in this circumstance, DeSales receives NYU at residence, which truthfully may possibly be better, thinking of the residence-courtroom edge could enable in trying to just take down the leading general seed.
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Millsaps flying to DeSales was the first massive “WOW” of the choice show, as it was the next decide introduced. I wasn’t not the only just one who expected Millsaps to be on a bus to Texas alternatively than on a flight to DeSales for the to start with round. But the committee selected to use an additional flight and created a predicament exactly where Hardin-Simmons got to host the Texas pod. It was an interesting and unusual go taking into consideration we’ve been so used to minimizing flights to a considerable diploma in earlier yrs. The final decision to fly a team that could have taken a bus relatively than put Mary Hardin-Baylor as the host of the Texas pod speaks to the fact that the committee is trying to honor seeding as finest as possible and that was anything committee chair Bethany Dannelly referenced in her interview with Dave McHugh on Hoopsville Monday night time. I was stunned, nevertheless. I entirely anticipated to see Millsaps playing in Texas, and I’m not a large supporter of the reality that just after all of that, Mary Hardin-Baylor and Hardin-Simmons will have to play every other for a third straight Saturday if each advance to the 2nd round. Nowhere else in the region does that materialize. But that’s the mother nature of Area 10 and Texas in unique. There wasn’t a whole ton the committee could’ve carried out. But I would’ve cherished to have seen a flight employed to break up these two up. You could’ve flown Occidental, Willamette or Puget Sound down to Texas, as Dave pointed out, with UMHB as the host. Trinity and Millsaps could nevertheless bus. And then HSU would have been the extra flight. All you have to do to make that materialize is swap your flight from Millsaps to HSU. Occidental, Willamette, and Puget Audio have been traveling anyhow. And from my situation, and I’d enjoy to hear remarks on this, I assume HSU is in a more durable place now, even with hosting. I comprehend the value in internet hosting, but I also recognize that most likely facing a crew for a third straight weekend is incredibly tricky to do. And I really should insert, primarily when you’ve won the prior two. Both equally groups know every single other very nicely and that’s a challenging spot to be in when you obtain on your own in a must-earn tournament video game. You’re now hoping to win for a 3rd straight time and do it at house, which only adds to the tension. I’m not counting Trinity or Occidental out below. But I’m setting up a circumstance that could’ve been averted. In any case, it’s not a huge offer, but would’ve favored to have found that.
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We do know the committee was denied an additional flight. Maybe they required to host a pod in the Pacific Northwest and fly HSU up there at the No. 1 seed? That would have truly freed up two flights, so maybe Occidental could’ve been the No. 4 seed at the Northwest pod, and you’d get UMHB, Trinity, Millsaps, and an additional No. 1 seed, quite possibly NYU or Catholic, in Belton. But the committee did look set on HSU hosting, as the Cowgirls did have the best resume in Texas. It’s also achievable, and this is my particular considered, that the strategy could’ve been to just take a group from the midwest and fly them to the east, balancing items out a little bit. All of our powerful No. 2 seeds have been in the midwest, so possibly Gustavus Adolphus or Illinois Wesleyan could’ve gone to say, Smith, in its place of having to perform in a substantially more durable midwest pod. I have no inside details, but it was referenced in Bethany’s job interview on Hoopsville Monday and it definitely acquired me pondering about what that more flight’s objective might have been as they were doing the job to set up the bracket.
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I’ve by now prepared a bunch and haven’t even gotten into the bracket nevertheless! I think a person of the far more attention-grabbing pods is the one particular hosted by Washington & Lee. We get a exclusive Region 3 vs Area 6 matchup listed here as Vassar comes south from Poughkeepsie, New York to Lexington, Virginia, touring a distance of 471 miles. That’s a awesome game correct there, and then you toss in the actuality that we could get W&L/Catholic in the 2nd Round and it completes the complete issue. We also have 4 regions represented Location 3 (Vassar), Area 5 (Catholic), Location 6 (W&L), and Region 7 (PSU-Behrend).
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An additional appealing pod comes in the midwest, and this is undoubtedly one particular of the more durable initially weekend pods out there. Carroll (WI), the CCIW Event champion, hosts WashU, UW-Stout, and Puget Seem. That is an intriguing just one. For the reason that we have a robust CCIW crew in Carroll, a in some cases inconsistent, but battle-analyzed WashU staff, a WIAC group that surged above the ultimate 3-4 weeks of the year, and the champions from the Northwest Meeting, who are becoming flown in. There is no weak team in this pod, and we’ve bought a few various locations represented.
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DePauw obtaining the opportunity to host surely threw a wrench into my bracketology, and it will make perception why it transpired. I applaud the committee for executing that, as it both of those gave some harmony to the midwest (by adding a fifth midwest host) and made a scenario in which Transylvania and DePauw gained’t have to perform in a non-meeting rematch in the next spherical. The circumstance of the committee wanting to shield a prime seed (Transy) listed here doesn’t look to be as prevalent, considering Emory is the No. 2 seed in Transy’s pod. But however, DePauw internet hosting permits for Hope to play, Ripon, and Berea to enjoy in this pod rather than likely further more west to a WIAC pod. There’s a very good combine of teams listed here way too, and it also is great, considering Berea was penciled in my most of us to go to Transy. But as Bethany talked about, they didn’t always just want to deliver teams to the areas that were being “simplest”. They required to produce uniqueness in just their bracket, and this is just one instance of that.
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I seriously like the pod hosted by UW-Oshkosh, but it will be a gauntlet. In contrast to in the east, wherever there’s some obvious paths for No. 1 seeds to reach the next weekend, Oshkosh hosts Gustavus Adolphus, Trine, and Webster. Gustavus, out of the MIAC, was only fourth in Region 9, but is as great as pretty much any No. 1 seed out there. Trine found its way into the match by beating Hope in the MIAA Match, and has lots of momentum ideal now. And then there’s Webster, whose 27- document is hard to gauge contemplating the pretty lower SOS. But we know Webster is fantastic. There are no effortless matchups here or overpowering favorites. It will absolutely be outstanding basketball.
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I also want to point on 1 extra cool geographically-numerous pod. Smith was specified a No. 1 seed, and hosts Shenandoah, Messiah, and Maine Maritime. So we’ve obtained Shenandoah heading north (which isn’t one thing you often below) from the ODAC (a distance of 446 miles) Northampton, Massachusetts, and Messiah coming 342 miles from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Maine Maritime tends to make the trip south and we have four various locations represented in this article as perfectly.
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Among 1st-round matchups, Millikin and Willamette unquestionably sticks out. That could be a really intriguing contest and is a matchup you’re not likely to see exterior of the NCAA Tournament. I consider Willamette does some matters defensively that could actually create troubles for Elyce Knudsen and Millikin’s high-run offense. This will be on a neutral court, much too, so I’m interested in how this one particular plays out. Even though Millikin likely enters as the preferred, Willamette has been facing superior-degree competition all 12 months as perfectly, and that prior knowledge really should assist the Bearcats contend in this one. I feel it’s amazing we’re receiving to see this in the very first round, and these west coast vs midwest matchups really should not disappoint. I imagine Carroll and Puget Sound will be an additional pretty competitive contest. In both equally situations, it is a CCIW crew dealing with a NWC team.
I’ll have a lot more event preview items coming in the subsequent pair days as we prep for the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. This is an awesome time of 12 months and I can’t wait around to see how it all performs out! The Road to Columbus officially starts off now!