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Post by ned3vball on Jun 12, 2019 17:09:37 GMT -5
The tournament the NCAA is putting on for volleyball is really missing the mark. It is not their fault that the current regions are so out of balance, but it should be their job to figure out a better plan. If you look at the matchups in the 2018 first round, by Pablo rankings, it looks ridiculous, here are a few examples on both ends: 4 v 28, 8 v 34, 13 v 20, 10 v 16, and then 1 v 184, 6 v 230, 7 v 318, and 2 v 221. I am not a fan of participation trophies for 43 automatic qualifier conferences. 25% of the current leagues do not have a team that has won a single NCAA match in the last 10 years. OK, yes, I am picking on the small leagues. I understand how they want to use the NCAA tournament entry to help validate and market their athletic programs to prospective students, but there is a point of diminishing return. Does getting annihilated in the first round of the NCAAs by a team that would not normally give you the time of day help market your school. Part of the rationale behind Pool A (AQ's) is that schools get to compete against similar schools. The Massachusetts public colleges have a league (MASCAC). The Wisconsin public schools have a league (WIAC). The hoity toity rich kid schools have a couple of leagues, the UAA and the NESCAC. Would it make sense for NYU with 60,000 students and all the money in the world to play in the CUNYAC or the Skyline for a regular season championship? No, and they don't. If you don't give AQ's and just pick the top 8 teams in each region that 25% of conferences you mentioned would have nothing to play for and may as well stop sponsoring the sport. You just took away the college volleyball career of 1000 kids this year. How does that help the sport? BTW, Minnesota Morris had a new coach who inherited their schedule with a .507 SOS. They started the season 3-6, but they won the conference and went on to defeat #1 Gustavus Adolphus on their own floor, the biggest upset of the tournament this season. They were then up 2-0 in the next round before losing in 5. Should we have taken a 3rd or 4th place team from a better league? Why? Those teams had their chance to play their way in and didn't. The NACC was one of those conferences that hadn't won a match in the previous 10 years. This year Aurora won the league and went to the Elite 8. Most are going to lose, but if you let in a middle of the pack team from another conference, they are probably going to lose too because if they were consistently better than the top seeds, they'd have been a top seed. Similar schools are going to form leagues. They are going to do that so their teams in many sports can compete at the right level. They will have a chance to win their league, that is the primary goal of every non independent, that is more important than the NCAAs. No one is quitting the sport. Now let's look at the NCAAs and pool A bids separately. Here is a question. Should there be some very basic minimum, and I do mean basic, just show us a pulse, level of performance required to maintain pool A status? Don't worry about any rules yet. Is that a door you would open to improve the tournament?
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Post by bigfan on Jun 12, 2019 18:23:00 GMT -5
The tournament the NCAA is putting on for volleyball is really missing the mark. It is not their fault that the current regions are so out of balance, but it should be their job to figure out a better plan. If you look at the matchups in the 2018 first round, by Pablo rankings, it looks ridiculous, here are a few examples on both ends: 4 v 28, 8 v 34, 13 v 20, 10 v 16, and then 1 v 184, 6 v 230, 7 v 318, and 2 v 221. I am not a fan of participation trophies for 43 automatic qualifier conferences. 25% of the current leagues do not have a team that has won a single NCAA match in the last 10 years.. What would you do if you could advise the committee who makes the picks? This is complex question asking for a simple answer but humor me if you could. You know how I feel about SCIAC being way out west, but one of the better D-3 volleyball conferences in the country.
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Jun 12, 2019 18:52:58 GMT -5
Th OAC is a pretty strong VB conference, and their regular season champion missed the tourney after failing to seal the deal in the OAC tourney.
Auto bids are everything at the D3 level if you are not ranked nationally in the top ten or so, which is fine.
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Post by ned3vball on Jun 12, 2019 19:33:23 GMT -5
Th OAC is a pretty strong VB conference, and their regular season champion missed the tourney after failing to seal the deal in the OAC tourney. Auto bids are everything at the D3 level if you are not ranked nationally in the top ten or so, which is fine. You mean, Otterbein, who tied Ohio Northern for regular season title. They were right on my bubble. I had Bethel, Concordia, La Verne, Otterbein, and Texas-Dallas in pool C, with Depauw, Franklin&Marshall, Mary Washington, Springfield, and Wellesley out. Note that was on my chart which did not mirror the NCAA criteria. You don't need to be top 10. The AVCA poll, which is not an exact science either, usually gets 24 out of 25 right.
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Post by ned3vball on Jun 12, 2019 19:51:42 GMT -5
The tournament the NCAA is putting on for volleyball is really missing the mark. It is not their fault that the current regions are so out of balance, but it should be their job to figure out a better plan. If you look at the matchups in the 2018 first round, by Pablo rankings, it looks ridiculous, here are a few examples on both ends: 4 v 28, 8 v 34, 13 v 20, 10 v 16, and then 1 v 184, 6 v 230, 7 v 318, and 2 v 221. I am not a fan of participation trophies for 43 automatic qualifier conferences. 25% of the current leagues do not have a team that has won a single NCAA match in the last 10 years.. What would you do if you could advise the committee who makes the picks? This is complex question asking for a simple answer but humor me if you could. You know how I feel about SCIAC being way out west, but one of the better D-3 volleyball conferences in the country. The one thing I would do right now for next year is make every committee member read Ricky Nelson's annual plea to focus on results and not use a calculator to compare 2 criteria stat lines, that really can not be compared. The second thing they can do next year is not let one member dominate the committee as has been happening recently. Third, change the "record against regionally ranked opponents" criteria. The fact that a win against the 12th ranked team in NE or 11th ranked team in NY is valued the same as beating the #3 team in the CE, GL, or MW is just wrong. (Hint on this one, if you do the first two then this one will take care of itself, but they should still change the rule to make things better)
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Jun 12, 2019 20:11:00 GMT -5
Th OAC is a pretty strong VB conference, and their regular season champion missed the tourney after failing to seal the deal in the OAC tourney. Auto bids are everything at the D3 level if you are not ranked nationally in the top ten or so, which is fine. You mean, Otterbein, who tied Ohio Northern for regular season title. They were right on my bubble. I had Bethel, Concordia, La Verne, Otterbein, and Texas-Dallas in pool C, with Depauw, Franklin&Marshall, Mary Washington, Springfield, and Wellesley out. Note that was on my chart which did not mirror the NCAA criteria. You don't need to be top 10. The AVCA poll, which is not an exact science either, usually gets 24 out of 25 right. A shared title is still a title. They also got in a number of times without winning a confence title of any variety, so I dunno. I am admittedly not a D3 Rocket Surgeon such as yourself. So my perception of what "seems" to be is just that. But it "seems" as though conference tourneys are everything, and the rest of the season is rather arbitrary unless you are just an absolute powerhouse. So I like having the auto bids.
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Post by ned3vball on Jun 12, 2019 20:57:14 GMT -5
You mean, Otterbein, who tied Ohio Northern for regular season title. They were right on my bubble. I had Bethel, Concordia, La Verne, Otterbein, and Texas-Dallas in pool C, with Depauw, Franklin&Marshall, Mary Washington, Springfield, and Wellesley out. Note that was on my chart which did not mirror the NCAA criteria. You don't need to be top 10. The AVCA poll, which is not an exact science either, usually gets 24 out of 25 right. A shared title is still a title. They also got in a number of times without winning a confence title of any variety, so I dunno. I am admittedly not a D3 Rocket Surgeon such as yourself. So my perception of what "seems" to be is just that. But it "seems" as though conference tourneys are everything, and the rest of the season is rather arbitrary unless you are just an absolute powerhouse. So I like having the auto bids. I am not necessarily advocating for no auto bids, less would be a good compromise, No autos(or very few) was the way it was done for almost the first 20 years of the tournament. If they go to 10 regions, I think there are a lot of ways they could go.
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Post by coahc21 on Jun 13, 2019 8:18:35 GMT -5
Th OAC is a pretty strong VB conference, and their regular season champion missed the tourney after failing to seal the deal in the OAC tourney. Auto bids are everything at the D3 level if you are not ranked nationally in the top ten or so, which is fine. You mean, Otterbein, who tied Ohio Northern for regular season title. They were right on my bubble. I had Bethel, Concordia, La Verne, Otterbein, and Texas-Dallas in pool C, with Depauw, Franklin&Marshall, Mary Washington, Springfield, and Wellesley out. Note that was on my chart which did not mirror the NCAA criteria. You don't need to be top 10. The AVCA poll, which is not an exact science either, usually gets 24 out of 25 right. I do not think the AVCA top 25 is and should not be as strong as regional rankings....a lot of the voting becomes very political with coaches voting with bias towards teams on their own schedule in efforts to bolster their SOS (and you can vote for yourself!)....regional rankings are discussed and debated and follow specific criteria so are way more valid in my opinion
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Post by ned3vball on Jun 13, 2019 9:22:50 GMT -5
You mean, Otterbein, who tied Ohio Northern for regular season title. They were right on my bubble. I had Bethel, Concordia, La Verne, Otterbein, and Texas-Dallas in pool C, with Depauw, Franklin&Marshall, Mary Washington, Springfield, and Wellesley out. Note that was on my chart which did not mirror the NCAA criteria. You don't need to be top 10. The AVCA poll, which is not an exact science either, usually gets 24 out of 25 right. I do not think the AVCA top 25 is and should not be as strong as regional rankings....a lot of the voting becomes very political with coaches voting with bias towards teams on their own schedule in efforts to bolster their SOS (and you can vote for yourself!)....regional rankings are discussed and debated and follow specific criteria so are way more valid in my opinion Agreed 100%. Some of the AVCA voting is just Looney Tunes. Not the same thing as regional rankings at all, but as a general reference the 24 out of 25 is a pretty standard result. The last few years you usually get around 16-17 pool A bids from the top 25, and then one school that had a AVCA quorum does not get the same love from their regional committee. Actually in 2018 there was no outlier as the team left out was ineligible (Texas-Tyler, transitioning to D2) Now if the criteria for the rankings was just better . . . .
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diiifan
Freshman
https://d3vbwest.wordpress.com/
Posts: 95
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Post by diiifan on Jun 21, 2019 17:39:29 GMT -5
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Post by Brutus Buckeye on Jun 21, 2019 21:46:48 GMT -5
D3 is pay to play, so it might as well be fun. It doesn't have to be all that serious.Let the Conference champions have their shot. On the right day they might be able to pull off an all timer of an upset, and it would go down in their lore for years to come.
It kind of sucks that the teams in my area have to face a gauntlet of Wittenberg, Calvin, Hope, etc if they make it to the regional. But at the same time it is a lot more fun to go up against schools that you are somewhat familiar with, even if you have zero chance of making it to the Nationals. I wouldn't want it any other way. Not like I'm gonna go to anything beyond a regional anyway. I'd have to watch it on some sorta live stream.
D3 live streams can be interesting. They can range from absolutely unwatchable pixel-blurs shot from a singular camera up in the rafters, to some fairly impressive amateur productions. But I digress...
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Post by ned3vball on Jun 22, 2019 9:07:28 GMT -5
D3 is pay to play, so it might as well be fun. It doesn't have to be all that serious.Let the Conference champions have their shot. On the right day they might be able to pull off an all timer of an upset, and it would go down in their lore for years to come. It kind of sucks that the teams in my area have to face a gauntlet of Wittenberg, Calvin, Hope, etc if they make it to the regional. But at the same time it is a lot more fun to go up against schools that you are somewhat familiar with, even if you have zero chance of making it to the Nationals. I wouldn't want it any other way. Not like I'm gonna go to anything beyond a regional anyway. I'd have to watch it on some sorta live stream. D3 live streams can be interesting. They can range from absolutely unwatchable pixel-blurs shot from a singular camera up in the rafters, to some fairly impressive amateur productions. But I digress... I hear what you are saying but the system is now very strained with 430+ volleyball schools. Way back in 2008 the notion that D3 was getting too big and disparate lead to discussion of adding D4. Maybe that should be revisited. While D3 is not D1 it is definitely serious for the athletes at the majority of the D3 schools. The gap is so wide now the plucky underdog story you think of is truly a zero chance event, and your region is not one of the main problem areas. That the NCAA did not post first round set scores for years (they did in 2018) shows you they know there is a problem. I really like the mutli camera HD broadcasts from some of the WIAC schools. It can be done, other schools should take notice.
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Post by ned3vball on Jun 23, 2019 10:42:10 GMT -5
The announcement that the regional alignment changes will be receiving individual sport review is a good thing. In the same release, the AQ committee announcement that they want to formalize a rule to prevent "tournament only" leagues from every raising their head again is also good news.
The volleyball region problem is a very difficult one. That problem is made worse by the current number of AQ leagues which looks to be 43/2/19 again in 2019(Atlantic East to get one in 2020?).
There is really only one answer to the insurmountable geography problem with region design: More pool C bids (assuming you stay with the current general design. A full blow it up and start over will be a separate topic)
The only way to get more pool C bids is less A bids. So how to do that? Here is a first pass at a set of criteria to determine AQ status. These 5 questions would be applied to every league at the end of each season. Any league that did not have one team, that could answer 'yes' to just one question, would go on the "pending non AQ status" list. If you are on the list for X(10?) years, you go on the "non AQ" list till you pass the test and get reinstated for X(10?).
I think this is a reasonable minimum standard that just requires you are only in sniffing distance of the NCAA tournament. Here are the 5 criteria I have come up with over a few cups of coffee on a Sunday morning. In the just completed NCAA season, did any team in your league: 1) Win an NCAA match 2) Receive a pool C bid (should pool B be part of this for transitioning leagues??) 3) Receive a regional ranking (final poll only) 4) Defeat a regionally ranked team (any region, final poll only) 5) Defeat a team that played in the NCAA tournament
The subjective element to questions 2 and 3 is I think minimal, and to the extent it might happen would probably only be a positive factor for a league close to losing AQ status. It is not really likely on #2, bids are too important. On #3 if a team got a sympathy last spot region rank to ensure status, so be it, it is supposed to not be a high bar.
Does non AQ status hurt a League? Does an annual drubbing in the NCAA 1st round help them? They still have the NCAA stamp of approval on their web site and volleyball is just one of many sports.
It does not prelude a pool C bid. The fact that there is NO standard now, disincentives any real effort to be competitive.
How many leagues would not pass this test in a retroactive review? Looking at the last 10 years for questions 1 and 2 there are 10 leagues that can not answer yes, before applying questions 3-5. Looking at Q3 and Q4 for just 2018, 3 of those 10 can answer yes, so we are down to 7 already.
But 5-7 more pool C bids would be a huge help in getting the tournament to a better spot. And nothing about this precludes a rise back to 43(44) if the leagues justify it.
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Post by noreaster on Jun 24, 2019 1:07:50 GMT -5
I'm so sorry you wasted all that brain power because the NCAA is NEVER taking away Pool A bids from conferences in good standing. I think you have a better chance eliminating the 64 team cap, which would add 2 teams and create 2 play-in games (like the basketball tournament).
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Post by ned3vball on Jun 24, 2019 6:46:36 GMT -5
Yes, you are very probably right on that. But hey, who am I to be the first person that uses futility as an excuse to not do a VT post! This is just my first of many crazy ideas. The region realignment project is going to be our best chance to get them to change the system in any significant way. You may have seen my posts on old championship handbooks (as they were called back then). The history of the selection process is a good reminder there are many ways to do it. Did it evolve into the best possible option? Breaking the 64 barrier is an interesting idea. Volleyball is pushing hard on the glass ceiling of 64, with the standard access ratio of 1:6.5 saying the field should be (428 / 6.5 = 65.846 = 66). Of course that means more games, which means more money, and we know that is not happening.
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