Put On Your Dancing Shoes

The wait was not very long in Naperville. With bated breath, members of North Central's men's basketball team gathered in the Cardinal Room in Merner Fieldhouse to watch the NCAA Selection Show this morning. Fortunately, they did not have to wait very long, as the setup of the bracket got the Cardinals on the board within five minutes of the start of the show.

Yeeeeeeeeeeah time to get out the dancing shoes #GoCards

— Alex Sorenson (@AlexSCOREnson) February 29, 2016

Let's dance!

— Connor Raridon (@ConnorRaridon) February 29, 2016

The at large bid marks the first trip to the NCAA Tournament for the Cardinals since that legendary 2013 run to the Final Four, and with the Augustana automatic bid and Elmhurst also getting an at large bid, the CCIW got three teams in for the second straight year. It's a testament to how much of a gauntlet the conference truly is.

North Central is heading up to Wisconsin this weekend to advance, and they avoid both of their conference rivals, who are on the other side of the bracket, as well as Benedictine, who looms as a potential Elite Eight matchup. So as is my tradition, the questions are plentiful. What do we know about North Central's opponents? I dug into the stats and have a preview of the weekend ahead,

2016 NCC Women's Basketball Recap

Later this afternoon, the NCAA Division III Selection Committees will adjourn and unveil their brackets for the NCAA Tournament. On one side, unfortunately, I already know one team whose name will not be called.

North Central and the NCAA Regional Rankings: Week 3 Edition

It is Championship Week in NCAA's Division III. In most of the nation's conferences, the bottom teams in the standings are done while those near the top are fighting for automatic bids.

Over the last couple of days, I've previewed both the men's tournament and the women's tournament in the CCIW. Each four-team tournament will send one team to its respective NCAA Tournament, but depending on the regional rankings, at large bids may be in the discussion.

Today the NCAA will release its third and final public regional rankings on both the men's and women's sides. They do one more final set of rankings, but those remain secret for the selection committee, who will use those among other factors to fill the field. Even with one more secret poll being done, the final public rankings are still valuable to see where everyone stands.

So with that in mind, here is where each NCC team stands from a national perspective.

2016 CCIW Men's Basketball Tournament Preview

Yesterday, I previewed the women. Today, I preview the men.

The last month and a half to two months have had 56 games, all leading up to this. Four teams, three games. One team will win both of its contests this weekend, and get one of 43 automatic bids into the NCAA Tournament. The other three need to hope they put together a good enough resume to capture one of 19 at large spots that are up for grabs to enter the NCAA Tournament. I won't go into tournament chances today though; that comes on Wednesday when the final public regional rankings are released by the NCAA.

Ultimately, this season turned out roughly as expected. The four teams picked in the preseason poll to make the CCIW Tournament all made the CCIW Tournament, but the order wound up differing a little bit, and we once again had intrigue going into the final weekend.

So like we did yesterday for the women, let's set the scene for the CCIW Tournament and look at the four squads who will enter the fray.

2016 CCIW Women's Basketball Tournament Preview

Seven weeks and 56 games have narrowed the field of eight CCIW teams down to the top four.

We had a fun scenario coming into Saturday's slate of games to close out the regular season. Only two tournament bids had been claimed, with first place still up for grabs, and there was a three way tie for the final two spots. There were, in the grand scheme of things, only two games that really mattered from my perspective, and I did some stat watching in the evening while also catching the tail end of one game live, then I went back to watch North Central's regular season finale... holy crap.

So from here, we get your usual tournament format: the #1 seed plays the #4 seed and the #2 seed plays the #3 seed on Friday, with the winners fighting for the championship and one of the 44 automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament on Saturday. If any of the teams are lucky, they may have a shot at one of the 20 at large bids offered by the NCAA into the Dance. Today's post won't focus on that though, as I'll look at tournament chances on Wednesday when the NCAA unveils its final set of public regional rankings.

So without further ado, here is a look at your 2016 CCIW Women's Basketball Tournament.

North Central and the NCAA Regional Rankings: Week 2 Edition

The regular season is almost over. Most CCIW schools, with the exception of Wheaton's women's team, have just one game left to try to prove themselves. For many CCIW teams, Saturday's finales represent the conclusion of a schedule. For others, it's one last chance to add to their resume before we delve into postseason play.

I already touched on CCIW Tournament scenarios earlier this week, so I'm not going to focus at all on those. The purpose here is to look at NCAA Tournament scenarios for both the men's and women's teams, compared to where we were last week.

One More to Go: A CCIW Update

Thanks to whoever does the CCIW schedules not making any sense, I am finished with my announcing work for the year. But the season goes on, and we're finally down to the end.

With one conference game to go, five of the eight Tournament spots have been claimed, but a majority of the seeds are still up in the air. With that in mind, I want to go through both the men's and women's sides of the conference and take a look to see scenarios that the games this weekend will bring to the forefront.