2017 NCAA Playoff Points Rankings: Week 12

Nick Saban Is A Coward Week is in the books, and with that, it's time to survey the landscape.

There was nowhere near as much chaos this week as there was last week, which will be a good thing when I go to the lab later today to build out another mock bracket. For reference, here's last week's.

We won't worry too much about that yet, though. First, I need to update all of the numbers for everyone, and then below you will find the rankings for each conference. I will later go through the top teams in every category. If you need a refresher on how each of the three types of Playoff Points works, you can view a description of them back in my season introductory post.

Game Notes: Louisiana College vs North Central College (11/17/17)

Final Score
Louisiana 77, NCC 71

Game Summary
Playing in Wheaton College's Beth Baker Classic to open the season, the Cardinals (0-1) started out pretty well, playing good defense and getting some early baskets, leading by as many as six in the opening frame. But the Wildcats (2-0) fought back and managed to narrow the gap to a single point after one quarter. The bottom fell out in the second quarter, as the Wildcats got a three from RyDeja McQuarn to take the lead a minute in, and while the Cardinals would tie it right back up, the Wildcats took command with a 12-4 run over the next four minutes and opened up a 42-26 halftime lead. Whatever coach Michelle Roof said in the locker room worked, as the Cardinals came back with a barrage of threes, using a 16-8 run to help narrow the gap to as close as 50-45 before the Wildcats recovered. They led 60-52 after three and would push the lead to 11 in the fourth, but the Cardinals had one more rally in them, using a 9-1 run over the next two minutes to cut the gap to 73-70. But North Central committed a pair of turnovers in the final minute and Louisiana was able to escape with the win.

Key Stats

• Brooke Jones (LC): 7-10 FG (0-1 3PT), 3-4 FT; 17 pts, 16 reb (6 off), 3 ast, 1 blk, 2 stl. In a game where North Central got outrebounded 52-42, you look for one player who jumps out at you, and Jones was it. She was able to hit not only layups, but some midrange jumpers as well which helped the Wildcats take command in this one.
• NCC: 15-25 FT (60%). I missed this both during the game itself and in my first look at the box score, but ye gods. There's one player in particular (I'll get to her) who needs to work on this, but you can't shoot 60 percent from the line with more opportunities than your opponent and expect to win.
• Natali Dimitrova (NCC): 5-10 FG (4-8 3PT), 2-7 FT; 16 pts, 4 reb, 2 ast, 1 stl. I thought all in all, Natali played really well. She was the hot shooter for the Cardinals yesterday and helped them both stake the early lead and make the late comeback. I would like to see a little more rebounding, obviously, and definitely an improvement at the line.

North Central "System" Watch

I use the term in quotations, because what North Central ran yesterday was not "The System" as we've become used to. The offense was still fairly similar, and the Cardinals still pressed a little bit, but not as much, and didn't do the hockey-style line changes yesterday. It meant a more normal minutes distribution and less fatigue, though the tempo of the game was still fairly fast. Anyway, I'm still going to look at the two major stats I've been looking at, while taking charges out of it because Anita Sterling is gone.

• Louisiana College Turnovers: 20. This isn't a bad total, given the change of pace. I wouldn't say the Wildcats played sloppy, especially since North Central committed 19 turnovers on their side. The Cardinals picked up 11 steals in this one, paced by three apiece from Haydn Braun and Lyndsay Brennan.
• NCC 3PT: 12-33 (36.4%). I feel like the Cardinals passed up some opportunities, especially early on. But in the first half, by and large the threes weren't falling, as they shot 4-17. They heated up in the second half because of course they did, but unfortunately it wasn't enough. On the whole though, I'll take that clip any day.

Final Thoughts

Yesterday was the first North Central women's game I attended as a fan since 2012. It's been a long time. But they were local and I wanted to go support them, and I also wanted to give Matthew an introduction to North Central basketball. I hadn't been to King Arena since 2010, and it's still as nice a facility (maybe even a little nicer) as it was when I was last there.

Ultimately, that second quarter is what killed the Cardinals. They gave up too many easy layups (48 points in the paint) and too many second chance points (18). I am happy with how they didn't just lay down and came out strong after halftime. They shot with confidence against a team that, one could argue, is more talented than them. Coach Roof even said that this team has been pretty good every year, though they had a down year last year before a late run. It ruins the 4-0 start I'd pegged the Cardinals for, but I think they have some good things they can take from this one. Their two freshmen who figure to play the most key of roles (Braun and Bekah Foley) both shot poorly in this one (combined 2-14, 0-6 from deep), and that won't happen every game.

North Central is back in action this afternoon against a not very good Lake Forest College team. Wheaton dispatched them 74-57 yesterday after I left, and this should be a good opportunity for North Central to get in the win column. After this they open their home schedule on Tuesday against Colorado College.

2017 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 11

The coalition is moving on to Week 11, but I feel like it was a subpar week overall.

Geoffrey Clark remains in the lead that he has held for a good chunk of the season, and currently has sole possession of first place. I gained the tiniest bit of ground on Adam after taking three of five disputed games last week. Adam did goof again last week, accidentally picking Dallas on ESPN when he picked Atlanta for the blog. He gets credit for it, which means ESPN is now short three wins for him. You can view an accurate count, as well as a breakdown of all our picks in relation to each other, here.

This week, Adam and I disagree on seven games out of the 14 being played, a high for recently.

2017-18 NCC Men's Basketball Preview

The women's preview is up and running, but with the season starting today, I need to get the men's preview up and running as well.

I'm about to begin year four of full time announcing for the North Central men's team, and it's given me the privilege of working for a team that has been good over the last few years, and I'm honored to continue to work for them.

I mentioned this in the women's preview, but I want to bring it up again. If you're on the full version of the website, you'll notice in the sidebar on the right that I have a standings feature for both the men's and women's teams of the CCIW, something I will try to update daily if I can. It'll be harder during non-conference play, but a lot more doable when we are in conference play since everyone will be going at it all at once.

Let's take a look at what the men have in store for us this winter.

2017-18 NCC Women's Basketball Preview

The Division III football playoffs near this weekend, but another season is about to get underway. Today marks the official start of basketball season for the division, and that means I need to prepare my vocal cords for a seventh year of their gradual destruction.

I used this feature last year, and I'm bringing it back again for use on the main site (there's no way to make it available on mobile, so if you read this on your phone you'll need to enable the full site). On the right sidebar with my post archives you'll find near the top I'm going to have standings for the CCIW all season long, with plans to update every day, or close to it. It will be easier once conference play starts, but overall it should be a good tool to keep tabs on the action.

Every year I've done a preview of North Central basketball, but it's only been the last couple years where I've split the women's and men's previews into their own posts. We'll start on the side I've been with for longer and take a look at the women's team first.

2017 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 12

For those of you who either ignored my warning yesterday afternoon or were intrigued by it, I have one thing to say to you this morning: Happy Nick Saban Is A Coward Week!

To be completely fair to Coach Saban, it's not just him. During last year's Nick Saban Is A Coward Week, five other teams joined in on the cowardice of playing an FCS team the second to last week of the regular season, and all of those coaches are equally as cowardly as Saban. Saban is just the highest profile coach of a team who does this, and thus has the indignity of getting this week named after him.

Also to be fair, there are still other non-conference games that need to be factored into NCSS scores, and with the way the Sun Belt has scheduled out its season, they could finally supplant the MAC atop the conference rankings. But we have to check to find out.

You can find a primer on how the NCSS metric works in my season introductory post. Below are the ten FBS conference ranked by average NCSS.

2017 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 11 Mock Bracket

I mentioned it early this morning, but in case you didn't see, chaos reigned during Week 11 of the college season. There was even a little bit in D-III as well, where the playoff brackets are built, North Central won the CCIW's automatic bid, and until they get bounced in a disappointing Round 2 performance by UW-Oshkosh or something to that effect, all is right with the world.

Meanwhile, the selection committee for the College Football Playoff has a tall task on its hands, but not as tall as I've got. They only have to fill four spots; I have to fill 16. Now what helps is that, per the design created by Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter, and Jeff Passan and perfected in the book pictured here, 10 of those spots go to conference champions, the way God and nature intended, yet is perverted by the greed of the big time conference commissioners. So it is that every year I try to take this system built by these authors, and set up a 16 team playoff the way they intend: seeded and on campuses through three rounds.

The trick is how to build the field. Since I don't have the benefit of a selection committee, I use a number of metrics to try and help myself out. To a very minor extent I look at Non-Conference Schedule Strength (NCSS) to see how tough teams made their out of conference schedules. This is mainly just a look at road/home imbalance and how Power Five teams tend to fill their schedules with home games against Group of Five teams (and tomorrow, you get my best rant of the year as to how Nick Saban is a coward). More weight then gets put on First Degree (PP1), Second Degree (PP2), and Adjusted Playoff Points (aPP). This is basically a tabulation of wins of vanquished teams by a given program, then a deeper look at how good those teams actually were, and then an adjustment to factor in losses. Finally, to make sure I get rid of any bias, I also look at three separate computer rankings: Jeff Sagarin's (SAG), the late David Rothman's via a UCLA staff member (ROTH), and from the website All My Sports Teams Suck (AMSTS).

These factors are all kind of organically combined to build the 16 team field that would decide a national champion. After much consideration, as well as some waiting for computer rankings to update while I was working on this, here is the sixth mock bracket of the season.