I know I've touched on how these rankings work in years past, now that I fully understand them, but before I delve into them now that the first batch of the year is out, I want to go in depth on how they work so that we fully understand what we're looking at. Every February, the NCAA starts releasing these on a weekly basis on three consecutive Wednesdays leading up to Selection Monday. A fourth and final set gets released after the bracket is out.
First off, throw out the Top 25 poll, because it means nothing when it comes to these rankings. For all intents and purposes, throw out the conference standings as well. The committees that set up these rankings don't use them, so you may see a second place team from a conference top a leader in these. It's perfectly normal.
Instead, each of the country's eight regions as broken up by the NCAA has an advisory committee, with representatives from every conference. These eight committees each have a chair who sits on the national selection committee. Interestingly enough, right now the Central region men's committee, which includes North Central, is chaired by Wheaton head coach Mike Schauer. Basically, what this means is if Wheaton is in consideration for either regional rankings or national tournament selection, he cannot be part of the conversation for obvious reasons. Todd Raridon sits on the Central region advisory committee, so obviously he won't be part of the discussion when NCC gets talked about, but he will help craft what the Central region looks like.
So when the committees go to rank teams, they do it based on a set of criteria:
- Win percentage. This is a given. Officially though, it's win percentage against Division III teams. In the past North Central has played NAIA Robert Morris of Chicago, and that game doesn't count for this metric. Generally, getting to your conference tournament with a 17-8 record (a .680 win percentage) will at least get you in the conversation.
- Strength of schedule. It's good to win a ton of games, but just how good are you? At the D-III level, the NCAA takes your opponents' winning percentage and your opponents' opponents' winning percentage, factors in a multiplier for home and road games, then combines them (two-thirds OWP, one-third OOWP). This number will be rounded to three decimal places, and, except in cases of outliers, will range probably between about 0.480 and 0.620. The "Mendoza Line" for this would probably be around 0.530. Teams with a higher winning percentage can generally get away with a lower strength of schedule, while more losses to a higher strength of schedule can be forgiven.
- Head to head results/results versus common opponents. Officially, this is part of the criteria. Unofficially, it's hard to quantify this because of different conferences. A head to head victory over a team doesn't necessarily mean you will be ranked ahead of them if the other metrics favor the team you beat.
- Results versus regionally ranked opponents. This is the fun one, but one that doesn't apply for this week. Here, the committee takes the rankings from the previous week and current week, and factors your record against teams that are ranked into play. This means both wins and losses, but losses aren't a death knell. A team that went 1-3 against regionally ranked opponents may be ranked higher than one who went 0-1.
All of these factors get mixed together to come up with the rankings, the first set of which came out Wednesday afternoon. Let's take a look.
Central Region: Unranked (out of 9 teams)
Remember, these are the standings through Saturday's games, which is what the regional rankings take into account. When I first started writing this feature, I did it largely because my favorite team I've ever announced for, the 2014-15 NCC women, were in the thick of a race for their first NCAA Tournament berth in 31 years. I had to figure out what the chances were for that. So I've continued this topic every year since, and unfortunately for the women, my writing for this section has been something to the effect of, "They have too many losses." On the whole, I'm a little disappointed with how the season has gone, but they're in the thick of the conference race, which has been good to see, especially given the injuries.
In the conference though, in this first set we saw a couple of CCIW teams making their presence known. Wheaton sits fifth in the region while Illinois Wesleyan is in sixth. North Park, despite their conference lead going into Wednesday's slate (and actually coming out of it, amazingly enough), did not find itself in this first set. We'll see how things shake up in the second set once we work results against regionally ranked opponents into the equation.
In the conference though, in this first set we saw a couple of CCIW teams making their presence known. Wheaton sits fifth in the region while Illinois Wesleyan is in sixth. North Park, despite their conference lead going into Wednesday's slate (and actually coming out of it, amazingly enough), did not find itself in this first set. We'll see how things shake up in the second set once we work results against regionally ranked opponents into the equation.
Men's Basketball
Central Region: 6th (out of 8 teams)
This felt about right for the first set. This was around where some prognosticators had the Cardinals, while others had them just on the outside looking in. The record is good, but the strength of schedule at this stage (.523 going into tonight) leaves something to be desired. Some of the teams ahead of them do have better records (looking at Benedictine and St. Norbert in particular), though Benedictine's SOS is worse (.493, which is pretty bad) and St. Norbert's is a little bit better (.536). I thought for sure the WIAC would get three teams, but they settled for a pair (top ranked UW-Platteville, with just three losses and a .566 SOS, which is good; and fifth ranked UW-Eau Claire, who have six losses but a win percentage still above .700, and a really good .580 SOS.)
The CCIW is more well-represented than I had thought; Elmhurst making it isn't a surprise, but seeing them at the bottom kind of is (they have a good win percentage, but their SOS is only a tick better than NCC's at .526), and Augie, with their second half run found their way ahead of the Blue Jays thanks largely to a better SOS (.578).
The advantage the Cardinals have going into this is undeniable: I finished writing this Wednesday evening after the Cardinals finished demolishing Augustana in Rock Island (regaining possession of The BeltTM by the way), which gives the Cardinals an extra win, but also will give them an outstanding 4-1 mark against regionally ranked opponents when the second set comes out. Sweeps of the Vikings and Blue Jays is great, and the loss (at home, but to third-ranked Benedictine) will likely bump the Cardinals up a spot or two. As long as North Central takes care of business over their final three regular season games, their postseason picture looks pretty good.
The CCIW is more well-represented than I had thought; Elmhurst making it isn't a surprise, but seeing them at the bottom kind of is (they have a good win percentage, but their SOS is only a tick better than NCC's at .526), and Augie, with their second half run found their way ahead of the Blue Jays thanks largely to a better SOS (.578).
The advantage the Cardinals have going into this is undeniable: I finished writing this Wednesday evening after the Cardinals finished demolishing Augustana in Rock Island (regaining possession of The BeltTM by the way), which gives the Cardinals an extra win, but also will give them an outstanding 4-1 mark against regionally ranked opponents when the second set comes out. Sweeps of the Vikings and Blue Jays is great, and the loss (at home, but to third-ranked Benedictine) will likely bump the Cardinals up a spot or two. As long as North Central takes care of business over their final three regular season games, their postseason picture looks pretty good.
No comments:
Post a Comment