North Central and the NCAA Regional Rankings: Week 3 Edition

Happy Championship Week! Conference tournaments are underway across the D-III landscape, and with tournament fates hanging in the balance... let's take one final look at the regional rankings.

With the NCAA Tournament field getting revealed on Monday, this set of rankings is arguably the most important. Last week's introduced the results against regionally ranked opponents criteria, and any team ranked this week will, for the purpose of that metric, remain regionally ranked even if they don't appear in the final set.

With word in from the regional advisory committees, let's have a look.

Women's Basketball

11-14 overall, 7-9 CCIW (6th)
Central Region: Unranked (out of 9 teams)
Last Week: Unranked

It's important to remember: this set of regional rankings only takes into account games through the weekend. It doesn't take into account, say... the pair of road upsets in the CCIW Tournament on Tuesday night.

So needless to say, a sub-.500 North Central team, despite a solid .546 strength of schedule and now 1-7 mark against regionally ranked opponents (thanks North Park), isn't going to crack the top nine. The only way North Central can get in is with the automatic bid... which we can't totally rule out at this point, because the Cardinals have been able to hang with Wheaton in two matchups so far this season, and if Augustana can upset Illinois Wesleyan in the semis so we don't have to see a team that curbstomped the Cardinals twice this season for a third time...

Speaking of some of these teams, Wheaton held pat at third in the Central region with a good strength of schedule (.556) and a 4-2 mark against RRO's. Illinois Wesleyan made a huge jump from three to four; their strength of schedule is really good (.578) and really the only potential problem is a 2-6 mark against RRO's. North Park somehow held on going into the final week at the bottom of the Central region, but they're in trouble. Their mediocre SOS (.516) and a 2-4 mark against RRO's was enough of a problem; factor in that they had eight losses going on, and are now sitting on nine probably means their season is over. Wheaton and now Illinois Wesleyan should both end up making the NCAA Tournament unless the Titans fall to Augie on Friday.

Men's Basketball

21-4 overall, 14-2 CCIW (1st)
Central Region: 4th (out of 8 teams)
Last week: 4th

We've got basketball in Naperville this weekend, and some big games on tap to boot. We had a little chaos Tuesday though, with bad rankings originally coming out from the NCAA (or their partners at Turner who I think handle this), we weren't sure if the list as it was would be correct, but the corrected rankings have come out. I don't know that the Central was necessarily impacted, but either way, questions have been raised.

North Central's metrics have them in good shape going into the weekend (an .840 win perentage, .538 SOS, and a decent 2-2 mark against regionally ranked opponents). But the question comes in looking at the rest of the Central. UW-Platteville in first makes sense (20-3 against D-III opponents, good SOS, 6-0 against RRO's), and WashU right behind them does as well (.833/.561/4-3). Third place is where you start to raise an eyebrow. Benedictine slots in just ahead of North Central despite a worse win percentage (.800) and worse SOS (.506). The Eagles' advantages are two things in one: a 3-0 vRRO record, which includes their win at Gregory Arena earlier this year. I think it's that latter fact that has kept the Eagles ahead of North Central even in the face of some recent losses while the Cardinals have been on an absolute tear.

Elmhurst slots in at #5 still, and tracks favorably for making the NCAA Tournament, though they've got another date with North Central on Friday. Even if they lose that one though, with an okay SOS (.527) and a then 3-3 vRRO record, they're in pretty good shape. Augustana is the question mark. They've got a strong SOS and decent record at a .720 win percentage going into the weekend, but a 2-6 mark against regionally ranked opponents is a bit of a problem in a loaded Central region. Some of the talk among the prognosticators though is that the Central region is going to have to provide an extended list for the final set of regional rankings; while the Vikings won't be ranked, there's a good chance they get to the table and a decent shot of making the field as a Pool C team.