DI Men’s and Women’s tennis had their NCAA announcements yesterday and I must say I was pretty jealous. They even get their own show?! Meanwhile, here in DIII, the people rely on us to give them their most updated information. And I only have 600 followers. What has the world come to? Anyways, I promised you all some articles this week and usually I follow up on my promises. Unlike D3Regional, who is slated to have three articles come out this week. Tick tick, tick tick, Regional.
With the NCAA selections going to come out next Monday, it’s important for all of you to read these articles and get an idea of which teams you may or may not play and if you have a good chance of hosting. As always, there are tons of different scenarios, but the ones we bring to the table are the ones that are most likely to happen. In this article, it is important to note that we currently have Chicago and Kenyon as #1 seeds. Yes, you read that right. Chicago has now moved up to a #1 seed! The reasoning is because Chicago had previously only lost to Case Western who was below them. They have countered that loss with a win over Case and have now beaten Carnegie Mellon. Therefore, they take over Bowdoin’s spot as they have no bad losses. We WILL have another Bracketology coming out later today that features Chicago and Bowdoin as the #1 seeds as well. Stay tuned and come back to the site for that later on today. This also means that Carnegie Mellon is now out of the draw, by virtue of their loss to Chicago. I will have more on that in a Pool C article before the NESCAC tournament starts. I hope you guys want to read a Pool C article, a banned commenter told me he had had enough. Lulz to the max.
Okay! You know how this works. Below are our Pool A, Pool B, and Pool C teams as always. We have incorporated a lot of your feedback for the Pool A teams but please do let us know if there are any more mistakes/hunches that you have that can help us out even more.
Pool A
Allegheny Mountain – Franciscan
American Southwest – UT-Tyler
Capital Athletic – Mary Washington
Centennial – Johns Hopkins
CCIW – Carthage
CUNY – Baruch
Colonial States – Gwynedd-Mercy
Commonwealth Coast – Nichols
Commonwealth – Messiah
Empire 8 – Stevens
Great Northeast – Ramapo
Freedom – Wilkes
Heartland – Rose Hulman
IIAC – Coe
Landmark – Juniata
Liberty League – Skidmore
Little East – Southern Maine
MIAA – Kalamazoo
Midwest – Grinnell
MIAC – Gustavus
NESCAC – Amherst
North Atlantic – Colby-Sawyer
NCAC – Kenyon
Northern Athletics – Edgewood
Northwest – Whitman
Ohio Athletic – Capital
Old Dominion – Washington & Lee
Presidents – Grove City
Skyline – Yeshiva
Southern Athletic – Sewanee
SCIAC – CMS
SCAC – Trinity TX
UAA – Emory
USA South – NC Wesleyan
Pool B
Santa Cruz
Whitewater
Babson
MIT
Pool C
Pomona-Pitzer
Middlebury
Wash U
Chicago
Bowdoin
*denotes host site
(parenthesis) denotes # of teams ttl – just checking our work!
Bracket 1
1) CMS*, Pomona-Pitzer, Santa Cruz, UT-Tyler (4)
2) Amherst*, Stevens, Skidmore, Nichols, Colby-Sawyer, Southern Maine (10)
3) Middlebury*, Bowdoin, Babson, Baruch, Yeshiva, Ramapo (16)
4) Trinity TX, Mary Washington*, MIT, Wilkes, Messiah, Gwynedd-Mercy (22)
5) Emory*, NC Wesleyan, Sewanee, Washington & Lee (26)
6) Wash U*, Whitman, Coe, Kalamazoo, Rose-Hulman (31)
7) Kenyon*, Johns Hopkins, Capital, Juniata, Grove City, Franciscan (37)
8) Chicago, Gustavus*, Whitewater, Carthage, Grinnell, Edgewood (43)
My Thoughts
There you go. Bracket #1 with Kenyon and Chicago as #1 seeds. Hopefully, this article helps Coach Tee with his nerves a little bit, I know the guy gets a little worked up sometimes (ha, had to). The winner of this bracket has to be Chicago – they get a solid #2 seed in Gustavus but not one that should seriously challenge them. They do get the #8 overall seed which isn’t the best, but I honestly think that playing CMS if they make it would do wonders for a young freshman team like the Roons. Imagine if they won? On the flip side, CMS probably hates this draw. They would have to play Pomona, Chicago, Trinity TX/Emory, and Amherst in the finals to get the trophy. That is not an easy road at all and probably the toughest road for the Stags. We never make it easy on them!
A huge loser in this bracket has to be Bowdoin, who now becomes a #2 seed and travels to the always hostile Middlebury courts, where crowds of obnoxious fans await them, Not an easy task for a team that not everyone is convinced about right now.
Additionally, there is a big change! Since Chicago is now a #1 seed, this basically means we need to fly Trinity TX out somewhere else. Reasoning is because there are too many #1’s in the Central region that will most likely bid to host. Having Trinity TX as a flexible #1 with their flight is huge, because they now go to the friendly confines of Mary Washington. The other two regions have some matchups we’ve seen before, with Emory taking on a rising NCW team and Wash U taking on Whitman. All in all, very interesting bracket. Let us know your thoughts!
*denotes host site
Bracket 2
1) CMS*, Pomona-Pitzer, Santa Cruz, UT-Tyler (4)
2) Amherst*, Mary Washington, Skidmore, Nichols, Colby-Sawyer, Gwynedd-Mercy (10)
3) Middlebury*, Stevens, Babson, Yeshiva, Messiah, Ramapo (16)
4) Trinity TX, Bowdoin*, MIT, Baruch, Wilkes, Southern Maine (22)
5) Emory*, Whitman, NC Wesleyan, Sewanee, Washington & Lee (27)
6) Wash U*, Whitewater, Coe, Kalamazoo, Rose-Hulman (32)
7) Kenyon*, Johns Hopkins, Capital, Juniata, Grove City, Franciscan (38)
8) Chicago, Gustavus*, Carthage, Grinnell, Edgewood (43)
My Thoughts
Here is another potential scenario that we’ve come up with, which would most definitely piss everyone off. The reasoning is that Wash U gets Whitewater as their #2 seed, and UWW isn’t scaring anyone at the moment. Whitman travels to Emory which I know for a fact they hate – cross-country flights are never fun, even when you’re going for vacation (which they aren’t). Stevens wins a little bit by going to Middlebury instead of Amherst. Bowdoin trades a trip to Middlebury to a host site with Trinity TX.
I told Wade Heerboth before this article that Kenyon might be in danger of losing their hosting abilities because we could have needed more host sites in the East with Chicago making it, but I guess they lucked out! The #BenchMob can come out in drones over in Kenyon, unless there’s something to do in Ohio that weekend. Spoiler alert, there isn’t. Oh yea, and we get to see Yeshiva face off against Middlebury, which is always going to be fun. Let the rackets do the talking, tennisjon!
OKAY! Those were our two scenarios with Kenyon and Chicago as #1 seeds. Later today as mentioned, we will have Kenyon/Chicago and Bowdoin as our #1 seeds. I will let you come back to that article so we can up our views, ha. I personally think Bracket #1 is the most likely scenario and I believe Kenyon and Chicago will both get the #1 seeds. But, the NCAA loves throwing me for a loop once in a while. I hope you enjoy the Bracketology and I hope you come back for more later on. ASouth, OUT.
What are UW-La Crosse’s odds of a Pool B or C birth?
I’m going to respond to this here with the same answer I will respond to the same question in Bracketology 3B. I was unaware of UW-Lacrosse’s season other than the loss to UWW. I took a look and they certainly have had a good season. However, there are only 4 Pool B berths every year and if you stack up the resumes of UW-Lacrosse and MIT/Babson, I think MIT/Babson win it every time. Obviously, UW-Lacrosse would not get in over Whitewater or UC Santa Cruz
I’d love to see Stevens play Yeshiva for an old Skyline Conference throwback match-up. It’s an exciting time of year now with the NCAA d3 tennis tourney approaching and the NHL playoffs in full swing (GO DUCKS/CAPS!).
What would you say the odds are Emory hosts?
I’d say >90% to be honest. The way the brackets are turning out it looks like it’s a no brainer to have them host NCW, W&L and maybe Whitman if needed.
Any chance Sewanee falls in that group?
I am wondering why you feel a team like Babson or MIT would be likely to pick up a random pool draw. I could see one of them going but not two of them in the same conference. They have barely played any tennis this year even though I don’t doubt that they are a solid team.
Great question – the reason why we picked both Babson and MIT is because there really aren’t many other Pool B teams that are of their caliber. They both have some wins on their schedule as well as some results against top competition. The only other Pool B that comes to my mind is TCNJ that could challenge them, and we can definitely take a look at that! Stay tuned!
So many of these teams are a joke. There has to be a rule change at some point regarding bids. There are so many teams that shouldn’t be at this tournament and so many that should that aren’t.
Thank you for the great coverage as always! I’m curious to know a little bit more about host sites — specifically for No. 8 in your bracket. It looks like you have slated all the 1 seeds to host but Gustavus over Chicago. Would you be able to explain how hosting works?
Our pleasure! Here’s some things I picked up about hosting throughout the years:
Hosts are chosen by the NCAA for a variety of reasons. They like to minimize travel for other teams, they tend to pick a better facility (outdoors and indoors) over a worse one, and they like to heavily distort hosting to top seeds. Also, in order to host, the coach of the team has to put in a formalized bid to the NCAA to host. If you do not bid, you will not be chosen to host no matter what. Hosting teams need to have 6 outdoor courts and 6 indoor courts to be eligible.
In regards to your question about Chicago/GAC, I answered it in a comment a little below. Thanks! Let us know if you have more questions!
Thanks for the response!
Why would Chicago not be the host site? All the other teams are closer to Chicago than Gustavus. Thanks for the great article!
Great question! The reason we put GAC as the host site is for a couple of reasons:
1) GAC’s outdoor and indoor facilities are of much higher quality than Chicago’s, which the NCAA prefers.
2) We are currently unsure if Chicago will get hosting for Women or for Men, so we played it safe.
3) We did not have confirmation that Chicago would be putting in bids to host (which I have now confirmed).
Overall, it’s definitely feasible for Chicago to host. Now that I have the information that Chicago can and put in bids to host, definitely a huge possibility they host instead of GAC. Thanks for the question!
Hunter and Baruch play tomorrow for CUNY title and assuming Hunter has a full lineup, they will win. As for us, with two starters down with injury, we were lucky to make it to the tournament. It will be near impossible now to take out any seeds unless we get some miracle cures. That being said, the guys who played really stepped up in the conference championships.