NESCAC Seeding Rapid Reaction

Happy NESCAC seeding day, boys and girls. Usually that would not be worthy of a greeting, but today is different. Today, the NESCAC seeding committee has stirred the pot with a hot take of its own. The following are the seeds for this weekend’s conference tournament. #1 Wesleyan, #2 Middlebury, #3 Amherst, #4 Bowdoin, #5 Bates, #6 Williams. You can read the full release here, but it does not mention Tufts or the selection process in the release. There will be a bigger take on this later, but let’s break down what this means.

1. Tufts’ season is over while Bates plays on. There’s no way around it, this is the most immediate and short term impact from this announcement. Both teams didn’t play on Sunday, and I would imagine that both coaches told their players to wait and see, without admitting that their season was likely over. I wrote, multiple times in fact, about how Tufts was locked in as the #6 seed, because I believed their head-to-head win over Bates was the obvious deciding factor. However the committee saw it differently. Which brings us to the next point…
2. How the committee came to this decision. Here are the selection criteria straight from the 2017 NESCAC M/W Tennis Championship Manual. It’s said right there, in the very first part of the selection criteria, the NESCAC W-L record. Bates was 5-4 while Tufts was 4-5. The kicker here is that Williams and Bates did not play. So while Williams ended up with a win over Tufts, who had a win over Bates, Bates also had a win over Bowdoin who had a win over Williams and Tufts. The 4th piece of criteria is results vs common NESCAC opponents. The only difference here is that Bates beat Bowdoin while Bowdoin beat Tufts. Remember that score is not supposed to be taken into account, so the 7-2 Bates win and 5-4 Tufts loss do not matter. All that matter are the W and the L.
3. Why the committee doesn’t seem to be following its own rules. There are four primary pieces of selection criteria. NESCAC W-L, head-to-head, results vs common NESCAC opponents, and NESCAC strength of schedule, all supposedly weighted evenly. Technically, Bates does win the W-L factor and common NESCAC opponents. However, Tufts obviously wins the head-to-head factor and NESCAC strength of schedule, as didn’t play Williams while Tufts didn’t play Conn College. I believe these are clearer wins than the slight victories Bates took in the previous section.
4. How the committee might defend itself. Let’s say that Bates and Tufts each got two of those four aforementioned pieces of criteria on their side. The secondary criteria is supposed to be judged in priority order, starting with the conference W-L against teams in consideration. Bates was 1-4 against teams in the running, while Tufts was 1-5. This is again where Bates not having played Williams might have worked in their favor. If that was enough to break the tie, I will be disappointed in the committee.
5. What this means for NESCACs. Bates will take on Bowdoin in the 1st round of NESCACs while Williams is the #6 seed and will take on Amherst. This means we get two rivalry matches in the quarterfinals, which is exciting!
6. What this means for NCAAs.
   1. Williams. The Ephs now have to take on Amherst in the quarters instead of the struggling Polar Bears. The Ephs need a win to feel good about their NCAA selection status, and that will be a tall task against an Amherst team playing at a very high level right now.
   2. Bowdoin. The Polar Bears are no longer a total lock for NCAAs. A quarters loss to Williams would not have been enough to drop them out of the field, but another loss to Bates could at least start the conversation of the defending champs not even making NCAAs.
   3. CMU. As something affects Williams, it obviously has the counter-effect on CMU. If the Ephs lose to the Mammoths, they will have no more chances to help themselves, AND they will have finished 6th in their conference, which could be a damning piece of criteria come NCAA selection time (then again, how much should any of you trust me about selection criteria after all of this!)
   4. Bates. WILD CARD! Bates is only mostly dead, and not a team you’d think would crop up in the pool discussion again this year. But as one commenter email me today, what about the scenario where Bates makes the finals of the conference tournament without actually winning the Pool-A bid. On the one hand, they would have two wins over Bowdoin and a split with Wesleyan, on the other hand you have losses to UMW, MIT, Hopkins, and OH YEAH TUFTS. For now, let’s just say we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
7. What this means for the years ahead. This is probably the most interesting part for me, but it’s not something that will interest everybody right now. Unfortunately with our game, change is only generally made due to controversy. This will likely be seen as a controversial decision, and it could lead to future changes such as
   1. Expanding the conference tournament to 8 teams. This has needed to happen for a long time now. The conference is too good to exclude the 7th and 8th best teams, and it just keeps getting better.
   2. Making it mandatory to play every team in the conference. Teams come close to doing this anyways, and it’s very likely a dates issue, but perhaps it’s time that all 11 teams play each other through the year. If the NESCAC needs to increase its dates limit from 14 (spring break does not count towards that total) to do that, so be it.
   3. Add 3rd/5th/7th place matches to the tournament. Ok, this one is just because it would help clarify Pool-C in some years, but while I’m asking for things I might as well be greedy, right?

the fact that the NESCAC only lets 6 teams into the tournament really doesn't make much sense

— d3AtlanticSouth (@d3AtlanticSouth) May 2, 2017