A lot to talk about here, but first of all lets run down the expected field of 43:
Pool A (The winning team from each of the 30 conferences who have automatic bids to the tournament):
Allegheny Mountain- PSU-Behrend
ASW-UT Tyler
Capital–UMW
Centennial JHU
CUNY–Baruch
Colonial–Marywood
Commonwealth Coast–Nichols
Commonwealth–Elizabethtown
Empire 8–Stevens
Freedom–Wilkes
Heartland–Earlham
IIAC–Coe
Landmark–Drew
Little East–UMass-Dartmouth
MIAA–Kalamazoo
Midwest-Grinnell
MIAC–Gustavus
NESCAC-Amherst
N Atlantic–PSU-Harrisburg
Northern–Concordia(WI)
Northwest-Whitman
NCAC–Kenyon
OAC-Baldwin-Wallace
Old Dominion-W & L
Presidents–Grove City
Skyline–Farmingdale St.
SCIAC–CMS
Southern–Trinity
USA South–NCW
UAA–Emory
Pool B (The top 6 teams from conferences who don’t have an automatic bid to the tournament or independent teams)
1. UC Santa Cruz
2. Skidmore
3. MIT
4. Whitewater
5. Vassar
6. The College of New Jersey (TCNJ)
Pool C (The top 7 teams from conferences who have automatic bids and don’t win their conference)
1. Bowdoin
2. Williams
3. Pomona-Pitzer
4. Cal Lutheran
5. Middlebury
6. Wash U
7. Bates
Quick note on this: I don’t see how Redlands gets in anymore. They had so many golden opportunities and blew all of them. I think Pool C is set after the Bulldogs loss to CLU yesterday and I think both the Bobcats and Bears won’t have to sweat much tomorrow. I’d be shocked to see Redlands in the tournament.
I’m going to count down from Region 8 all the way to Region 1 and provide a brief explanation of how I came up with each region. I will note that I don’t have all of the information necessary to make a perfect bracket, meaning I don’t have info on flight costs and who put in a bid to host.
I am going to put the teams in order of seeding within their regional and an asterisk (*) denotes the host team. As a reminder, in the quarterfinals, the winner of 1 plays the winner of 8, 4 v 5, 3 v 6 and 2 v 7.
Region 8:
Whitman, Johns Hopkins, Mary Washington*, PSU-Behrend, Wilkes, Elizabethtown
As the highest ranked #2 seed, outside CA of course, Hopkins should get the right to play the lowest ranked #1 seed, especially when Whitman is flexible in where they can fly. I would have had Hopkins hosting this regional, however I know their facilities have not been approved as a host site in the past. In 2010, Hopkins put in a bid to host at nearby Goucher College and were granted the right to do so. I’m not sure if they are going to this again, but I assumed no. If this region somehow moves from Mary Wash to Hopkins, the teams won’t change at all, it really doesn’t make a difference. In fact, Hopkins has to have some very bad memories from the Goucher site. This region would present the Blue Jays with a golden opportunity to qualify for the Final 8. If Mary Wash somehow gets grouped with Emory, then this region may move elsewhere (TCNJ?).
Region 7:
Trinity (TX), Wash U *, Kalamazoo, Coe, Grinnell
Similar situation as Region 8 with Wash U, Midd and Bates being the next three highest ranked #2 seeds. Bates and Midd will obviously drive to 1 of the 3 Northeastern host sites, so the obvious solution is for Wash U to host Trinity (TX) here. Trinity got a bit screwed when Bowdoin beat Williams yesterday, because the Tigers were in line to be the #6 overall seed instead of the #7, therefore avoiding Emory in the quarters. It is possible that Trinity (TX) will remain ahead of Bowdoin in the seeding due to their direct win over them, but I think that’s doubtful because they have losses to Skidmore and Cal Lutheran, both of which don’t look great anymore, and Bowdoin has a better overall resume. Kalamazoo probably travels here to be the 3 seed rather than to Whitewater, because that region will already have Gustavus and Whitewater. The region is filled out with 2 very solid Iowa teams, both of whom would test Trinity (TX) in the round of 32. Coe is fresh off a dramatic win over Luther in their conference tournament and Grinnell took 2 matches from Chicago in last year’s NCAAs.
Region 6:
CMS*, Pomona-Pitzer, UC Santa Cruz, Cal Lutheran
Fairly self-explanatory. CMS has been by far the best of these teams the past 6 weeks and that’s why I think they get the top seed and will host despite their direct loss to Cruz. The only other potential host site is Cruz, but I think their loss to PP, a team CMS has beaten twice, lost them their hosting privileges. Whoever gets the 2 and 3 seed doesn’t really matter, because they will play each other anyway. CLU is almost definitely the #4 here and they have an uphill battle to get out of this region. CMS is obviously the favorite, but they have been volatile and if Cruz sneaks by PP and then plays great doubles against the Stags, anything can happen. I really see Cruz as the only threat to beat CMS here, I don’t think PP has quite enough even if they play their best match.
Region 5:
Williams*, Middlebury, Vassar, TCNJ, Stevens, Nichols
Bowdoin’s win over Williams yesterday threw a curveball at the overall seedings for the tournament and I’ll address that here. One thing that I think is for sure is that Kenyon moves up to #3. They have been nothing but solid all season and have a direct win over Bowdoin. The 4-5-6 can really go any way between Bowdoin, Williams and California. 4 will end up playing 5 so those don’t really matter, but whoever gets the 6 will be in line to play Kenyon in the quarters, and frankly at the moment I’d rather play Kenyon than Williams, CMS or Bowdoin, so in my mind whoever gets that 6 (I’m giving it to Cali), is a little lucky. Trinity, as I said above, has too many losses to move up to 5 or 6, I think they’re stuck at 7. With that tangent aside, there is a huge short-term advantage to getting the 4 overall, and that is you avoid Middlebury in your regional. After Amherst, there are two other NESCAC hosts (Bowdoin and Williams) and two highly ranked #2 seeds (Bates and Midd). I see Midd as a much more dangerous opponent than Bates, and whoever ends up the #4 overall between Bowdoin and Williams most likely draws Bates in their regional (the lower ranked #2), a much more appealing scenario.
Region 4:
Bowdoin*, Bates, MIT, Drew, UMass Dartmouth
See Region #5 for further explanation, but whoever comes out the higher overall seed between Bowdoin and Williams almost certainly gets Bates as their #2 seed as opposed to having to face Middlebury. Bates is a dangerous team, but I’d sleep a lot easier knowing that I have to play a team with 3 strong players versus a more experienced deeper team coached by Bob Hansen. Because of the recent win, Bowdoin may jump ahead of Williams, however if you compare overall resumes Williams probably has the stronger case for the #4 seed since they beat CMS. The point is both Bowdoin and Williams have an excellent argument for this spot and whoever does end up getting it is lucky. The third possibility is California takes the #4 overall, and Bowdoin and Williams get pushed down to 5 and 6, and the same scenario arises with the 5 drawing Bates and 6 drawing Midd.
Region 3:
Kenyon, Gustavus, Whitewater*, Baldwin-Wallace, Concordia (WI)
The fact that Gustavus is in the tournament causes Kenyon to have to drive 8 hours and that’s unfortunate, but with that, Kenyon probably has the weakest bracket of any of the 8 top seeds, so it’s a blessing in disguise. Gustavus is just so limited in where they can travel, they either host or go to Whitewater, and the way the seedings have worked out with Trinity and Whitman, them traveling to WW is the most obvious scenario. Case and Carnegie are absent from the tournament, so there is really no obvious #2 seed who can go to Kenyon besides Wash U, and they are ranked a bit too high for that and I’m not exactly sure what happens to Trinity (TX) then. W&L almost definitely has to stay down in the Mid-Atlantic region to take on Emory and NCW, and while there’s an outside chance Kenyon hosts a regional with Mary Wash as their #2 seed for the second year in a row, I think that’s unlikely as well due to the fact that Whitewater almost has to host a regional so Gustavus has somewhere to drive and doesn’t have to fly. It’s possible that Whitman or Trinity (TX) could get flown to Gustavus to be grouped with Gustavus and Whitewater, but that’s just too easy of a region for a #7 or #8 overall seed.
Region 2:
Emory, NC Wesleyan, Washington & Lee*, Earlham, PSU-Harrisburg, Grove City
I’m still iffy on whether Emory will host or not. Mary Washington went to a regional at Emory in 2009 and I’m not exactly sure how that happened, but for my purposes I’m going to have W&L host a region that is nearly identical to last year. NCW is ranked surprisingly low after a very good season, so this actually makes sense rankings wise too. Unfortunate for both Emory and NCW, but geography mandates this. If Emory ends up hosting, most likely NCW and W&L will travel there and UT-Tyler will fly there to fill out the bracket. I played it safe though with this and had W&L host, something I know will work.
Region 1:
Amherst*, Skidmore, UT-Tyler, Baruch, Farmingdale St., Marywood
Not much to say here. Amherst will definitely host a regional and I see Skidmore or MIT as their #2 seed. If Amherst somehow loses to Bowdoin today in the NESCAC final this could get messed up, but that’s unlikely.
Brackets will be released sometime between 4PM and 7PM EST on Monday May 7th and d3tennisguy and I will both have our thoughts posted sometime this week. Best of luck to all the teams in selection and your matches.
How far off was this Bracketology? Yours was done using common scense and fairness. The real bracket was done by people who had to look at the bottom line of costs and errors. They had to know before finalizing their draw that it was ridiculous. But still put it out this way. Whitman needs to spend more money on their regular season and start now getting quality teams on their schedule. They said that they tried. People aren’t ducking Whitman. No one is really that afraid to play them. More effort Whitman. Great guys and great coach, but make a schedule. Case is new to the rankings, look at their schedule. NC Weslean beefed up their schedule, although it didn’t help them. But play someone who really helps. Go to the Stag-Hen again and beat someone. Record in the Stag-Hen has been pretty poor.
Not trying to start a flame war but lets talk facts. Obviously our (Whitman’s) schedule wasn’t as strong as in past year’s. I’ve been at this for a few years now, and have always played a strong schedule despite being handcuffed by a conference schedule that requires an absurd amount of conference matches (used to be 16 now 12). Also, case in point our conference schedule for next year still isn’t in place. That makes it hard to schedule non-conference events when you don’t even know your mandatory conference schedule.
More effort? – my original spring break plan fell apart because of the Hansen move (I posted about this a couple months ago when people were complaining about our schedule and calling me lazy and cowardly). I did the best I could in the middle of summer. I wrote every top 30 team looking for matches. Obviously, no one was ducking us, but rather their schedules were full. Also, go back and look at past year’s schedules before making a blanket statement about effort and our schedule. Additionally, at the time of the matches, we played 5 or 6 teams in the top 25 and one was top 10. Certainly not a great schedule but certainly not a poor one either.
Further, how many teams fly three time zones for a weekend of non-national tournament play? Coach Hebling at Mary Wash set up a fantastic weekend that included several nationally ranked teams. It was a great experience for the Whitman team to travel East to play, but that is a long trip for a non-vacation period and I can assure you it required considerable effort.
Spend more money? My Athletic Director would love to have a chat with you! We traveled with 12 guys to D.C. for a weekend, spent 9 straight days on the road playing conference matches in Portland and our Spring Break matches in LA (with 11 guys), traveled to Hawaii for a week with 11 guys, paid a healthy guarantee to help offset Santa Cruz’s travel cost, and traveled to Mobile, AL with three players for the ITA Small College Nationals.
Stag-Hen record? That is a great event, and coaches Settles and Bellato do a wonderful job. I think we’ve played it twice in the past 4 years (maybe in 5 years can’t remember) and gone 4-2 in the tournament. We would have loved to have done better in the event, but you really can’t complain.
I understand we don’t have the most “talented” team, and most of the Whitman team had limited tournament experience before college. I know we play in a remote geographic area and don’t have many opportunities to play “nationally.” However, I also know my guys work hard and we have an incredible team culture. I wouldn’t trade it.
I would love to have a conversation with the original poster. Please send me an email northajw (at) whitman.edu.
All this blog conversation is fun but if you are going to say something about a person/program, at least leave your email in your post.
how did wash u end up with a 1 seed and the easiest region in the tournament? are you joking? how did that happen? shows the whole process needs an overhaul
Redlands got in. Go figure.
Im guessing Bates is out?
Yep no Bates.
No one knows yet.
amherst, williams, midd, bowdoin, jhu, cms, emory, kenyon
midd is not hosting
whitewater is the 8th host site
While draws have not been released, I believe the NCAA committee has informed coaches if their school is hosting or not. Does anyone have any idea what schools are hosting?
I dont understand why Williams would be behind CMS considering CMS has much worse losses, and the only team Williams has lost to that was ranked behind them was Bowdoin.
Williams would only be behind CMS because the Stags have been playing very well lately, and they’ve been rising in the rankings in a way that makes it seem like the rankings committees are completely ignoring the Swarthmore loss. But I agree that Williams’ resume is way better (plus they have the direct win). It could easily go: Amherst, Emory, Kenyon, Williams, CMS, Bowdoin (same end result when it comes to the Elite Eight and the make up of the regionals).
This all makes a lot of sense, but based on the most recent NCAA regional rankings, I don’t think that’s how this is going to go down. We all know the NCAA rankings and the ITA rankings have traditionally been almost identical, but the NCAA has proven that they are capable of making some unique decisions (with Cruz hosting but CMS being the #1 seed last year).
I think CMS will move ahead of both Williams and Bowdoin (and that Williams will be ahead of Bowdoin with the more impressive overall resume and a win over Bowdoin a week ago). I don’t necessarily think this will happen, but my favorite scenario has:
8. Hopkins*, NCW, etc.
7. Trinity, Whitman, Gustavus*, etc.
6. Bowdoin, Middlebury, MIT, etc.
5. Williams*, Bates, etc.
4. CMS*, Cruz, Pomona, Cal Lu
3. Kenyon*, Wash U, Whitewater, etc.
2. Emory*, Mary Washington, Washington & Lee (or *)
1. Amherst*, Skidmore.
D3tennis’ predictions were based more on the current ITA rankings, and therefore are more likely. These regions are more based on what most people agree the stronger teams are. They also provide awesome Sweet Sixteen matches that everyone wants to see. The NCAA has the power to make this happen, it doesn’t involve any more flights, and I think it should happen like this. Nobody outside of Gambier wants to see a boring Kenyon/Whitewater or Gustavus Sweet Sixteen match.
This is not possible. There is no way the #13 and #19 in the country would get their own region.
It is possible, though, because the NCAA can do whatever they want with their rankings. They can make Hopkins 10 and NCW 15, then it makes sense.
I think all of this makes sense except Wash U goes to Whitewater with Trinity. Hopkins put into host. So they host and Mary Wash goes to Kenyon again. Then Kalamazoo goes to Kenyon as usual. I am not sure if Whitewater put a bid in for hosting. I think Tyler goes to Emory with NC Wesleyan and W & L. Why make Emory travel when they don’t have to.
You may have it all right. But making Emory and Kenyon, two of the top 3 travel when they don’t have to won’t happen. Of course that is my opinion.
On board with you, particularly on Emory, but I’m not sure I agree with your Trinity/Wash U/Gustavus/Whitewater bracket where you didn’t mention Gustavus would be there as well, and they would, because that’s the only place they could travel. That’s an awfully loaded region, I find mine to be slightly more balanced.
Whitewater definitely put into host, they have good facilities, and the info that Hopkins put into host is very helpful. If it is the case that JHU will host Whitman or Trinity, you’re right that Mary Wash is no longer needed in the Mid-Atlantic and can be shipped to Kenyon, allowing the Lords to get a legitimate #2 seed, the ability to host and an identical easy region to last year.
I like your reasoning of having Whitewater host Region 3, but would be very surprised based on history if Gustavus didn’t end up hosting a regional. It makes sense competitively, but it seems GAC always end up hosting one way or another.
You bring up an excellent point and present an alternative scenario. If Gustavus were to host a regional (and you’re right it seems like it always happens), I’d imagine BOTH Trinity (TX) and Whitman would fly there and this region would serve as the #7 overall seed for our purposes. Then, Midd probably takes the #8 overall spot and Hopkins travels to Vermont to play them (maybe vice versa w/Hopkins hosting but that’s unlikely). That means 4 NESCAC schools serve as host sites. I’d imagine the lesser seeded of Bowdoin/Williams would draw Bates, the better seeded would draw Skidmore and Amherst would draw MIT.
I think a Trinity-Whitman-Gustavus regional held at Gustavus is incredibly intriguing and would love to see it. But for my bracketology, I pretty much went straight by the rankings and that’s how I came up with both Whitman and Trinity as #1 seeds. It would be completely unfair for Gustavus to host a regional and have only Trinity or Whitman fly there. Not saying beating Gustavus at Gustavus is easy, but that’s just not a difficult enough path to the Final 8 for a #7 or #8 overall seed, especially a somewhat unproven team like Whitman. #26 in the country should not be serving as a #2 seed in a regional for the #7 or #8 overall seed.
Wash U most likely travels to play Kenyon if the Gustavus hosted regional ends up happening.
Could you possibly post this scenario as well? Where would UWW travel if they were not hosting? To Gustavus?
The combinations are endless, and it’s really too much work to do all of them and make a ton of different brackets. For UWW specifically, I figure they could host, go to Gustavus and be the #4 seed (Trin, Whit, GAC), go to Wash U and be the 3 seed (Trin/Whit, Wash U), go to Kalamazoo and be the 4 seed (Ken/Trin/Whit, Wash U, Kzoo) or go to Kenyon and be the 3 seed (Ken, WL/UMW).
You know that you’re not going to be flown anywhere and you’re not going to be grouped with the Northeast teams. That’s about it. Every other combination is possible.