2018 Bracketology #1!

AS: If there is a rite of passage to become the owner of this Blog, it is to do a bracketology from start to finish. Last year, I took over bracketology for the first time ever, as the Guru has become a monk in his old age and now lives in the distant precipices of Tibet. He sometimes Facetimes me in order to make sure we are still hitting 3,000 views a day, and I happily assure him that we are. With my first Pool C article coming out last week, that just means that it’s almost time for some Bracketology magic. And on this Holy Week Tuesday, you get the always incredible Bracketology Edition #1. If you are looking to understand more about the NCAA Selection, please see below, where you will be linked to another great Blog article written by myself.  I’d also like to welcome D3RegionalNEC to this edition of Bracketology, because I am training him to take over the Blog once I reach level 10R and am able to celebrate my eternal glory with Aaron Paul in the Garden (mainstream media tv show referenceeeeeeee). Rules first, and then let’s get to some proposed brackets after.

The Rules

Overall, there will be 43 teams competing in the NCAA tournament.  This includes 36 Teams from Pool A. Pool A competitors are from conference championship winners.  There will also be 1 team from Pool B (independents) and 6 teams from Pool C (at large bids). It’s important to know the flying rules for the tournament.  Usually, the NCAA committee provides no more than 3 flights for DIII Tennis. What that means is any team that travels more than 500 miles will be flown to the host site.  Yes, this means the return of the “As The Crow Flies” Calculator (This was an old joke about one of our favorite readers, you can probably guess who it is)! Kidding, we don’t actually use that.  You’ll see that the bracket below incorporates that rule into the projected bracket. In addition, the bracket below incorporates which schools will put in bids to host. If you are unfamiliar, schools may opt out of putting in bids for a few reasons.  The most common reason is that this may be a year where it’s the women’s team’s turn to host. This happens at Emory, CMU, and a few other schools. If you want a better understanding of the NCAA Rules, please also reference my article below:

http://www.division3tennis.com/ncaa-selection-work/

In that article, it was incorrectly stated that there are 3 Pool B teams this year.  There is only ONE this year. Okay, now let’s get to who’s who. See below for your current Pool A teams, based on projected winner. If you have information on any changes that need to be made here, please let us know via the comments. Please note – there is a new Pool A conference this year, called the UMAC. St. Scholastica is currently the projected champion of this conference.

Pool A

Allegheny Mountain – Franciscan

American Southwest – UT-Tyler

Capital Athletic – Mary Washington

Centennial – Johns Hopkins

CCIW – Augustana

CUNY – Hunter

Colonial States – Cabrini

Commonwealth Coast – Nichols

Commonwealth – Messiah

Empire 8 – Stevens

Great Northeast – Ramapo

Freedom – Wilkes

Heartland – Rose Hulman

IIAC – Coe

Landmark – Goucher

Liberty League – Skidmore

Little East – Salem State

MIAA – Kalamazoo

Midwest – Grinnell

MIAC – Gustavus

NESCAC – Middlebury

NEWMAC – MIT

North Atlantic – Colby-Sawyer

NCAC – Kenyon

Northern Athletics – Edgewood

Northwest – Whitman

Ohio Athletic – John Carroll

Old Dominion – Washington & Lee

Presidents – Grove City

Skyline – Yeshiva

Southern Athletic – Sewanee

SCIAC – CMS

SCAC – Trinity TX

UAA – Emory

UMAC – St. Scholastica

USA South – NC Wesleyan

Current Scenario, based on ITA Ranking:

Okay, got it? If the above teams are your Pool A teams, that means we still have Pool B and C to be determined.  There obviously is a lot in flux right now as Middlebury basically just started their season, and we have conference matches and tournaments still to go. But, Lunardi puts out Bracketologies in like September, so I deserve to put one out right now. As of right now, based on my Pool C article HERE, the following teams are projected to make it into the NCAA Tournament.  These are based on Power Rankings and our best guess at this moment.

Pool B

UC Santa Cruz (TBD) – note the addition of Cruz changes a ton of things for the bracket. If Cruz does not make it, we could be looking at CMS flying out OR the addition of some flights paid for by the NCAA. Coach Settles usually gets his way, so probably 4 flights 🙂

Pool C

Bowdoin

Chicago

Amherst

CMU

Wash U

Williams

Bracket #1 – Coe hosts a Region

*denotes host site

1. Emory*, Sewanee, W&L, NC Wesleyan
2. Middlebury*, Skidmore,  Stevens, Colby-Sawyer, Hunter, Yeshiva
3. Bowdoin*, MIT, Trinity TX, Nichols, Ramapo, Salem State
4. CMS*, Whitman, Tyler, UC Santa Cruz
5. Chicago*, Kenyon, Kalamazoo, Grinnell, Edgewood, St. Scholastica
6. Amherst*, Mary Washington, Wilkes, Messiah, Goucher, Cabrini
7. GAC, Wash U, Coe*, Rose-Hulman, Augustana
8. CMU*, Williams, Johns Hopkins, Grove City, Franciscan, John Carroll

Bracket #1 Thoughts

The above scenario presented some interesting challenges to me and I definitely had to move some things around in order to make it work. One of the issues here was it’s hard to tell where Williams is going to end up. Based on Power Rankings, they are pretty high, but based on ITA rankings, they are at #11 behind Wesleyan. I took it upon myself to put them in the tournament despite their loss to Chicago the other day. However, if you are an ITA rankings purist, you can always replace Williams with Wesleyan as well. I don’t think we need a whole new bracket for that. I would like to note – while this bracket is unlikely, because Coe has never hosted before, it would represent the most balanced bracket of the possibilities. Given this is probably my best bracket, let me start region by region and go through my thinking:

Region 1: Important to note here is that Emory is hosting again after hosting last year. This could obviously change, and if they do not host, that would be moved to W&L where a whole slew of options opens up for us. Emory gets a solid region in which their #2 seed is Sewanee, who ranks in the 20-25 range this year. Easy region to choose.

Region 2: Another easy region to put together here as Middlebury is the #2 seed overall in the tournament. Skidmore becomes their #2 seed, same as last year’s bracket put out by the NCAA. It makes sense from a ranking perspective as well, as Skidmore would be one of the lower #2 seeds in the tournament.

Region 3: Bowdoin as the #3 seed again gets MIT as their #2, same as last year. Easy region to put together as well.

Region 4: The West Region is always the region that gets the most flights, because the West Region is just so far from everyone else that we need to accommodate them. Sheesh. Same as last year, we will be flying Whitman and UT-Tyler to the West Region. However, with the addition of Cruz (depending on today’s match with GFU), the remaining Texas team will now be sent somewhere else to even up some regions.

Region 5: Chicago gets the luckiest draw out of anyone in the tournament here and this will be a developing story to watch. The Chicago/Wash U/GAC trio is very important – if GAC becomes the highest ranked out of all 3, they would get the benefit of this region and getting Kenyon as their #2 seed. The other gets Wash U as their projected #2 seed based on ranking. Right now, Chicago is the highest ranked of the 3, so they get the much easier region as well as hosting rights.

Region 6: Amherst is playing well right now and has earned their right as a #1 seed. They will draw UMW, a team that did not make the tournament last year but are far and away the favorites in their conference this year. Given UMW’s relatively high ranking at #15, they are a “solid” #2 seed in this region.

Region 7: As I mentioned in the Region 5 analysis, this region is the “region of death” for the Central. Two of the big 3 Central teams will have to duel, mostly because we have never really considered GAC at the level of Chicago or Wash U in the past. That has changed, and now we get a guarantee of an interesting region in the Central. Right now, this means another battle between Wash U and GAC, where GAC swept the doubles last time and held on for dear life to win 5-4. Important thing to note here as well – GAC cannot host this region because Wash U is too far from them. They will have to play at a neutral site, such as Coe, which adds to the intrigue of this region. It is important to note – Coe has never hosted in their history and it is unsure whether or not they can host. If they cannot, another bracket will need to be formed.

Region 8: In what should be the most hotly contested or second most hotly contested region this year, we will see CMU battle Williams as the worst #1 seed faces the best #2 seed. This is truly an even match, and it makes sense from a ranking perspective why this would happen. CMU has the opportunity to host and probably will do so.

Bracket #2 – Coe Does Not Host

*denotes host site

1. Emory*, Sewanee, W&L, NC Wesleyan
2. Middlebury*, Johns Hopkins, Stevens, Colby-Sawyer, Hunter, Yeshiva
3. Bowdoin*, MIT, Skidmore, Nichols, Ramapo, Salem State
4. CMS*, Trinity TX, Tyler, UC Santa Cruz
5. Chicago*, Wash U, Kalamazoo, Grinnell, Edgewood, St. Scholastica
6. Amherst*, Williams, Wilkes, Messiah, Goucher, Cabrini
7. GAC*, Whitman, Coe, Rose-Hulman, Augustana
8. CMU*, Kenyon, Mary Washington, Grove City, Franciscan, John Carroll

This bracket actually represents the more likely of the two brackets that I am going to post here. The reason is this – I was able to keep three flights, I was able to keep all #1 seeds hosting, and it’s kind of fair. The key changes are as follows:

• Wash U now travels to Chicago to become their #2 seed. The reason for this is because Wash U cannot travel all the way up to GAC to become their #2 seed, so this is the next best option.
• Whitman now flies to GAC to play against the Gusties as their #2 seed. Given the options, this was the best #2 seed available to me to fly to Gustavus.
• Kenyon + Mary Washington will now head to CMU, where they will form a solid #2/#3 duo.
• Trinity TX now gets flown to CMS to be their #2 seed, forming a very weak West Regional for CMS.
• Williams stays in the NE, and will battle Amherst in the Sweet 16 for a spot in the Elite 8 as a #2 seed.

As you can see, we have a ton of more intriguing battles here, mostly because there are now two somewhat easy regions in the West and at GAC. Chicago and Amherst become the biggest losers here, where they play top 12 teams in their Elite 8 matchups despite being the 5th and 6th overall seeds. Winners are GAC, CMS, and Carnegie Mellon, who all get significantly easier draws after this. This is the most likely bracket once again.

BONUS Bracket #3 – NCAA does NCAA Things

*denotes host site

1. Emory*, Sewanee, W&L, NC Wesleyan
2. Middlebury*, Johns Hopkins, Stevens, Colby-Sawyer, Hunter, Yeshiva
3. Bowdoin*, MIT, Skidmore, Nichols, Ramapo, Salem State
4. CMS*, Trinity TX, Tyler, UC Santa Cruz
5. Chicago*, GAC, Kalamazoo, Grinnell, Edgewood, St. Scholastica
6. Amherst*, Williams, Wilkes, Messiah, Goucher, Cabrini
7. Wash U*, Whitman, Coe, Rose-Hulman, Augustana
8. CMU*, Kenyon, Mary Washington, Grove City, Franciscan, John Carroll

I’m not going to get into this bracket because it would make CHB very angry, but there is a chance that the NCAA throws Wash U a bone and gives them a #1 seed because they are in St. Louis and they are Wash U. They would get a #1 seed here, forcing GAC to become a #2 seed and travel to Chicago. This would be a totally unfair bracket, so the NCAA should stop thinking about it now. This all changes if Wash U were to beat CMU or Chicago later on this year though. So, stay tuned.

Final Thoughts

Wow, what an exercise! As with all bracketologies, please comment your thoughts below (looking at you Matt and Dante Quazzo). This is obviously a work in progress and  there are so many brackets to choose from. If you have questions about how I went about making these, feel free to ask as well. Remember that with so many options, it’s hard for me to be right! But, I’d like to think I have a good grasp on what may happen, what can’t happen, and what has happened in the past. And with that, I leave you to the comments section. ASouth, OUT.