2018 Bracketology, Edition #2

AS: It’s been an exciting weekend folks. The Northeast has taken over the headlines as of late, as we’re finally getting into the thick of things with the NESCAC season. Unfortunately for you all, that means more heavy dosage of D3NE, which is something usually only I can handle in this world. And his girlfriend, who is a freaking saint by the way. However, one thing that the NESCAC season means is a lot of results and we here at the Blog have to keep up with these ever changing results by making sure you have Bracketology to look at. When I say the Blog, I mean myself, and here I am.

In the last bracketology, I ran through the NCAA rules real quick and also gave you a general idea of who’s going to be making the tournament this year. If you would like to reference the rules, click here. If you would like to reference the last Bracketology, click here. And I will also have a Pool C update for you later this week that you can get a preview of this week. This is the time of year for pre NCAA talk and that’s what the people want. Crowd pleasing is a specialty of D3AS. So, let’s get to the breakdown.

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 – Wheaton

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 – Calvin

Midwest – Grinnell

MIAC – Gustavus

NESCAC – Bowdoin

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:

Okay, got it? If the above teams are your Pool A teams, that means we still have Pool B and C to be determined.  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. I’d like to point out with Amherst recent news, there could be some seismic shifts in Pool C that cause monsters to fight giant robots such as in the newly released Pacific Rim: Uprising movie, which is now in theaters. Buy your tickets on Fandango or use your Movie Pass to catch all the crazy action! (paid advertisement from Legendary Films). Okay but for real, let’s kick it.

Pool B

UC Santa Cruz (TBD)

Pool C

Chicago

Williams

Middlebury

Amherst

CMU

Wash U

Bracket #1 – 3 Flights, Coe can Host

*denotes host site

Flights denoted in red

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

AS Thoughts:

It was actually quite easy to make this bracket as Williams moved up in the rankings to take a #1 seed and pushed a ton of people down, including CMU moving to the first #2 seed column. We have some absolutely dirty regions, and we have some interesting seeding as Middlebury drops all the way to #6 in the seed column. This is awful news for Chicago, who picks up the #3 seed here and a date with the team they’ve lost to twice in the past three years in the Elite 8. This type of thing somehow happens to Chicago and their work will be cut out for them. We also get two interesting Sweet 16 matches, with CMU going to a reeling Amherst team that still has a lot of talent. Remember, Amherst smoked CMU 7-2 early year, will have home court, and has the top guns to roll with the Tartans. It’ll be interesting if it happens. Again, this whole scenario can only happen if Coe hosts a region, and which the Guru tells me might be impossible. It would be nice if Coach Rodgers told me the same so I can stop wasting my time. Okay, what about the more realistic scenario??

Bracket #2 – 3 Flights, No Coe Host

*denotes host site

Flights denoted in red

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

AS Thoughts

As I have stated previously, this bracket causes a bit of issues because of Wash U’s general inability to go anywhere except Chicago and Kenyon. Let it be known that there is a possibility that the NCAA committee matches up GAC and Chicago, but that would mean the matching of two #1 seeds which would be absolutely atrocious. That would also mean that Wash U would get a #1 seed and travel to Kenyon, where Kenyon would be their #2 seed. That’s an unfair draw and CHB would be very upset, as it would benefit the lowest ranked Central Region team. This bracket above does have a lot of excitement – particularly in the Amherst region, where CMU would have to host in order to get Kenyon to be able to travel somewhere that isn’t Chicago. In theory, Kenyon could be put in the Chicago region to make that region even more ridiculous, but I chose the Amherst region instead. One of the things I’ve learned from making these brackets this year is that we seem to be really blessed with a lot of good teams this year – all the #1 seeds are really solid teams that can theoretically take out the top 1 seeds on a given day. Even some of the #2 seeds (CMU, Wash U) are very strong for their seed as well. Obviously, the winner of this bracket continues to be GAC and the losers are Chicago and Wash U. But, the NCAA has done crazy things in the past and I would not be surprised by any means if this is not what happens. Let me take you through ANOTHER scenario.

Bracket #3 – FOUR FLIGHTS, #1 Seeds Host

*denotes host site

Flights denoted in red

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

AS Thoughts

Ah, the beauty of another flight. It opens up so many possibilities for a really, really fair draw, and that’s what all of our goals are right? While it may feel bad for us to fly Wash U on like a 1 hour flight to Minnesota to play against GAC, it allows us to have a fair draw with all #1 seeds hosting! The worst #1 seeds by rank are getting the strongest #2 seeds by rank, which is how a draw is supposed to be made as well. The only issue is I can’t send Mary Wash to Middlebury since it’s JUST out of the range, so I had to send Trinity TX up to Middlebury instead. Middlebury is a big winner here as they avoid Wash U, CMU, and in their own way, Mary Wash. This is by far the best option of all the draws, especially because the money to fly schools does not come from my pocket. You know, it’s crazy all the different jobs I could do for the NCAA and ITA. Just some food for thought.  Even a damn selection show would be nice…

Anyways, I would like to note that GAC has a 7 team region. The reason for this is because there are not enough Central hosts + CMU is not hosting as they are not a #1 seed. With so many random central conferences, this causes some issues with # of teams in a region. Assuming that this can happen (it has not happened on the Men’s side in recent memory), the above represents the best draw possible. The 7 team draw has happened on the Women’s side, by the way. Note that the Women’s side has more teams in the draw, so this is necessary.

Final Thoughts

There is still so much tennis to be played and that is going to keep these bracketologies so interesting from here on out. I just discussed with NE how megaf*cked we’d be if Wesleyan made it in above Amherst, and Wash U beat CMU in the UAA Tournament to snag a last #1 seed. Shout-out to any of you readers that can look at that sentence and realize how nuts that draw would have to be. You are my people. Anyways, I hope that you enjoyed three different scenarios above that really stuck out to me for bracketology. It’s going to be one hell of a ride. I kind of want that doomsday scenario to happen because I want to see what the NCAA would do. I got into a little bit of a tiff with some of the bracket makers on the Women’s side last year, I’m gearing to go with some of the Men’s side this year. Just kidding. ASouth, OUT.