2018 Blind Resumes ft AVZ

Hello again, boys and girls! As you all know by now, the Blog never sleeps. However, the Blog also does not allow retirements. So, today we’ve brought back THE FACE OF THE BLOG, Adam Van Zee AKA old D3Central to give us his analysis on the wild card selections for NCAAs. Remember that we no longer abide by the archaic “8 players from each region” nonsense. Now we are guaranteed seven players from each region, with the final four spots acting as wild-cards or at-large berths. It’s almost like a Pool-C for individuals. We put together a little game for AVZ, where he was given 13 player resumes without knowing which resume belonged to which wild-card hopeful. In most cases, we took the #8, #9, and #10 players in the most recent ITA rankings from each region, with a couple #11’s thrown in as well. Here are the tables and AVZ’s rankings. If you want to play the game as well, go through the 13 players and pick the four you find most deserving. If a result has one star, it means out of region, two stars equals a fall result, and no stars is a good, old-fashioned in region spring result. The answer Key is listed at the very bottom of the article. Individual selections should be announced by Wednesday evening, so keep checking back as we will publish those names just as soon as we hear. Enjoy the blind resumes!

AVZ:

1. B: For my top spot, after looking at all the players, this is the guy I think who should be a lock for the tourney. Starting with the negative, his only significant loss to an unranked player happened in the fall. He has three other losses, two of which happened to top 15 players in his own region which likely is why he is in the wildcard conversation and not a lock in region. But he has a number of wins racked up this spring (9 in total) including one over the top ranked guy in another region. This is a well put together case for a player who needs to be at individuals.
2. H: This is a pretty clean resume as well. Not a single bad loss to an unranked player and most of the quality wins come in the spring. For the most part, the quality wins are coming from out of region competition which bodes well for getting a wild card spot. When the name of the game is to accumulate solid wins and eliminate bad losses, this player hits the nail on the head.
3. G: To be honest, I am quite surprised this player isn’t already in the tournament based off his in region results. The one bad loss he has occurred in the fall which is devalued. His only other losses happened to top 10 players and he has solid in region wins over the #6 and #7 and a couple of decent wins out of region has to have this player feeling good about his chances to get in.
4. I: From what I can tell, this player has had an undefeated spring season with only two losses that happened in the fall, both of which were to unranked players. That hurts a bit, but some of the criteria for selection is late season play and this person has that down. Not the strongest of schedule, but a couple good wins against top 8 guys will help. One happened in the fall, but it’s hard to ignore an undefeated spring season. I would guess this guy plays #2 for his team which does hurt a bit.
5. E: The biggest thing going for this player is avenging the loss he took to an undefeated player later on in the season. Outside of that one loss, his only others were to all top 7 guys. With a few key wins this spring, he might have enough to slide into the conversation, but he should be sweating knowing that one bad day might cost him a berth.
6. D: This is a classic case of a resume that is solid, but just isn’t enough of it to warrant serious consideration. The only glaring loss happened in the fall so that can be slightly overlooked. Conversely the only big win was in region against the #2 guy in region. That’s a big deal, but with only two other small wins to out of region opponents, I just don’t see enough to argue over the guys I have placed above him.
7. A: This would have been a lock to get in the tournament had the selection committee made their choices in November. Two very big wins occurred at that time against a top ranked player. This player is hurt the most by a loss to an unranked player as the only other losses he took were to top 10 guys. The strength of schedule is good, but this resume relies too much on fall results.
8. F: Seeing this resume hurts a little bit as it is clear he has the talent to take down some of the big dogs in the country. Three wins against top 8 guys is a big deal, but he also has racked up eight losses, four of which happened against those outside the top 15 of their respective regions. The unranked loss will hurt the most. While it is a retirement, the committee will still view it as a loss.
9. K: I want to like this resume so badly because the strength of schedule is massive and they have racked up quite a few big wins. Unfortunately all of those wins came in the fall with the biggest key win in the spring coming from an in region win over #10. A spring loss to an unranked in region opponent really hurts this player’s chances. Had much of this player’s wins occurred in the spring, he might have been a lock to getting a wild card bid.
10. C: Three solid in region wins, but no real big wins against a top 8 guy somewhere else hurts this player’s resume the most. He only has one bad fall loss to an unranked player that was avenged later in the season. The question for him is can you build a case for someone who hasn’t beaten other national qualifiers?
11. L: While this player has had a decent schedule to play in terms of strength, his resume has two glaring issues. The first is there is no key win to build on and the second is the two unranked losses he has taken both of which were in region.
12. M: Unfortunately this candidate does not have a large enough resume to determine his ability. Most notably there is no premier win to speak of over a top 8 ranked player and he also has a loss to an unranked player. Just isn’t enough to get into the tournament.
13. J: While this player has a better win than the two players directly above him on this list, it is his only win and still is not against someone in the top 8 of the region anywhere. With a weaker strength of schedule and one unranked loss, I just don’t see that being nearly good enough to get in over anyone else in this field.

ANSWER KEY

There you have it. Luke Tsai (Chicago), Chaz Downing (CMU), Vishnu Joshi (Hopkins) and Austin Diehl (Kenyon) have been given the #AVZBump! AVZ was always a bit of a rankings specialist, and while he was certainly a bit surprised by his results/doesn’t believe those will necessarily be the four chosen, I can promise you that the logic is sound. A little disappointing to me as the Northeast blogger, as he didn’t choose any of my three guys, but that’s why they call it blind resumes! Comment below with your results, or make an argument as to why your choice should get in over one of AVZ’s final four.