Women's NCAA Tourney Expansion

[TonyTheTiger20]

Sounds like they approve an 11 team tourney, not sure how that is going to work.

Should be:
1 v 8/9
2 v 7/10
3 v 6/11
4 v 5

Top 5 get first round byes.

[joecct]

I think Championship auto Bids incentivize schools to add hockey, and make it more interesting, and they are what make it a NATIONAL championship. Interesting reading on another thread that Union and RIT can’t hand out scholarships. Need that fixed for sure. Also the issue imo isn’t necessarily that the last teams into the tourney are terrible, the issue is that 1 and sometimes 2 to a lesser extent are usually just on a whole other level than every one else.

RIT jumped up to D1 after the prohibition on D3 playups offering scholarships passed but before the ban on all playups happened.

Union could have added scholarships as they were a playup before the scholarship ban passed, but declined.

Unless there's a change in legislation, they're stuck.

[Lindsay]

Should be:
1 v 8/9
2 v 7/10
3 v 6/11
4 v 5

Top 5 get first round byes.

Assuming they are keeping the auto bids? Feels like progress. I’m under no illusion this is perfection but this seems like a positive. Now to see whether they add in 2022 or 2023, whether they can get seeding fixed, and the details . I assume 2022 given the hashtag.

3 extra games, lengthens the playoff season, more students in the tourney. Potential for upsets in the first round imo. More plot lines about staying fresh and healthy vs making it to the next round. Teams hosting an NCAA game who previously were perennially on the road in round 1 I assume. But also a tougher road to an already unlikely championship for them. More time for the main stream media to get caught up to speed and properly the hype the final. More time for the bye teams to go ice cold and lose to a team they shouldn’t. I played in a year when expansion happened.....super fun, players this should be lighting some fires of inspiration for you, assuming this goes through this year. The NEWHA did a big favor bringing up the denominator of the percentage calc. And not even taking an auto bid spot yet.

Im sure there are negatives and relevant issues unaddressed, but this is nice.

[TitleIXHockey]

Should be:
1 v 8/9
2 v 7/10
3 v 6/11
4 v 5

Top 5 get first round byes.

Wish list:

• No more minimizing flights. Get ready for Wisconsin getting a bye and playing the winner of Minnesota - UMD if they don't get rid of this.
• Reseed after all rounds. I don't think #3 should luck out and get #11 if they win.
• Play the frozen four at bigger arenas.
• Fix the ticket purchases so we don't have a 2018 type scenario where the someone's fans buy all the tickets then leave the arena half empty because Colgate was better.
• If you have the second frozen four game and the first one goes to OT, you get banned for life if you complain.

[Steamboat]

[*]If you have the second frozen four game and the first one goes to OT, you get banned for life if you complain.[/LIST]

Absolutely agree with this. And real overtimes, 5 on 5, 20 minute periods until someone breaks through. I will never forget the North Dakota/Minnesota quarterfinals that went to 3 overtimes. That was hockey!

[Lindsay]

Lol titleix , I had my eye on that 11 spot. Not bad at all if they don’t re seed.

:-)

[robertearle]

I'm pretty agnostic on expanding the number of teams in the playoffs (and 11 is a really weird choice).

But if anybody thinks this will take care of what we saw last year with regard to Minnesota not getting in, etc., it won't. Just like there have been years when deciding who was #8 and who was #9 was difficult, there will certainly be years when deciding who's #11 and who's #12 will be just as difficult; maybe even more so. The closer you get to "the middle of the pack", the more similar the teams' "resumes" will look. For some NCAA sports and tournaments - football, basketball - creating that sort of controversy seems like the point of playoff expansion, etc.

But, yes, PLEASE get rid of travel restrictions! If the NCAA wants to make women's tournaments look more equitable to men's, is there any men's sport and tournament that has such similar restrictions?

(In women's volleyball, there is a bit of "regionalism" to the early rounds - Wisconsin's early opponents might be from Illinois or even within Wisconsin, for example - but there we're talking about maybe a #3 seed playing a #58 instead of a #62. Nothing remotely like what has been done in women's hockey.)

[Lindsay]

Robert Earle, I thought the math picks who gets in usually, and last years field was picked using a different extremely flawed methodology (can’t vote for your own team, even though legit TUC) since pairwise was unavailable?

So we shouldn’t see a repeat of #5 in the country not getting in, since we are back to math right?

Does NEWHA have an auto bid yet? I was thinking no, but can’t actually remember.

[robertearle]

Robert Earle, I thought the math picks who gets in usually, and last years field was picked using a different extremely flawed methodology (can’t vote for your own team, even though legit TUC) since pairwise was unavailable?

So we shouldn’t see a repeat of #5 in the country not getting in, since we are back to math right?

Does NEWHA have an auto bid yet? I was thinking no, but can’t actually remember.

No idea if we are "back to math" or not. No idea if they might use this 'opportunity' to switch away from "math" (or whether that might be a good thing, or not; I'm not sure "math" always gets it right) The closer you get to the "middle of the pack", the smaller the differences in the math gets.

[ARM]

But, yes, PLEASE get rid of travel restrictions! If the NCAA wants to make women's tournaments look more equitable to men's, is there any men's sport and tournament that has such similar restrictions?

(In women's volleyball, there is a bit of "regionalism" to the early rounds - Wisconsin's early opponents might be from Illinois or even within Wisconsin, for example - but there we're talking about maybe a #3 seed playing a #58 instead of a #62. Nothing remotely like what has been done in women's hockey.)

I'm totally on your side regarding the travel restrictions. However, I think that there are other women's sports that get the short end. Like with volleyball, it isn't the first round that's the problem with regionalism, because as you say, there isn't much difference between teams near the bottom of the field. But I do think that there are times when they stretch those subsequent pairings due to travel. With your example, a #3 seed should be looking ahead to a #30 in the second round, going strictly by the numbers. The problem comes when there isn't any team close to #30 with in range of the host site, so the committee instead fills that slot with the #20 team. That isn't fair to the teams at #3 or #20, any more than a #1 Wisconsin having to host a #5 UMD in a quarter on the ice. I think softball is the same way. I'm guessing that the other sports (soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, etc.) are in the same boat, but I don't pay any attention to them, so can't say.

[robertearle]

I'm totally on your side regarding the travel restrictions. However, I think that there are other women's sports that get the short end. Like with volleyball, it isn't the first round that's the problem with regionalism, because as you say, there isn't much difference between teams near the bottom of the field. But I do think that there are times when they stretch those subsequent pairings due to travel. With your example, a #3 seed should be looking ahead to a #30 in the second round, going strictly by the numbers. The problem comes when there isn't any team close to #30 with in range of the host site, so the committee instead fills that slot with the #20 team. That isn't fair to the teams at #3 or #20, any more than a #1 Wisconsin having to host a #5 UMD in a quarter on the ice. I think softball is the same way. I'm guessing that the other sports (soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, etc.) are in the same boat, but I don't pay any attention to them, so can't say.

I looked back at the last half-dozen years of the UW volleyball team hosting, and you can't prove it by their second round matches (where the #3 vs #30 would come): UCLA, Pepperdine, (legitimately; I think it was #16 vs #17) at Iowa State, Oregon (though it would have been Marquette if MU had been able to upset Oregon).

The next place I would look is at Penn State; the reputation is that Russ Rose always manages to get a pretty easy path to the round of 16, etc. so there may be some examples for mis-matching there. But the NCAA has had no qualms about making teams travel a good distance to Madison for volleyball. (Hawaii was here to play Nebraska in the round of 16 in 2019.)

[ARM]

I looked back at the last half-dozen years of the UW volleyball team hosting, and you can't prove it by their second round matches (where the #3 vs #30 would come): UCLA, Pepperdine, (legitimately; I think it was #16 vs #17) at Iowa State, Oregon (though it would have been Marquette if MU had been able to upset Oregon).

The next place I would look is at Penn State; the reputation is that Russ Rose always manages to get a pretty easy path to the round of 16, etc. so there may be some examples for mis-matching there. But the NCAA has had no qualms about making teams travel a good distance to Madison for volleyball. (Hawaii was here to play Nebraska in the round of 16 in 2019.)

Hawaii came to Minneapolis in consecutive seasons, although one was the regional round. Hawaii always has to travel, because there isn't a host within driving distance, unless Hawaii is hosting, and then the problem is multiplied by three. In these non-basketball sports, I think that if committees are faced with having a site that needs another team and a team that is too high or low for what the bracket would indicate, they will push the ranking and claim it was justified by "looking at the entire body of work." Granted, the degree of stretching may vary from sport to sport.

[Timothy A]

Wish list:

• No more minimizing flights. Get ready for Wisconsin getting a bye and playing the winner of Minnesota - UMD if they don't get rid of this.
• Reseed after all rounds. I don't think #3 should luck out and get #11 if they win.
• Play the frozen four at bigger arenas.
• Fix the ticket purchases so we don't have a 2018 type scenario where the someone's fans buy all the tickets then leave the arena half empty because Colgate was better.
• If you have the second frozen four game and the first one goes to OT, you get banned for life if you complain.

Agree on all accounts.

[ARM]

[*]Reseed after all rounds. I don't think #3 should luck out and get #11 if they win.

Is there an NCAA tournament where they reseed? AFAIK, the conference tournaments do a reseed, but the NCAA never does in any of its tournaments. If they don't do it for men's BB, it isn't going to happen somewhere else.

[robertearle]

If we assume that the tournament will still happen over two weekends, then they will have to play the games in 'regionals', like they do with other sports and tournaments. That is, the 8/9 game gets played at the home rink of the #1 team, 6/11 gets played at the #3 site.

And that precludes reseeding.

(Regionals also means that #11 doesn't have to travel twice if they pull off the upset of #6.)