Off season topic:West remains supreme in D1; East remains dominate in D3. What gives?

[UCONN FAN]

Re: Off season topic:West remains supreme in D1; East remains dominate in D3. What gi

The goal of the NCAA is not to draw the best 8/16/32/68 teams for the tournaments. It is first to draw all the autobid winners and then to fill out the rest of the field with the top remaining teams. If a conference meets the autobid requirements then it gets an autobid. It is highly unlikely that the schools from the lesser conferences will vote to give up the autobids.

Sean

Sean I disagree. Look at the NCAA Basketball tournament this year. They expanded the field to 68 because there are TOO many autobids. The tournament committee felt that deserving teams were being eliminated because of the autobids and added another play in game. VCU ended up an 11 seed and look at them. I don't see the problem with CHA getting an autobid, at least in the near future. Mercyhurst is a perinial post season team so I think it will take a few years before a "deserving team" is eliminated due to the added autobid.

 

[dave1381]

Re: Off season topic:West remains supreme in D1; East remains dominate in D3. What gi

I'm not sure what the debate is exactly, but the NCAA would never have a tournament with > 50% of the field as autobids. In sports from wide-ranging as field hockey to men's basketball, the NCAA forces autobids from weaker conferences to compete against each other in a play-in game to reach the main draw. It's not something to be concerned about.

 

[dave1381]

Re: Off season topic:West remains supreme in D1; East remains dominate in D3. What gi

And to follow up on other comments, the way the NCAA does things across D-I sports (roughly half the field automatic qualifiers, roughly half the field at-large) is fine. Surely there's a tradeoff between ensuring breadth of representation in the tournament and the growth of the sport more generally vs. having the best N teams in the tournament any given year. Also it's a tradeoff between rewarding teams that are excellent throughout the regular season vs. teams that struggle but find their way at the very end. I think it's a good system. It's one of the few things the NCAA gets right.

Now it is possible that since the NCAA at-large selection criteria is broken, autobids could bounce a team from the field that belongs there. But the solution then is to fix the criteria, not to reform the autobid process somehow.

 

[granddaddyscout]

Re: Off season topic:West remains supreme in D1; East remains dominate in D3. What gi

And to follow up on other comments, the way the NCAA does things across D-I sports (roughly half the field automatic qualifiers, roughly half the field at-large) is fine. Surely there's a tradeoff between ensuring breadth of representation in the tournament and the growth of the sport more generally vs. having the best N teams in the tournament any given year. Also it's a tradeoff between rewarding teams that are excellent throughout the regular season vs. teams that struggle but find their way at the very end. I think it's a good system. It's one of the few things the NCAA gets right.

Now it is possible that since the NCAA at-large selection criteria is broken, autobids could bounce a team from the field that belongs there. But the solution then is to fix the criteria, not to reform the autobid process somehow.

Agree with all your comments, my comments were inreference to the suggestion by Hux to create more conferences andf more auto bids. Ideally a better selection criteria can be developed as well.

 

[Trillium]

Re: Off season topic:West remains supreme in D1; East remains dominate in D3. What gi

No team has had less success than the Buckeyes given the talant on their roster if you ask me. Unfortunatly I don't think there will be any changes as the leadership doesn't evaluate women's hockey the same way they evaluate their men's sports.

I would have to agree. I am amazed with the caliber of talent they have that tOSU has not done significantly better. They should really have the potential to be one of the top 5 teams in the country on that basis. I know others (most notably RStarr), who are perhaps closer to the situation than I am, have suggested over the past few years that there are coaching issues at play here. I really can't think of a better explanation given consistent underperformance over recent years.

I imagine any program would have basically "killed" to get McIntosh, Spooner, Langan and Steffes to name just a few of the very top players in their age groups....much less all of them.

 

[ARM]

Re: Off season topic:West remains supreme in D1; East remains dominate in D3. What gi

I am amazed with the caliber of talent they have that tOSU has not done significantly better. They should really have the potential to be one of the top 5 teams in the country on that basis.

I imagine any program would have basically "killed" to get McIntosh, Spooner, Langan and Steffes to name just a few of the very top players in their age groups....much less all of them.

You are correct to some extent. IMO, tOSU had more talent than Bemidji St. this past season, but the Beavers were the better team, in part because Coach Sertich was able to make them more than the sum of their parts. The Buckeyes at top 5 in the country may be a bit of an exageration, though. Ohio State had some holes along with their strengths, and I'd say that there were more than 4 teams that had the edge over the Buck's in talent.