Re: The "Official" East is better than the west IN D3 thread
A couple of thoughts as to why the east has won all the championships.
First up every final four has had three eastern teams and one from the west. Simple math tells us the east winning any less then 6 would be a failure. Next teams that get in, most years the teams that do not get in by AQ are from the east. Sounds harmless but lets look at it last year the best team in the west was not in the ncaa tourny, this does not happen in the east. Remember the best team does not always win it's conference tournament . In the east the teams that are upset at conference level get the two at large bids. Math behind that say's the east should win 5 out of seven. Then add to that the best team in the east or even top two get in even if they loose their conference title. So sheer numbers and no possibility of being upset and eliminated to the top eastern seeds. Sure seems like the system is working hard for the east.
Very true that it is a numbers game in the NCAA Tourney. More teams = greater chance of winning all things being equal.
The bigger "numbers" issue that faces the west in battling against the east is in the ratio of players to schools.
Without scholarships, most players are not willing to travel more than 4 or 5 hours drive away from home to go to school, as travel is just another expense to add to the cost of tuition, r&b, etc. In addition, without the scouting budgets of D1 schools, D3 are left to scout within their region, reinforcing the locality of the talent.
The rough split between east and west schools is 60-40.
However the split in number of players finishing HS available to each of the regions do not match that ratio.
In the east, you have the Mass, NE, NY, and Atlantic District all within the geographical 4-5 hours drive for scouting and staying close to home.
Out west, you have Minnesota, Central, and Michigan districts within that 4-5 hour drive for scouting and close to home situations.
Mid-Am is kind of split and is small in terms of the number of players. And the SE District generally sends it top talent to NE preps, generally putting those girls in the scouting realm of eastern schools.
As for the RMD and Pacific, once you get on a plane to play hockey, you are going to be scouted at the tournaments you play in and flying 2 hours or 4 hours doesn't make much of a difference when deciding on a school.
And now while it doesn't sound so bad with the districts split this way, in terms of the number of girls playing hockey, the eastern districts far outnumber their western counterparts in terms of the number of girls playing.
And the east has this league called NESCAC which doesn't have an equivalent set of schools in the west to match academically. Many in higher education will argue that an Amherst or Williams education is the equivalent of a Harvard or Yale education and many of the other NESCAC schools match up quite competitively with the other Ivies. There is a reason they are called mini-Ivies. And looking at their rosters, they do draw many of the top academic student playing D3 level hockey from across the nation - both east and west. You'll see 2 or 3 western players on many of their rosters. You'd be hard pressed to find any school in the west that keeps 2 or 3 easterners on their squad over any period of time. And it is just this bit of west to east talent transfer that serves to accentuate the differences in the overall availability of talent.
Yeah, everyone fills their rosters both east and west, but when you have more players to choose from in the east, the 3rd and 4th lines are going to be stronger and injuries to key players won't hurt as much. And that is where the numbers differences shows up in the 2 regions - depth.
