St. Thomas beat Gustavus yesterday for the MIAC automatic qualifier and the outright MIAC Championship. St. Thomas will also be the lone MIAC representative for the NCAA Tournament. Very surprising that Carleton didn't get in.
St. Thomas will be hosting a "pod" of Northwestern (UMAC Champion, yes we played them), UW-River Falls (At large bid), and Illinois Wesleyan (At large bid). They will play Northwestern first, River Falls and Illinois Wesleyan will be the other matchup. Both River Falls and Illinois Wesleyan made it to their conference tournament championship game, maybe that was the deciding factor in not letting Carleton in.
Interesting to see how the NCAA put the teams in. I think the deciding factor was the amount of wins each team had and then it was strength of schedule. Perfect example is that Ithaca College back in NY got into the tourney while losing in their conference semis. Difference between them and Carleton was that Ithaca had 20 wins.
Once again, the MIAC was rated as the 2nd best conference in the country behind the WIAC. Yet, we only have one team make the tourney. The NESCAC got three bids and they only play eight conference games as the top teams beat up on the other conferences. They've beat the system once again (I'm not saying that Amherst, Williams, and Middlebury aren't worthy of a bid). Amherst ended up playing 20 home games this year all against crappy conferences. Does the MIAC need to look to change their conference schedule to enhance the chances of more teams making the tourney or is doing well in the MIAC the end all? It'll be interesting to see what other coaches have to say after the Selection Show.
Here is a link to the BRACKET
You make an interesting observation about the conference format, Chris. Heard the same thing from someone else today. The price you sometimes pay for having a very good league is teams get damaged. Carleton got a tough deal but a team with eight losses that got knocked out of the conference tournament at home isn't going to get any breaks. That is where you need backup help -- wins over highly ranked teams. It gives you cover. The lesson here is all games, league and otherwise, can count. Carleton had a non-con loss to Wartburg, an under .500 team.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that one really hurt them a lot.
Based on what I have seen in the past, I have no doubt that Carleton, HU or Gustavus are better than many teams in this year's tournament. That's small consolation, indeed. How to get them into a position so that, if they don't get the automatic bid that they'll still get in is the trick.
Agree with you big time Dave. It's almost like playing in the Big East. The difference is that teams like Syracuse consistently get into the "Big Dance" even though they never leave the state of New York until Big East play starts. To play the likes of Cornell, Buffalo, Siena, Stony Brook, and Colgate on a yearly basis would be similar to any team in the MIAC playing Crown, Martin Luther, and some other below average teams every year instead of challenging your team against quality non-conference opponents.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Carleton does travel to Hawaii every year and plays D2 opponents, not necessarily helping them at the D3 level. I know it's better competition but if they played Northwestern or UM-Morris, that would be beneficial as well. I won't fault them for going to Hawaii but that's another argument to talk about.
Plus, D3 should go to 64 teams. I get the whole ratio stuff that they go by, but come on, make it even. The 65 and now 68 team D1 tourney is a joke.