Do you think that matters for recruiting or for some other reasons? So what if a team was ranked 20th at the end of the regular season but 25th after the tournament? They can still be ranked 20th at the start of the next season (or 15th or 25th), as the computer re-ranks them based on SOS, what seniors left.
Do you think it affects recruiting? Do you think a student is going to play at Salisbury rather than Middlebury, or Williams is going to lose recruits to F&M because of a fall in rankings of 5 places? I donât. Bragging rights to be 10 rather than 15? Sure, but any other reason? The NCAA isnât going to change the at-large invitations to allow all from one conference in even if they are âbetterâ than some who do get invitations.
My daughterâs team made the NCAA tournament her junior year. I donât remember their ranking at the end of the season, but no worse than 12th. Start of the next season? 4th. And 6 schools in their conference were ranked in the top 15 at the start of the season, so 4 of those schools werenât even invited to the NCAAs the year before (only 2 from any conference). They played OOC and all were strong and winning, rankings going up. Then conference play began and all these great teams were beating up on each other so the rankings started to shift.
Thatâs how is works. Ask the SEC, the ACC, the Big Ten. They all have good records until they play in conference.
There are considerations for the cost of travel and weather for the teams in D2 and D3. My daughterâs team used to play 11 home games and only 6 away games (including conference so could be as close as an hour away) because teams wanted to travel to Florida to play in the spring; her school only traveled one weekend each February to play OOS, which was a big benefit to her study schedule. In 4 years she never traveled to NY or PA which are the two states with the most teams in other conferences in her sport, but often played them in FL. It would have been expensive and no guarantee the weather in upstate NY in February would allow an outside game, so they played in FL.
Alright, I started this deviation into NCAAs so Iâll try and end it.
I think the point is well taken that there are teams that dominate weak conferences that donât dominate much else, and itâs a debatable point of fairness that teams in deep conferences that are likely (and often clearly) better than those weak-conference giants donât get post-season play. The only question is, does it matter, and if so, how much?
I think it matters but other donât. And thatâs fine. Put an asterisk next to each ânational championshipâ title and call it âtournament championshipâ.
Does it affect recruiting? IDK. On the margin, it could. D3 athletes are not just hobbyists, which is the attitude some seem to have. If a serious womenâs lacrosse player is choosing between Middlebury and Amherst in a given recruiting battle, you donât think that the kid will look at Middâs success in that sport relative to Amherstâs? I do.
Having been an athlete (including NESCAC back in the day), I understand, especially when you have a personal involvement with a team, how arbitrary these things seem. But this happens in SO many sports. If you live/play in a hotbed of talent and need to collect points to go to finals, itâs harder to do that because the competition is tougher. But then again, youâre incredibly well-prepared if you make the cut.
Rarely does the âbestâ team win every time. Off days, injuries, etc. It could, at the margins, impact recruitment but Iâd guess that for most athletes, a strong program that can use them well is enough. Maybe if youâre an SEC football player dreaming of an NFL contract, the ability to be seen in bowl games will matter, but for a good D3 player in a terminal sport, I doubt it.
No asterisks. They won by the rules, like 'em or not.
All right, you guys want to keep it going. Letâs argue.
I know. Iâm just saying the rules could use some work. Not national champs. Tournament champs. They didnât have to face a team that beat them earlier in the year. Asterisk until the name is changed to accurately represent what it is.
Iâm not asking. Iâm insisting. And I say, yes!
Just expand the at large pool to account for deeper conferences and use rank, or something. And make sure lower ranked conference champs have to face the tougher competition earlier in the brackets so they can be sent home to start their summer/winter break sooner. We still use rank and human selection committees in a sport (D1 football) that moves 100s of millions of dollars per season. And even so, we still try and make it better.
I mean, ânational championshipâ really has nothing on âworld seriesâ.
I guess I have a pretty high tolerance for some linguistic shenanigans in sports, because sports to me is supposed to be entertainment. I realize it can be serious business for the athletes, sometimes financially and often emotionally. But still, they are not healing the sick or feeding the hungry, they are playing a fun game which sometimes people like to watch.
So I think if people like playoffs and tournaments and such where there are a bunch of underdog auto-selections going up against mid-power-conference favorites, great! Let them be entertained. And if they want to call the winner the Champion of Existence, eh, OK.
But realistically, in most sports that have ânationalsâ (including ones I have done), itâs not uncommon to have the same pool of top athletes you see throughout the season at that event, and the winner that day â the one who gets the ânationalâ title â has been beaten by several of those competitors before in the season.
People playing the sport accept that. Itâs kinda like saying that if you didnât make it into the playoffs but you beat a team that did at some point in the season that you should be able to claim the title of superbowl or stanley cup winner. The rules for picking who is eligible for the tournament are based on play over a season, not in a specific game.
The Superbowl champs may have lost to a team earlier in the year who they didnât have to face in the playoffs, and maybe that team didnât even make the playoffs. Still superbowl champs, still world champs. No asterisk.
By your rules, if Hamilton had beat only one team and then went 1-12, if that one win was against a team that made it to the NCAA tournament and maybe went all the way, there should be an asterisk because that team never had to face Hamilton again.
Again, ask Tufts if theyâd like an asterisk or if they refuse to hang their national championship banner (right next to NESCAC banners throughout the years) because Hamilton didnât get to play in the NCAA tournament. Iâm guessing theyâd laugh at the question.
Sure, and thatâs why SOS matters. If Hamilton had only beaten Tufts and nothing else, then Iâd say thatâs too bad. Thatâs why I say use some form of ranking or selection committee discretion and open up the at-large pool a little bit. Itâs fine with me if we want national representation but I also want to make it as competitive as is practical to do so.
Itâs not as if there isnât another side to this discussion. Look at how hard they try to get it right in football. They donât always manage it, but they try very hard. And look at how much complaining there is even with that. It tells you something about what people want.
Itâs sports, not electoral college voting. We donât generally care that the [fill in the blank] region is represented. We care about the competition in sports and the attempt to allow a given athlete or team to say that they are unequivocally the best.
Some of my comments are tongue-in-cheek. But I think dismissing @Crosbylane 's general point here as a non-issue is dead wrong. Itâs super easy to blow it off and say âthose are the rules,â and itâs fine with me if others donât care. Candidly, I donât care if they donât care. Iâm just saying this is sport; this (competition) is what itâs all about and kids work hard and devote a ton of time and energy to it and leave parts of their youth in the form of injured bodies on the field of play because it matters to them. Sports matter in our culture.
There is so much parity, and so much inter-divisional and inter-conference play in the NFL, that Iâm not sure you could have picked a worse example if you tried.
Not a reasonable read of a my posts. If someone else said anything remotely close to that, I missed it.
There are rules for who the teams play in the out of conference games to be eligible for an invitation to the NCAAs. I donât remember them exactly but in part it is a certain number from another region (so if you are in the south, you have to play west or north), sometimes an agreement to play a home and away over 2 years, and their strength of schedule too. But remember these schedules arenât made that far in advance like NCAA D1 football that has TV contracts years in advance. Iâd guess most sports and certainly D2 and D3 only have their schedules 6 months to a year in advance. A team that was ranked #10 one year may be #30 a year from now (kids graduate, coaches move on). My daughterâs team was new so had no ranking the first year and finished probably ranked about 50 out of 110 teams. They had to play the team who won the national championship 3 times (same conference, so 2 regular season, one conference tournament) and lost all 3 times. Next year did much better and probably finished ranked 20th. The next year, they went to the NCAA tournament, still having lost to that same team (no longer national champs), but of course having beaten almost every other team they played.
Yep, their conference was really really strong, just like the NESCAC but all the teams couldnât go to the tournament. In fact only 2 could. And some had to stay home and watch teams theyâd beaten for 4 seasons in a row go to the NCAA tournament because thatâs how the NCAA wants it, to have many conferences represented.
Tell us you donât know how sports work without telling us you donât know how sports work. An early-season upset win doesnât make up for a middling overall conference record.
They generally do within the limits of D3 travel budgets and the need for regional hosting pods.
Sorry, but they are national championship tourneys. No asterisk. If a NESCAC school isnât good enough to have winning conference record or go on a minor roll in the conference tourney, they know what they need to do the next year.
FOr NCAA tournaments, the NCAA pays for the food and travel costs for a team invited. but, the second you lose you are sent back home (no staying to watch other teams in the bracket or staying because it is late). The NCAA pays, so it can set any rules it wants including the size of the pools, when they play, if they travel by plane or bus, if they get to stay in a nice hotel or not so nice hotel.
I used to think that the NARP/athlete divide at NESCACs was exaggerated but given the turn that this thread has taken, it seems to be alive and well. Oh well, this NARP says, if you canât beat 'em, join 'em: Go Ephs!
And just because the summer doldrums have arrived early this year, what better way to blow things up than another ranking! This one from Money.com assigned 1-5 stars to 745 American colleges according to an array of factors:
Moneyâs analysis showcases the countryâs top 745 colleges based on graduation rates, cost of attendance, financial aid, alumni salaries and more. There isnât one âbestâ college for every student, but our star ratings can help you build a list of standout schools that fit your budget. 2024 Best Colleges in U.S. | Money
You can filter it according to number of stars awarded. By my count, 14 LACs were awarded 5 stars:
Amherst
Babson
Bentley
Berea Bowdoin
Claremont-McKenna
Davidson
NJIT
Pomona
Swarthmore
Washington and Lee
Wellesley Wesleyan Williams
(As an added bonus, the 5-star colleges and universities get their own thumbnail overviews.)*
An additional 25 LACs were awarded 4.5 stars - which is pretty darned good - including:
Having made that tongue-in-cheek observation, I have to say that the results of this ranking is a little off the mark here and there, as they all tend to be.
It is hard for me to understand how Bentley and Babson, fine institutions indeed, are 5 stars and our NESCAC brethren Bates, Colby, Hamilton, Midd and Tufts are 4.5 stars. Someone will have to explain that one to me. Or Carleton and Haverford for that matter.
Also, the rankings once again criminally under-rank Conn IMHO, making it the lowest ranked NESCAC at 4 stars. Where does Trinity get their half a star superiority over Conn? Maybe there is a bias in favor of strong econ and placement on Wall St., which would explain Trinity as well as Babson and Bentley. And Whitman a 3.5 star? Please. That one, too, will have to be explained to me.
Ahh, nothing like bi+ching about rankings to wrap up a 3 week European vacation and start the work week.
Bingo. There are apparently several streams of thought as to what constitutes a proper way to measure postgraduate income, all with their drawbacks, any one of which would probably shake up the results of a ranking system should they be substituted for each other. What I like about the money.com system is that itâs chiefly alphabetical within tiers of 50. A vast improvement over its competition, IMHO.
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