Scranton athletics photo

By Scott Peterson

Division III basketball fans are often well-aware of one of the primary criteria for selection and seeding to the NCAA Division III postseason: Strength of Schedule. When attempting to objectively and consistently rank teams, relying solely on a metric like winning percentage falls short. To address this, the NCAA introduces additional primary criteria, with SOS being the second most prominent among them.

In a broad sense, SOS calculates the collective winning percentage of all the teams a particular team has faced within a given year. However, it’s essential to delve deeper into this concept.

Throughout history, the D-III women’s basketball national committee has placed significant emphasis on winning percentage. Nevertheless, recent trends have witnessed a growing emphasis on the importance of SOS. This shift is logical, as accumulating victories against weaker opponents doesn’t inherently indicate a team’s strength or deserving status.

The 2022-23 season marked a pinnacle in the committee’s valuation of SOS; even the team with the lowest SOS among the 19 at-large bid recipients had an SOS of .545.

In the previous year, the 20th and final Pool C team had an SOS of .519. If you go back to 2016, the committee selected Johnson & Wales, which had an SOS of .498, and St. John Fisher, which had an SOS of .496.

Given this persistent emphasis on SOS, its significance has never been more pronounced in the realms of NCAA Tournament selection, seeding, and hosting considerations.

Larger conferences see their SOS suffer

Now, let’s delve into some numerical analysis.

Imagine a conference of 12 hypothetical teams each engaging in 22 regular season games (playing twice against the other 11 teams). In this scenario, EVERY team’s SOS would inevitably settle at exactly .500. This equilibrium results from the inevitability of one team winning and another losing in every game.

However, if each of these 12 teams had the opportunity to play a single non-conference opponent, the SOS of each team would vary based on the performance of their respective non-conference opponent. The key takeaway here is that within a team’s total of 25 regular season games, the more games they play against fellow conference teams, the more challenging it becomes to deviate significantly from the .500 mark.

For instance, MIAC women’s basketball teams engage in 22 out of their 25 games against conference rivals (although this structure changes in 2023-2024). On the other hand, NESCAC teams only face 10 out of their 25 games against conference adversaries. As a consequence, MIAC teams generally exhibit SOS values that are near .500, whereas NESCAC teams tend to exhibit greater disparities from the.500 benchmark.

The Landmark gets larger

In the 2022-23 season, the Landmark Conference consisted of eight teams, employing a double round-robin format where each team played 14 conference games out of a total of 25. For instance, Scranton intentionally scheduled challenging non-conference games, culminating in an SOS of.589, which significantly diverges from.500.

This year, both Lycoming and Wilkes join the Landmark Conference, which still maintains the double round-robin structure. However, the shift to 18 conference games out of 25 significantly limits the potential deviation of SOS from the .500 mark. Moreover, considering that Lycoming and Wilkes currently don’t hold strong basketball programs, it’s likely that Scranton’s SOS projection will hover around .511 (my current projection), with minimal expectations of exceeding.530. This is due mainly to the weak SOS expected from among Landmark teams.

What kind of resume is needed?

In recent years, the typical resumes for Pool C selection have tended to exhibit the following characteristics:

• Winning percentage: .700-.800
• SOS: .545-.620
• Record vs. Regionally Ranked Opponents (vRRO): 2-6 wins, accompanied by a few losses

In recent years, instances of teams meeting the following criteria have been rare:

• Winning percentage: .875 or higher
• SOS: Under .530
• At least 2 vRRO wins

Teams that manage to fulfill these rare criteria often hail from conferences dominated by a few top-tier teams, which engage in substantial conference play while maintaining rigorous non-conference schedules. The emergence of such “resumes” raises questions about how Regional Advisory Committees (RACs) and the National Committee evaluate and value them, given their infrequency.

Annually, basketball programs become increasingly adept at crafting optimal resumes, propelling the bar for NCAA Tournament entry standards. While this progression doesn’t necessarily signify a shift in team quality, it reflects a higher level of skill in resume construction, thereby exposing certain shortcomings in the underlying primary criteria.

A proposal

A notable concern lies in evaluating teams that vie for NCAA Tournament spots, approximately the top 80 teams each year. For instance, the likelihood of beating the 250th-best team in the nation (out of 430) might be comparable to beating the 430th-ranked team. Yet, the former could have a win percentage of .450, while the latter might stand at .050. This discrepancy has significant ramifications for the top teams’ SOS.

When differentiating between teams ranked around 55th and 65th, assessing games against lower-tier opponents that both teams are expected to win appears inconsequential. These matches inherently fail to provide valuable insights, despite wielding substantial influence over SOS.

Challenges exist in establishing the threshold beneath which certain games/results are disregarded, potentially leading to a limited sample size of outcomes. Instead of outright disregarding lower-tier outcomes, a shift toward emphasizing higher-tier results could be beneficial. Focusing on a team’s SOS in wins (and losses) against Regionally Ranked Opponents could offer greater clarity on their performance against the strongest opponents throughout the season.

In conclusion

In the landscape of D-III women’s basketball, the current NCAA selection process and team assessment heavily hinge on SOS. Variables such as conference sizes, conference structures, and conference strength exert substantial impacts on SOS. Regrettably, these attributes are beyond the control of individual teams.

The path of progress remains perpetual. Enhancing our comprehension of the existing primary criteria and secondary criteria, their calculation methods, interpretation, and application, as well as recognizing the spheres of control teams possess, enables a continuous refinement of the selection system.

Whether the ultimate goal is to select the best teams across the season, the strongest contenders for tournament time, the finest from each region, or other objectives, a deeper understanding paves the way for system optimization.