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| Emory athletics photo |
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This was a Division III men's basketball committee that loved strength of schedule. But when push came to shove, was that enough to get 16- and 17-win teams into the tournament?
Carthage was a popular prediction at 16-10 because of their high strength of schedule and wins against regionally ranked opponents. If they were selected, or Emory, or Christopher Newport, that would be a big statement for how this year's committee viewed SOS. And in the end, all we got was Emory, with the others staying home.
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However, the major problem with this bracket is that in the end, it guarantees an east side-west side championship game, something previous committees with more experience knew to avoid. A simple swap of the bottom left for the bottom right bracket would mean that we'd have the possibility two east side teams (say, Amherst and Williams) could meet in the title game, or that two west side teams (UW-Stevens Point and Illinois Wesleyan, for example) could do so as well.
Among teams that didn't get in: Carthage, which was highly ranked by the Midwest Region because of its strength of schedule, was not selected and the mess in the NCAC came out in a different order (though a defensible one). Dickinson got in as an at-large team despite paling in comparison to other Mid-Atlantic teams in terms of strength of schedule and in terms of results vs. regionally ranked opponents.
Emory received a first-round bye, in fact, which is based on geography but surprising. There are plenty of teams in the bracket who could get to a four-team first-weekend grouping at Centre without violating the NCAA's mileage policies. The Whitewater and Illinois Wesleyan pods could easily be switched to make it at least possible for UW-Whitewater and UW-Stevens Point to meet in the Final Four.