Will Dan Masino and his Hobart teammates find reprieve in the form of an at-large bid? Our committee says ... Hobart athletics photo

By Pat Coleman 
D3sports.com

Our mock bracket used to be one or two of us poring over the numbers and picking a bunch of teams, then setting up a bracket. It was the 1990's and early 2000's equivalent of the old boys' network, and that made sense, because that's how the NCAA Tournament was selected. 

The tournament is not selected that way anymore, however, and we, as always, have continued to evolve with the times. Now we have our own committee, and this year, our committee has a former committee chair on it. We were glad to welcome Ohio Wesleyan coach Mike DeWitt, who volunteered to spend his time with us, as well as Dave McHugh, Ryan Scott, Bob Quilman were Plattsburgh head coach Mike Blaine, a former committee member himself, to do the heavy lifting on Sunday's Hoopsville Selection Special. Matt Snyder helped with his indispensible strength-of-schedule work.

And, as usual, these picks do not influence the NCAA Tournament selection committee's picks, nor does our Top 25 poll. No national Top 25 is ever considered in an NCAA selection process.

Here are our projections.

• NCAA Selection Show broadcast at 12:30 p.m. ET
• Who's in automatically: 43 conference winners
• NCAA tournament FAQs
• NCAA tournament manual

We start by projecting the regional rankings for each of the eight regions because that's how the process actually starts. The regional committees that have been producing those rankings do it one more time and then send them to the national tournament selection committee. That committee may make adjustments to the regional rankings, which can alter which teams are regionally ranked, which then changes some teams' records against regionally ranked opponents (one of the criteria in selecting at-large teams).

Eventually the national committee ends up with a final list of regional rankings, which they will announce after the brackets are released. The rankings include teams that have clinched automatic bids, which are set aside for the bracketing stage. Then the highest ranked team without an automatic bid within each region comes to the table for consideration as an at-large candidate. There are eight teams up for consideration at any point, one from each region. When a team is picked, the next highest ranked team within that region comes to the table.

We knew there were a number of obvious picks who were going to make the NCAA Tournament, no matter what, and rather than go through the extensive debate, we placed the following teams in the field as at-large selections: Swarthmore, St. Thomas, UW-Platteville, Springfield and Middlebury.

Sunday was crazy in Division III men's basketball tournament action. WPI could have saved a bid for someone, but instead, it lost to fifth-seeded Coast Guard in the NEWMAC tournament and popped someone's bubble. The same could be said for RPI, but the Liberty League top seed lost to third-seeded Ithaca. Thankfully, when Tufts and Colby went to double overtime in the NESCAC final, our committee could breathe easily, because both schools were getting into the NCAA Tournament regardless.

Now comes the fun part where we try to pick the remaining at-large teams. In each case the regions are listed in the following order: Atlantic, Central, East, Great Lakes, Middle Atlantic, Northeast, South and West. This is what the board looked like at this point:

Sixth pick: Eastern, North Central, RPI, Wittenberg, Christopher Newport, Colby, Texas-Dallas, Whitworth. We have already taken two Northeast teams, but we are going to take Colby here. Their winning percentage of .889 is the second-highest on the board, and their SOS of .541 is representative for this group -- most of the eight teams are within a few points of that. We took Colby.

Seventh pick: Eastern, North Central, RPI, Wittenberg, Christopher Newport, WPI, Texas-Dallas, Whitworth. Wittenberg has been sitting here with the best record, but worst strength of schedule of the five teams on the board. However, it is a 26-2 record, and the SOS is low, but it's above .500. We take Wittenberg.

Eighth pick: Eastern, North Central, RPI, Marietta, Christopher Newport, WPI, Texas-Dallas, Whitworth. North Central is on the board here with a 21-5 record, and two wins against Elmhurst, and we take North Central.

Ninth pick: Eastern, Benedictine, RPI, Marietta, Christopher Newport, WPI, Texas-Dallas, Whitworth. Everything we were told is that Benedictine was the next team to come to the board, although their strength of schedule is the lower on the board. They have a .508 SOS, which is really low. Someone such as Washington U. would do better here. Christopher Newport has been on the board here since jump and has four wins against regionally ranked opponents. And that includes a win against Texas-Dallas, which is currently in contention for this same spot. We don't usually have head-to-head results here, and that elevates CNU. We take Christopher Newport.

Tenth pick: Eastern, Benedictine, RPI, Marietta, Drew, WPI, Texas-Dallas, Whitworth. Drew joins the board and will probably not move throughout this process, at 20-6, with just one regionally ranked win. Texas-Dallas is the selection.

11th pick: Eastern, Benedictine, RPI, Marietta, Drew, WPI, Virginia Wesleyan, Whitworth. The crew took Marietta here. It was noted that they have a similar resume to Whitworth.

12th pick: Eastern, Benedictine, RPI, Albion, Drew, WPI, Virginia Wesleyan, Whitworth. And with that having been noted, the crew took Whitworth.

13th pick: Eastern, Benedictine, RPI, Albion, Drew, WPI, Virginia Wesleyan, Redlands. Redlands joins the board, with one of the lowest winning percentages and one of the lowest SOS numbers. That is a bad combo. After some discussion, the committee took WPI, at 20-7, with a .553 SOS and three wins (five losses) against regionally ranked opponents.

14th pick: Eastern, Benedictine, RPI, Albion, Drew, Babson, Virginia Wesleyan, Redlands. RPI, at 22-4, has the best winning percentage of the group. THe SOS is a little low, at .519, but not much lower than the group, which has a low of teams between .529 and .534. RPI was selected.

15th pick: Eastern, Benedictine, Hobart, Albion, Drew, Babson, Virginia Wesleyan, Redlands. It had been noted in the 14th round that RPI at 22-4 was very similar to Virginia Wesleyan at 22-5, and that two of Virginia Wesleyan's losses were to the South No. 1 or 2, Randolph-Macon, unlike RPI's losses to lower-ranked teams. Virginia Wesleyan got in here.

From here, the bubble gets even more fragile.

16th pick: Eastern, Benedictine, Hobart, Albion, Drew, Babson, East Texas Baptist, Redlands. Ever since Coast Guard finished off its win against WPI in overtime on Sunday in the NEWMAC final, it seemed as if the NEWMAC were fated to get four teams. Babson had three wins against regionally ranked teams, including a win against Tufts, the Northeast No. 2. We took Babson here, which has a better SOS than Benedictine. The committee also typically sees three wins and four losses against regionally ranked opponents as better than three wins and no losses, because more regionally ranked opponents is better to see, even if they are not all wins.

17th pick: Eastern, Benedictine, Hobart, Albion, Drew, Amherst, East Texas Baptist, Redlands. Amherst joins the board, but their winning percentage is below .700, as the Mammoths are 18-8. And you remember Benedictine, right? They've been hanging out here for ... a while. They are 3-0 against regionally ranked teams, with wins against the No. 3 in the Central (North Central) and the South (LeTourneau) and the Central No. 5 (St. Norbert). They finally get in here. Benedictine in round 17.

18th pick: Eastern, St. Norbert, Hobart, Albion, Drew, Amherst, East Texas Baptist, Redlands. Oh, but no, we don't have Washington U. yet. We have St. Norbert on the board next. They have a 23-4 record and a .535 SOS. They have wins against UW-Oshkosh, the Central No. 6, and UW-Eau Claire, which we believe is the Central No. 8. They have losses against Elmhurst (Central 2) and Benedictine (Central 4). St. Norbert is in, and the run on Central teams is on.

19th pick: Eastern, Washington U., Hobart, Albion, Drew, Amherst, East Texas Baptist, Redlands. Wash U joins the board. And Wash U joins the field.

20th pick: Eastern, UW-Eau Claire, Hobart, Albion, Drew, Amherst, East Texas Baptist, Redlands. Only one of these teams will get in. We started with the two high winning-percentage teams, which are Hobart and Albion, and the two high-SOS teams, Amherst and UW-Eau Claire. Hobart and Albion are both 21-5, but Hobart had better results against regionally ranked opponents and Albion was eliminated. And Eau Claire had a better SOS and a lot of results against regionally ranked opponents, so Eau Claire moved forward.

When we discussed Eau Claire vs. Hobart, it was determined, after a lot of conversation, that this appears to be a year in which winning percentage is swinging back into the forefront, rather than strength of schedule. Hobart was the final pick.

Could it be Eau Claire? Sure. Amherst? Absolutely. Could it be UW-La Crosse? Sure, it could be. We only can presume what we have heard about the regional rankings so far. It could be completely different.

So there you go. Our projected 20 at-large bids go to Swarthmore, St. Thomas, UW-Platteville, Springfield, Middlebury, Colby, Wittenberg, North Central, Christopher Newport, Texas-Dallas, Marietta, Whitworth, WPI, RPI, Virginia Wesleyan, Babson, Benedictine, St. Norbert, Washington U., Hobart.

Here's how we would pair them up:

The tournament has a few more restrictions this year, because of the way the tournament is structured, with four-team pods the first weekend, a single Sweet 16 matchup the second weekend, and the Elite Eight the following weekend in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with a title game in Atlanta. That meant we felt like we had to keep our eight teams close together to limit the number of flights for the round of 16.

However, after that, we could match any bracket we wanted together in Fort Wayne, since the cost was not affected.

Each pod is set up the same, with teams "seeded" 1-4, and the host team playing the 4 in the first round.

Bracket 1

(4) Centenary (La.) at (1) LeTourneau, (2) Texas-Dallas vs. (3) Pomona-Pitzer

We have three Texas-Louisiana teams, and they are all within 500 miles of each other (which is not automatic by any stretch). LeTourneau would make a nice host and hopefully they applied to do so. Also a good opportunity for those who have said that the SCIAC gets unfairly sent to the Northwest Conference in the first weekend.

Methodist at Emory, Centre vs. Whitman

There are only a few teams in the bracket who can drive to Atlanta. These are on the list. (Transylvania can also drive to Atlanta, but has already played Centre twice.) Whitman has to fly somewhere, so we fly them to a major airport hub where there are lots of options.

Cairn at Randolph-Macon, Christopher Newport vs. Transylvania

Yes, Transylvania can get to Randolph-Macon. We don't love the potential second-round rematch between this pod's 1 and 2, Macon and CNU, but CNU is not very mobile because of how far it is from everyone else. We attempted to find other places for CNU but they all caused other issues.

Coast Guard at Yeshiva, Wooster vs. Susquehanna

This pod moved around quite a bit. There's a version of it where Wooster hosts. There's a version where Wooster is the 1 but the games are at Susquehanna -- when the 4 is a team from further east, such as Westfield. But this works as well. Yeshiva, as probably the host team with the worst criteria, gets a 2 which is the No. 2 in its region.

Bracket 2

Bethany Lutheran at Nebraska Wesleyan, St. Thomas vs. Benedictine

St. John's fans should breathe a sigh of relief in that we won't be sending them the UMAC champ in 2020. This part of the country is tricky to move teams around in because so many have played each other and there are lots of opportunities to exceed the 500-mile radius limit and trigger extra flights. So while a potential St. Thomas-Nebraska Wesleyan second-round matchup is not ideal, it's there.

Ripon at St. John's, Whitworth vs. UW-Oshkosh

Whitworth has to fly wherever it goes, and it goes here so that we don't have a first-round rematch of Whitworth and St. Thomas.

Grove City at Springfield, TCNJ vs. New England College

We tried hard, and eventually succeeded, at not having any pod of four teams have more than two teams from the Northeast. 

La Roche at Johns Hopkins, Virginia Wesleyan vs. Nichols

Pittsburgh at Baltimore. It's the 1979 World Series all over again.

Bracket 3

Concordia (Wis.) at Elmhurst, Wittenberg vs. Washington U.

Love the Witt-Wash U matchup. Because the committee seems destined to pick Witt as an at-large team before it picks Wash U., Witt is the 2 in this pod.

Webster at UW-Platteville, North Central vs. St. Norbert

Webster can't get to St. John's, but this is similar.

SUNY-Canton at Mount Union; York (Pa.) vs. St. John Fisher

Love this bracket of teams. Canton can indeed get to Mount Union and western New York is not that far from this part of Ohio at all.

Adrian at Brockport; Marietta vs. Wesley

Adrian can indeed get to Brockport under 500 miles, and it doesn't even involve going through Canada.

Bracket 4

Westfield State at Stevens; Colby vs. Ithaca

Stevens as the Atlantic No. 1 is hosting. Colby was highly considered to host a pod, but it seems unlikely the committee would place four pods in the Northeast, three in the NESCAC.

Western Connecticut at Tufts; Hobart vs. Lycoming

Northeast, Northeast, East, Mid-Atlantic. Check the box. Men have hosting priority in the first weekend in even-numbered years, and that means the Tufts women will not be able to host the first weekend.

Penn State-Harrisburg at Middlebury; RPI vs. Babson

RPI still a 2 in a pod, but gets a tough first-round matchup after RPI lost in the Liberty League final.

Brooklyn at Swarthmore; WPI vs. St. Joseph (Conn.)

Jim Calhoun will get a taste of D-III tournament life, getting sent in a bus to Philadelphia with a chance to perhaps face the No. 1 team in the country, depending on what the Top 25 voters think on Monday.

Keep an eye on D3hoops.com for coverage of the bracket reveal on Monday, and post your questions in the comments section below.