Things could still be looking up for DeSales this season. Eastern athletics photo

If you want to watch Pat and Dave go through the bracketology process, watch the video.

If you're a glutton for punishment, you can learn a whole lot about how we projected the 2014 Division III women's basketball NCAA Tournament bracket. That's because we did it on a live Hoopsville bracket projection broadcast. 

We're not going to make you sit through all of it to find out what we think. But if you want to find out how we think, then it's worth considering. Just take a sampling of the second hour to find out how difficult it is to project at-large teams. Look in on the fourth hour to see how hard it is to bracket teams.

Rhodes is our one Pool B selection, the one from independents and/or conferences without an automatic bid. And Whitman was a no-brainer to put in the field after nearly running the table in the regular season.

The at-large teams: Whitman; Amherst; Ohio Northern; UW-Whitewater; Bowdoin; Christopher Newport; Illinois Wesleyan; Williams; Baldwin Wallace; Hartwick; John Carroll; St. Mary's (Minn.); George Fox; Catholic; Moravian; Concordia-Moorhead; New York University; Roger Williams; Lebanon Valley; DeSales. 

Lots of discussion about the last three, where, in all honesty, we're dealing with teams who don't all have a signature win. Not all wins against regionally ranked opponents are created equal, and it's hard to read the tea leaves for the 19th, 20th and 21st at-large teams.

Left on the table at the end (with record, winning percentage, strength of schedule and results vs. regionally ranked opponents):

Southern Maine 20-8/.714/.568 2-6 lost to UNE, lost to Bowdoin, lost to Transy, 1-2 vs. RIC
Salisbury 16-9/.640/.527 2-6 Geneseo State 21-6 .778 .537 0-2
Wheaton Ill. 16-7/.696/.559 1-6 beat UWW, lost IWU 3x, Carthage 2, George Fox 
Olivet 20-3/.870/.496 0-2
Maryville (Tenn.) 21-6/.778/.534/1-3
Chapman 21-4/.840/.507 3-2

The bracketing process is made a little more difficult for the women's bracket this year because in even years, men's teams get priority for hosting first-weekend games. So at places such as Washington U. and Scranton, which are likely men's hosts (projected to be so in our bracket), the women can't host and must go elsewhere. You'll see a few brackets where this comes into play.

at Tufts: Tufts vs. Springfield, Vassar vs. Baruch
at Montclair State: Montclair vs. Bridgewater State, Lebanon Valley vs. NYU
at DePauw: DePauw vs. La Roche, Capital vs. Loras
at Whitman: Whitman vs. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, Concordia-Moorhead vs. George Fox
at York (Pa.): York vs. Wells, Williams vs. Rhode Island College
at Amherst: Amherst vs. Sage, Hartwick vs. University of New England. (Amherst can host if the Amherst men get a first-round bye.)
at UW-Oshkosh: Hope vs. St. Norbert, St. Mary's (Minn.) vs. UW-Oshkosh. (Hope, the highest seeded team, can't host if its men are.)
at Moravian: Scranton vs. Roger Williams, Plattsburgh State vs. Moravian.
at FDU-Florham: FDU-Florham vs. Regis, Haverford vs. Castleton.
at Transylvania: Washington U. vs. Transylvania, Baldwin Wallace vs. Randolph-Macon. (Washington U., the highest seeded team, can't host if its men host.)
at Ferrum: Ferrum vs. Cabrini, Christopher Newport vs. Catholic.
at Ithaca: Ithaca vs. St. Joseph's (Maine), Bowdoin vs. DeSales.
at Carthage: Carthage vs. Spalding, Ohio Northern vs. Wisconsin Lutheran.
at UT-Tyler: Tyler vs. Whitworth, Rhodes vs. Texas Lutheran. (Rhodes can drive to UTT.)
at Thomas More: Thomas More vs. Salem, John Carroll vs. Messiah.
at St. Thomas: St. Thomas vs. Northwestern, UW-Whitewater vs. Illinois Wesleyan. 

One of the trickiest things about bracketing was trying to find a place to host four Ohio Athletic Conference teams, when none of them were hosting and Hope wasn't either. 

The other tricky thing was we initially selected too many Pool C teams, so we had to cut Maryville (Tenn.) and find a way to rejigger the bracket.