Do we think Loras will get one of the coveted at-large bids to the 2024 NCAA Tournament? Yes, we Du. Loras College athletics file photo

Our mock selections are a team effort. Scott Peterson, Riley Zayas, and Gordon Mann walked through the process on Sunday's Hoopsville Selection Special, with Dave McHugh serving as moderator and guide. Pat Coleman and Ryan Scott handled the bracketing.

Remember that these picks do not influence the NCAA Tournament selection committee's picks, nor does our Top 25 poll. Geography also does not determine which teams make the Tournament, though it definitely impacts where they play. Those are the most common misconceptions for this process. 

• NCAA Selection Show, 2:30 p.m. ET
• Who's in automatically: 42 conference winners
• NCAA tournament FAQs

We start by projecting the regional rankings for each of the ten regions in Division III basketball because that's how the process works. The regional advisory committees that have been producing regional rankings do it one more time and then send them to the national tournament selection committee. That committee can adjust the regional committees' selections, which then alters which teams are regionally ranked, which then changes some teams' records against regionally ranked opponents (one of the primary criteria for selecting at-large teams).

Compared to Wednesday’s regional rankings, we had a couple of adjustments and the most important are in three regions:

• Region 5: We moved Scranton to the top of this region after the Lady Royals picked up two more wins over regionally ranked opponents (RROs). We also moved Gettysburg in front of Johns Hopkins since Bullets took two of three from the Blue Jays.
• Region 7: Lots of changes in this one. We kept Baldwin Wallace in front of Marietta, even though BW went 0-1 and the Pioneers went 1-1. We don’t think Marietta beating Capital is enough to change the order. We move Ohio Wesleyan up to five, in front of Wittenberg (whom the Battling Bishops beat) and Washington and Jefferson. We move Trine into the regional rankings, though that could be Ohio Northern, too, and both have a lot of RROs.
• Region 10: We move NWC champions Puget Sound into the regional rankings, which becomes important at the end of this process because the Loggers add RROs to one of our at-large candidates.

When we get picks wrong, it’s usually right here. Someone we like drops in the regional rankings and never gets to the table for at-large consideration and someone else we didn’t really consider shoots up in the rankings and gets a bid.

Eventually the national committee ends up with a final set of regional rankings, which we should see after the bracket is released. Those rankings include teams that have clinched automatic bids, which are set aside for the bracketing stage. Then the highest ranked team without an AQ within each region comes to the table for consideration as an at-large candidate. There are 10 teams up for consideration at any point, one from each region.

We think the first 10 teams up go like this, listed by region.

Round 1: Bates, Springfield, Skidmore, Arcadia, Catholic, Emory, Hope, Illinois Wesleyan, UW-Whitewater, Mary Hardin-Baylor

When a team is picked, the next highest ranked team within that region comes to the table. Do that 21 times, take the 42 automatic bid winners, and a dash of one Pool B bid, and you have your bracket. The Committee selects the participants and then brackets them. It doesn’t just pick a team because it slots into a bracket better than another with a better resume.

Before that, though, we have one Pool B bid to award. This is the one bid reserved for teams without a conference or those whose conference does not have an automatic bid.

The Collegiate Conference of the South is in its second year, so it doesn’t have an automatic bid yet. No matter because Berea won the CCS regular season and tournament title. So, the Mountaineers are an easy selection.

Now back to the Pool C at-large bids. The first couple choices are easy, meaning you could take them in a different order and it wouldn’t impact the result too much.

Round 1: Bates, Springfield, Skidmore, Arcadia, Catholic, Emory, Hope, Illinois Wesleyan, UW-Whitewater, Mary Hardin-Baylor

We take UW-Whitewater first, and UW-Oshkosh takes their rivals’ place. The Warhawks are the top team in Region 9 and have the best strength-of-schedule (SOS). So, that’s an easy one.

Let’s fast forward through a few picks since we think these teams are safely into the Tournament. We go with Bates (replaced by Trinity of Connecticut in Region 1), Catholic (replaced by Johns Hopkins in Region 5), UW-Oshkosh (replaced by Concordia-Moorhead in Region 9), and Illinois Wesleyan (replaced by Millikin in Region 8).

Johns Hopkins’ resume looks well balanced, too, so the Blue Jays don’t perch long. They are replaced by Messiah in Region 5.

Round 7: Trinity (Conn.), Springfield, Skidmore, Arcadia, Messiah, Emory, Hope, Millikin, Concordia-Moorhead, Mary Hardin-Baylor

Springfield, Millikin and Hope have very similar resumes and come off in some order, taking us through our first nine at-large bids. They are replaced by Mass-Dartmouth, Washington U, and Baldwin Wallace respectively.

Rounds 10: Trinity (Conn.), Mass-Dartmouth, Skidmore, Arcadia, Messiah, Emory Baldwin Wallace, Washington U, Concordia-Moorhead, Mary Hardin-Baylor

We look at a pair of birds, the Emory Eagles and the Trinity Bantams. We went with the former because Emory has the best overall resume, a little better than Trinity because the Eagles have beaten a No. 1 regionally ranked team (HSU). Shenandoah takes the Eagles place, and then…

Round 11: Trinity (Conn.), Mass-Dartmouth, Skidmore, Arcadia, Messiah, Emory, Hope, Millikin, Concordia-Moorhead, Mary Hardin-Baylor

Trinity (Conn.) goes next. This is another example of why coaches should schedule as aggressively as they can, if they anticipate being good. The Bantams have the second strongest SOS rating among the at-large candidates, behind only our first pick UW-Whitewater. And while Trinity had a relatively low winning percentage, that didn’t seem to bother the Regional Ranking Committee. So welcome to the Dance, Bants. Middlebury takes their place.

Round 12: Middlebury, Mass-Dartmouth, Skidmore, Arcadia, Messiah, Shenandoah, Baldwin Wallace, Washington U, Concordia-Moorhead, Mary Hardin-Baylor

In this round, we’re looking at Mass-Dartmouth (highest winning percentage) and Messiah. The Corsairs only have four regionally ranked results, and three of them are losses to Rhode Island College. But they also have a win over Smith (Ranked #2 in Region 2) and Messiah’s regionally ranked wins are over Mary Washington and TCNJ, which are ranked lower in their regions.

Plus, Mass-Dartmouth beat Dickinson who beat Messiah, and results against common opponents is a criterion. So, the Corsairs set sail for the Tournament and are replaced by MIT. And then Messiah goes next and gets replaced by Elizabethtown.

Round 14: Middlebury, MIT, Skidmore, Arcadia, Elizabethtown, Shenandoah, Baldwin Wallace, Washington U, Concordia-Moorhead, Mary Hardin-Baylor

One of the questions we always wrestle with is how low a winning percentage can get before it's too low to get a bid. WashU’s winning percentage is .680 but the Bears have a whopping 12 RROs, and they won five of them. It’s a similar resume to Trinity, but more so. We take WashU here ,and travel partners Chicago replace them in Region 8.

Rounds 15: Middlebury, MIT, Skidmore, Arcadia, Elizabethtown, Shenandoah, Baldwin Wallace, Chicago, Concordia-Moorhead, Mary Hardin-Baylor

Shenandoah got a long look in the last round because the Hornets’ winning percentage approaches .800 and they have a win over a RRO #2 (Washington and Lee). So, we take Shenandoah, and ODAC foes Randolph-Macon takes its place.

Round 16: Middlebury, MIT, Skidmore, Arcadia, Elizabethtown, Randolph-Macon, Baldwin Wallace, Chicago, Concordia-Moorhead, Mary Hardin-Baylor

We think the Committee values balanced resumes, and Mary Hardin-Baylor has a nice mix of winning percentage, SOS and vRRO, including a win over the top team in Region 10 (Hardin-Simmons). So, we take the Crusaders, and Willamette comes to the table in Region 10.

Round 17: Middlebury, MIT, Skidmore, Arcadia, Elizabethtown, Randolph-Macon, Baldwin Wallace, Chicago, Concordia-Moorhead, Willamette

Again, on the theory that balance matters, Baldwin Wallace has a good balanced resume. Nothing is too far away from the top of each category. So, Baldwin Wallace comes off next and Baldwin Wallace comes to the table again?

Round 18: Middlebury, MIT, Skidmore, Arcadia, Messiah, Randolph-Macon, Marietta, Chicago, Concordia-Moorhead, Willamette

Wait, that’s Marietta, not Baldwin Wallace. But their resumes are very similar, and it’s possible Marietta was at the table before Baldwin Wallace. Either way, if you like Baldwin Wallace and Marietta, why not both?

Ohio Wesleyan takes the Pios’ place, assuming the Battling Bishops moved ahead of W&J and Wittenberg.

Round 19: Middlebury, MIT, Skidmore, Arcadia, Messiah, Randolph-Macon, Ohio Wesleyan, Chicago, Concordia-Moorhead, Willamette

This is the point in the process where we caution anyone against scheduling a bracket release watch party just because they’re in our mock bracket. The teams at the table either have really similar resumes, so it’s hard to pick one over the other, or very different resumes where it’s hard to compare one to the other. Committee members, you have our sympathies.

This is also the point in the process that has not been very kind to the MIAC runner-up in recent years. The MIAC teams play 20 games against each other, which only leaves five non-conference slots. This time around, we think the MIAC gets two teams. Concordia-Moorhead is our next pick.

Round 20: Middlebury, MIT, Skidmore, Arcadia, Messiah, Randolph-Macon, Baldwin Wallace, Chicago, Loras, Willamette

Now we start eliminating teams so we can focus on those we think are the strongest candidates for the last two slots. We nix Randolph-Macon and Middlebury because of their low winning percentage (.654 for both). We set aside MIT and Elizabethtown who have a lot of results against RROs but not a lot of wins in those games. And we sideline Chicago which has both problems.

Arcadia has been sitting at the table for the entire process (as has Skidmore), and we can’t get past the Knights' 1-3 results against regionally ranked opponents, when the lone win is over 17-10 Kean. So, we have Region #4 getting shut out in this process.

That leaves us with Skidmore, Ohio Wesleyan, Loras, and Willamette.

Truthfully, we aren’t sure which direction to go, and our last two picks could be misfires because of assumptions we made all the way back at the beginning of the process.

We assumed Puget Sound entered the Region 10 rankings, which would take Willamette’s results against RROs up to 5-2. At this point in the process, that’s a big advantage over everyone else at the table. Skidmore has the next best RROs, but we think the Bearcats’ 5-2 record is significantly better than the Thoroughbreds’ 4-4 mark. 

Also, while the Bearcats are 17-10 overall, it’s the record against Division III opponents that matters most, and they are 17-6 in that category. We take Willamette with our second-to-last pick, and Whitman comes to the table.

Round 21: Middlebury, MIT, Skidmore, Arcadia, Messiah, Randolph-Macon, Baldwin Wallace, Chicago, Loras, Whitman

Whitman’s resume is similar to Willamette, so that didn’t make this last pick any easier. Now we try to intuit what the Committee will do, even if it’s different from our own preferences. We expect this Committee will value a strong winning percentage and a good SOS, and that’s Loras, even though the Duhawks only have one win over an RRO.

We looked hard at Ohio Wesleyan and Whitman who have very similar resumes and looked at Skidmore again, wondering if Region 3 would also get zero at-large bids. Round and round we went, and then landed on Loras. Last year, we think the Committee took a different ARC team as its last pick (Wartburg), and we’re eager to learn from our mistake.

Now we turn to bracketing, where we have a ton of really good Midwest teams and two teams that won’t get to host because the men’s programs have priority the first weekend (NYU and Catholic).

Top left quadrant

Top seed New York University vs. Penn State-Harrisburg, Marymount at Vassar
Illinois Wesleyan hosts Berea, Gustavus Adolphus vs. Loras
Christopher Newport hosts Chatham, Gettysburg vs. Widener
UW-Oshkosh hosts Puget Sound, Hope vs. Webster

Vassar gets to host in place of NYU but the Violets faithful won’t have to travel far since NYU makes the short trip to Poughkeepsie. Illinois Wesleyan gives the CCIW two host pods in the first weekend so we can distribute some of these Midwest teams. Puget Sound has to fly somewhere, and we landed on UW-Oshkosh.

Bottom left quadrant

Rhode Island College hosts New Jersey City, Messiah vs. Willamette
SUNY New Paltz hosts Maine Maritime, Washington & Lee vs. Baldwin Wallace
Top seed Catholic hosts Southern Virginia, Trinity (Conn.) at Shenandoah
Bates hosts Mount St. Vincent, Springfield vs. Framingham State

We’re admittedly making two assumptions in this pod – that the Committee won’t shy away from sending Willamette across country to play in Rhode Island and that Shenandoah submitted a bid to host. The Hornets host the pod that otherwise would’ve gone to Catholic.

Top right quadrant

Bowdoin hosts Brooklyn, Mass-Darmouth vs. Western New England
Top seed Hardin-Simmons vs. Millsaps, Trinity (Texas) at Mary Hardin-Baylor
Scranton hosts St. Joseph (Maine), Johns Hopkins vs. Marietta
DeSales hosts Penn State-Behrend, Smith vs. St. John Fisher

Hardin-Simmons should host since the Cowgirls took two of three from Mary Hardin-Baylor, but that would mean an extra flight since Millsaps can't drive to Abilene. So, the Crusaders host instead.

Bottom right quadrant

Transylvania hosts Wisconsin Lutheran, Emory vs. Ohio Northern
Carroll hosts Minnesota-Morris, UW-Stout vs. Trine
UW-Whitewater hosts Occidental, Millikin vs. Washington U.
Wartburg hosts Ripon, DePauw vs. Concordia-Moorhead

Believe it or not, Wisconsin Lutheran can get to Transylvania by bus. It's just under the NCAA’s 500-mile rule (486 miles). First round rematches of non-conference games are not prohibited, though the Committee usually tries to avoid them.

Our bracket has New York University, Rhode Island College, Bowdoin and Transylvania as the top four seeds -- three undefeated teams and the NESCAC champion.