| Texas Lutheran, with its
sub-.500 strength of schedule, is in the field, saving the NCAA a
lot of money in the process. Texas Lutheran athletics photo |
The NCAA announced the field for the 2013 NCAA Tournament this morning, and for all the talk about this being a year in which they wanted to move teams around more, what we got was a pretty plain, vanilla bracket.
When our committee met on Sunday night, two things generated a lot of discussion: first, should MIT be ranked ahead of Eastern Connecticut State in the mock New England rankings, and second, wouldn't it be easier if we just selected Coe or Texas Lutheran or someone else from the western half of the country to make the bracket process easier?
The map is not supposed to be one of the criteria, however, and even though Texas Lutheran's selection would save a lot of money for the NCAA, that should not be part of the process. If St. John Fisher or Eastern Connecticut deserved to make the field based on their play on the field, they should get in, and the committee would have to figure out how to make it happen. Instead, it appears a strength of schedule of under .500 and zero wins against regionally ranked opponents got Texas Lutheran in the field.
Additionally, we selected two Pool B teams in the Pool C phase of the mock selection process, which is not unusual in the baseball tournament, but the NCAA took neither, essentially trading Wash U and St. John Fisher for Thomas More and Texas Lutheran. Each, conveniently, solves a geography problem.
|
|
Regionals and seedings
New England Regional at Whitehouse Field; Harwich,
Mass.
1. Southern Maine
2. Wheaton, Mass.
3. Endicott
4. Western New England
5. MIT
6. St. Joseph's, Maine
7. Salem State
8. Daniel Webster
Eight New England teams.
New York Regional at Falcon Park; Auburn,
N.Y.
1. Ithaca
2. Cortland State
3. Rowan
4. Farmingdale State
5. Neumann
6. Amherst
7. RPI
8. Moravian
All four New York teams, plus three from the Mid-Atlantic and
one from New England.
Mid-Atlantic Regional at PNC Field; Moosic,
Pa.
1. Kean
2. Keystone
3. Misericordia
4. Alvernia
5. Johns Hopkins
6. Ramapo
7. Franklin and Marshall
8. Penn State-Harrisburg
Eight Mid-Atlantic teams.
|
|
Mideast Regional at Art Nehf Field; Terre Haute,
Ind.
1. Manchester
2. Marietta
3. Wooster
4. Illinois Wesleyan
5. Washington and Jefferson
6. Thomas More
7. Penn State-Behrend
8. Mount Union
Seven Mideast teams, one Central team.
South Regional at USA Stadium in Millington,
Tenn.
1. Huntingdon
2. Salisbury
3. Millsaps
4. Bridgewater (Va.)
5. Randolph-Macon
6. Methodist
All six South teams.
Central Regional Swanson Stadium/Brunner Field; Moline,
Ill.
1. Webster
2. Wartburg
3. Augustana
4. Concordia-Chicago
5. Adrian
6. Ripon
Four Central teams, one Mideast team, one Midwest
team.
Midwest Regional at Prucha Field in Whitewater,
Wis.
1. St. Thomas
2. UW-Stevens Point
3. UW-Whitewater
4. Case Western Reserve
5. Benedictine
6. St. Scholastica
Five Midwest teams, one Mideast teams.
West Regional at Tornado Field; Austin,
Texas
1. Linfield
2. Cal Lutheran
3. Texas-Tyler
4. Pomona-Pitzer
5. Trinity (Texas)
6. Texas Lutheran
All six West teams.
In the end, the only bracketing flexibility the committee took advantage of, essentially, was trading Illinois Wesleyan for Adrian.