Division III Teams: D1 or D3 Regionals?

by | April 6, 2011, 11:44am 0

If you’re a Division III team, you have quite the choice to make this year for Regionals. Most of you will probably qualify at least for the DIII regionals, but many of you will have the option of accepting a bid to face D1 competition. This is going to create quite the stir for the DI crowd, as they will be waiting on your decision to see if they can qualify.

First, here’s how the process works, and I’ll use the Atlantic Coast Conference as an example. Below is the ranking from the previous week, which will be updated today.

12 (0) Virginia 1805 (47) AC VA 8 – 7
33 (1) Virginia Tech 1544 (45) AC VA 19 – 5
41 (1) North Carolina-Wilmington 1476 (34) AC CAR 10 – 15
49 (2) Delaware 1412 (58) AC COL 11 – 8
56 (3) James Madison 1378 (53) AC VA 8 – 5
67 (6) North Carolina 1315 (46) AC CAR 13 – 11
75 (5) East Carolina 1276 (68) AC CAR 11 – 6
78 (7) Towson 1259 (64) AC COL 13 – 9
97 (1) Georgetown 1195 (79) AC COL 10 – 9
101 (n/a) George Washington 1183 (n/a) AC COL 4 – 4
108 (15) Clemson 1173 (41) AC CAR 12 – 10
114 (9) North Carolina State 1163 (62) AC CAR 5 – 15
120 (13) Maryland 1139 (42) AC COL 15 – 17
126 (22) South Carolina 1116 (14) AC CAR 17 – 11
131 (23) William & Mary 1105 (14) AC VA 12 – 7
147 (6) Duke 1054 (105) AC CAR 10 – 9
150 (16) Wake Forest 1043 (48) AC CAR-III 8 – 13

There are 5 open division conferences with automatic bids. CAR, CAR-III, VA, NAC-III, COL. Thus, the top ranked teams from each of those conferences are taken off the list.

CAR- UNCW

CAR-III-Wake Forest

VA-Virginia

COL-Delaware

NAC_III-Richmond

Now, we calculate the conference strength bids, which is the average ranking of the top four teams in each conference. There will be three conference strength bids since there are at least four conferences. We can easily tell here that the 3 D1 Conferences will be getting the bids. Thus, we represent those bids with the highest ranked teams left.

CAR-UNC

VA-Virginia Tech

COL-Towson

Now we have 8 team strength bids to consider. Taking everyone else already accounted for off the list we get…

56 (3) James Madison 1378 (53) AC VA 8 – 5
75 (5) East Carolina 1276 (68) AC CAR 11 – 6
97 (1) Georgetown 1195 (79) AC COL 10 – 9
101 (n/a) George Washington 1183 (n/a) AC COL 4 – 4
108 (15) Clemson 1173 (41) AC CAR 12 – 10
114 (9) North Carolina State 1163 (62) AC CAR 5 – 15
120 (13) Maryland 1139 (42) AC COL 15 – 17
126 (22) South Carolina 1116 (14) AC CAR 17 – 11
131 (23) William & Mary 1105 (14) AC VA 12 – 7
147 (6) Duke 1054 (105) AC CAR 10 – 9

We simply then take the next 9 teams on the ranking list and apply those bids to their respective conferences…

  1. VA-James Madison
  2. CAR-East Carolina
  3. COL-Georgetown
  4. COL-George Washington
  5. CAR-Clemson
  6. CAR-NCState
  7. COL-Maryland
  8. CAR-South Carolina

This gives us the bid allocation below, with the 16 available bids represented by the team who got them.

VA-3 CAR-6 COL-5 NAC-III-1 CAR-III-1
UVA UNCW Delaware Richmond Wake Forest
VT UNC Towson
JMU ECU Georgetown
Clemson George Washington
NCSU
USC

This leaves W&M as the odd D-I team out, with automatic bids going to Richmond and Wake Forest. However, with W&M being the next team in line to receive a strength bid, should Richmond or Wake Forest decline their D-I bid, we get the conference wait-list to be like this.

131 (23) William & Mary 1105 (14) AC VA 12 – 7
147 (6) Duke 1054 (105) AC CAR 10 – 9
178 (24) Davidson 936 (36) AC CAR-III 8 – 5
184 (22) Elon 920 (55) AC CAR-III 9 – 10
194 (4) American 884 (125) AC COL 5 – 4
219 (38) Charleston 807 (20) AC CAR 6 – 10
230 (n/a) Johns Hopkins 781 (n/a) AC COL 3 – 2
233 (n/a) Appalachian State 763 (n/a) AC CAR 7 – 1
244 (48) Salisbury 728 (3) AC COL 4 – 3

I’m going to assume that a DI team would never turn down a bid to DI regionals. So if Richmond or Wake Forest turn down their DI Bids, it goes to the conference next in line for a strength bid.

  1. W&M-VA 4th Place finishing team would get the bid
  2. Duke-CAR 7th Place finishing Team
  3. Davidson-CAR-III 2nd Place Finishing Team
  4. Elon-CAR-III-3rd Place Finishing Team
  5. American-COL-6th Place Finishing Team

Thus if all the DIII teams turn down their bids, you’d see the VA and CAR conferences get a 4th and 7th team into regionals.

Now becomes the question, what regionals competition does a DIII team choose? There are definitely DIII teams across the country who have a great shot at making it to DI nationals. If I think I have a good chance at making it to DI nationals, I’m going to take that chance. Lets be honest here for the DIII teams in the AC region, they aren’t highly ranked, and aren’t going to beat the top D-1 ranked teams to get in.

However, they do have a chance to make DIII nationals in Buffalo, NY. This would extend the season, and give them a chance on the national stage. Wake Forest, Elon, Davidson, Richmond would all be competitive against each other, and I’m sure it’d be pretty exciting to say that they went to Nationals.

Now I want your take, if you’re a D-III team, tell me what you guys are planning on doing should you have that opportunity. I’d love to hear feedback on this, and any questions on how bids would work out. I’ve been studying those USAU rules on this for about a year now, so hopefully I’m right.

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