Northeast Region Preview

1. Northeast Region Preview:
   Northeast Region Championship | Event Website
   Worcester Polytechnic Institute
   Satur… http://t.co/Z2mEX3Q1Vw

2. RT @d3wrestle Northeast Region Preview: http://t.co/TLvj3EwBhi

3. Ranked Teams:
   #3 Cortland,
   #10 Springfield, #11 Wesleyan, #13 Ithaca,
   #27 JWU
   Looks like with this many teams ranked that the Northeast divsion is going to be a tough.

4. Midwest region’s got that beat–6 ranked teams–5 of those in the top 12!!!
   #2 Elmhurst, #4 UW Whitewater, #5 UW La Crosse, #9 UW Stevens Point, #12 Olivet and #29 Wabash.

5. Way too many ranked (top 30 & even top 10) guys in the Midwest who won’t make it to the National tournament..

6. Speaking from experience as both an athlete and a coach under the previous NCAA DIII qualifier tournaments, the current format is far and away the fairest format for the student athlete. All the Regionals are now ran under the same qualification rules and numbers. You place in the top 3 you go to nationals period. It takes the politics out of the equation. Previously the number of athletes taken out of a qualifier was based on a formula. The formula factored in the number of qualifiers a region / conference had in the previous year along with how many of those qualifiers received All-American honors. This led to disparate qualifying numbers across different regions\conferences, some getting as little as 10 qualifiers while others getting as many as 33… In other words only the Champions would go to nationals in some qualifiers while the top 3 place winners would go in others. It was also very political because there were no hard and fast rules stating a given place winner had to qualify at a given weight class. Following every qualifying tournament coaches would get in a room. All the wrestlers who placed in the qualifying tournament would be put up on the board as potential qualifiers to nationals. Coaches would go through several rounds of voting to determine who would be taken to nationals. Most of the time this went according to placement in the tournament, but I witnessed instances where a highly ranked wrestler was taken over a lower ranking wrestle despite the higher ranking wrestler losing head to head to the lower ranking wrestler in the qualifying tournament. Coaches would be forced to form alliances to sway voting in-order to get their kids to nationals; especially for teams who are not a perennial power house. Athletes entered the tournament not knowing whether or not they would qualify because it was ultimately based on a vote. This voting also created an imbalance across weight classes at the national tournament. Depending on who got voted in from different qualifiers some weight classes might have 20 wrestlers while others would only have 12… 12 wrestlers for your national tournament???

   “Strength” or “Depth” among regions is always going to rise and fall over time… Yes the Midwest did get an influx of highly ranked teams, but the Iowa Conference and Great Lakes Regional had been experiencing that for years prior… and some of the teams mentioned below have taken a big step up in just the last 2-3 years…

   As an athlete no matter what opponents are in my bracket, no matter what the rankings say on paper… I know if I place in the top three I am going to the NCAA tournament…

   As a sport we got a uniform qualifying system across all teams… we also gained 10 more athletes at the national tournament moving from 170 athletes to 180… see https://www.d3wrestle.com/?p=5102

   I realize some very talented wrestlers will undoubtedly stay at home, but that is less about how the regions are made up and more about getting are total participation numbers up at Nationals…

   so if you really want to help tell all of your friends and family to attend the NCAA Division III National Tournament… prove to them with record breaking attendance numbers that our sport deserves more than 180 athletes at the national tournament!!!

7. although i happen 2 agree with u about 95 % of wat u just wrote down, u failed 2 mention 1 simple fact reality.. this is not meant 2 b disrespectful towards u or others, just a simple opinion on my part… those 3 positions that u spoke of in some regions are only competing against in some cases 11 teams going for those 3 spots, where as in other regions u have as many as 19 teaams going for those same 3 spots… so ig ur going to mention the word FAIR in ur statement, by all means feel free to respond where there FAIRNESS is in that??? the committee has done in my humble opinion a very poor job at making the regions fair as far as the amount of teams that are in each region…

8. Ken, I see your point on the surface with 11 teams competing for 3 spots vs 18 teams competing for 3 spots.

   But its not just about numbers alone. During the seeding meetings of these tournaments they are going to look at a number of criteria to seed athletes. Overall record (winning), head to head competition, common opponents, performance at regional qualifier, and performance at nationals. Current rankings are not allowed to be used. During the seeding meeting the coaches try to see the top 8 wrestlers at each weight class based on the criteria I mentioned above. Some are clear cut, but some are not especially when you get into common opponents. And usually once the top 4 or 5 are decided coaches are wanting to pull their kids because they have a better chance of floating the bracket instead of taking a number 8 seed.

   So if you have time based on those criteria go to the NWCA score book and see who can actually be considered for a seed (http://www.nwcaonline.com/nwcaonline/results/ColScorebook/MeetResults.aspx). There are a lot of athletes in all the regions that won’t even have a winning record.

   For the larger regions if you have 18 athletes at 125. 2 are returning all-americans, 1 is currently ranked, 6 are above average but not ranked, and the other 9 have .500 or losing records. Is that more competitive than a region with 11 athletes at 125 where 3 are returning all-americans, 2 are currently ranked, and the other 6 are above average winning records?

   Now I probably talked myself into a corner because it really is about depth at each weight class and in theory the more teams you have the greater amount of depth you may have. But I just want to make the point that it is not always true.

   In previous years the 11 team qualifier may have only had 10 spots to nationals… only the champion goes… and maybe the 18 team qualifier had 15 spots so the champion plus 5 more (voted in) go. Since it was all based on a formula of previous years results. So if a large region had a really good last couple of years they still would have a larger number of qualifiers than a smaller region who is up and coming but did not have as many athletes AA in the previous season. To me that made less sense and was worse then what we have today.

   Now as an athlete there is no Shenanigans, I know if I place in the top three I am going to nationals period.

   The depth at each region and the mix of teams is a problem, but at least for now there is a standard procedure in place.

9. you very clearly without even noticing it reality (lol) u proved my point… do me a huge favor & look at the regions posted as of yet & tell me if u dont clearly see wat everyone else is talking about.. the numbers speak volumes.. if u look at the east region as compared to the others, tell me on the lists posted that u cant cleaarly seee that there are far more wrestlers listed going for those 3 spots.. if u can with a clear conscious tell me that u cant see that, well then we can agree to disagree then.. i repect ur opionio as im sure u do mine as well, but its clear to me that the commitee really did stack the deck here 4 lack of a better way of putting it… l will take it one step further, look at the i believe its (6 members on the commitee) and tell me wat u see??? heres wat i see 5 of those members are from the west where clearly u can see the amount of teaams at there respective regions is far less then those here in the east… is that a coincendence or not… hmmmm… u be the judge… seems like POLITICS AT ITS BEST… just my humble opinion…

10. Ken, I understand what you are saying there is a lot of depth on the east coast right now. But I think everyone from every region under the previous rules can make a case that they had quality kids sit at home.

    I think the only way we solve that is to build more of a following of our sport at the DIII level, convince the NCAA that we need the top 4 at every region.

    I agree when you look at how some of the teams were divided up geographically its almost laughable. And it does not seem to be coincidental how some of the “power” was divided. I agree this was a “POLITICAL” divide to some extent.

    I do think the team make-up of each region is a problem that can be solved / changed eventually either by power ranking or making each qualifier have the same number of teams regardless of geographical restrictions… Don’t know if the NCAA will agree to that 🙂

    I think the best thing we have going for us now is that is clear to the athletes how they get to nationals… place in the top 3. The argument can always be made that “I beat the guy that took 3rd in that region” but I took 5th in mine… well change schools or beat the guys in your region :)… just kidding

    If we go to top 4 at every region this becomes less of an issue and we get 60 more wrestlers… but that will cost the NCAA more money so it would need to be justified..

    thanks Ken good convo

11. And one comment on the numbers. Out of the 18 teams in the region only 7 of them comprise the team with a returning AA or ranked wrestler. Out of those 7 only 3 teams have 2 or more returning AA or ranked wrestlers.

    Ithaca and Cortland make up the majority of the numbers.

    If the make-up of returning AA and ranked wrestlers was more dispersed across the entire field of 18 teams I could see the argument as to why 18 teams is harder than 11 teams.

    But then we are back to how it got decided who goes where 🙂

12. I don’t think it should be an equal number from every region because every region is always going to be lopsided with ranked wrestlers. Why doesnt d3 have allocations like d1?? http://www.ncaa.com/news/wrestling/article/2013-02-28/ncaa-announces-qualifier-allocations-final-coaches-panel-and-rpi-r

13. Midwest why would you want a coaches pole. The big ten gets 74 qualifiers? Come on.. look at all the conferences that are being handed one qualifier for each weight class. While the big ten takes 7 deep at each weight… your basically telling athletes if you want the best chance of getting to nationals attend a big ten school… good athletes from smaller schools are sitting at home under this format.

14. Big Ten sends the most because yes they are the best wrestling schools and have the most ranked wrestlers. With the way d1 is set up basically if you get recognized, are ranked, and deserve to go.. You get to go. The other conferences don’t have Wrestlers that could compare to the big ten and if they did, for example when different schools get to be better programs, the allocations can change to fit that, unlike the set 3 in every weight class, 30 a region style.

15. In my opinion, more deserving Wrestlers are going to be sitting at home under this format with these set regions than the Wrestlers who are deserving to go in d1

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