2021 Tournament

[DeepPocket]

Well. Salisbury has one other ranked team in their “pod.” Cabrini, who some would argue the only info to support their ranking seems to be that they were the last team to win it all.

Tufts, by comparison, has 3 other teams that sit right around top 10. That seems lopsided.

[Unknown Participant]

Shocked Stevenson is in. The committee must have mailed the selections in early in the week.

[Unknown Participant]

Where are the games? I'm excited to actually go and not wear a mask.

Edit. Never mind, Tufts is in the SJF pod in Rochester.

[Downhill Dodger]

Selection committee is utter garbage. Unbalanced pods that make no sense. Do they actually watch any of these games?

Comes down to $$$, travel/flights and region, etc.

Been like this for years and pretty standard, even with Covid this year.

The fact that Salisbury/Lynchburg and RIT/Tufts are on opposite sides of the bracket is fine by me and look like they are on a "collision course" to meet in the final 4

Agreed ... those are the 4 teams I suspect most of us would put at the top of the list as potential national champs. I had no problem with the bracket as I saw it unfold. Maybe some matchups will occur a round early than the rankings would suggest but by and large the 4 best teams in my opinion should hold serve to reach the Final Four.

Downhill... what are your biggest complaints? Maybe I missed something as the announcement came fast.

Most glaring example, In one pod you have York, a top 5 to 8 team, F & M , a top 5 to 8 team and John Carroll a borderline top 20 team, who then get to play Tufts who have a good St John Fisher team in the mix

Compare this with Salisbury, who get to play who ever comes out of the pod of Illinois Wesleyan, who needed overtime to win their garbage conference tourney, and Hope who has never won a game in the NCAA tourney and the two worst teams in the entire tourney in Illinois Benedictine and Northwestern St. Paul

That is just one example

[SouthernLaxGenius]

Haven't had a chance to dive into the bracket but based on the match-ups, the 2 teams that may be involved in games that are closer than expected are:

Denison and Christopher Newport

Not saying they will lose (have to watch more film on a few more teams) but those are the 2 games I want to watch

[SpiritInTheStick]

Shocked Stevenson is in. The committee must have mailed the selections in early in the week.

They finished 8-1. Wins over York and Stevens. Loss to York. Biggest thing that helped them was being selected as a host site.

[SouthernLaxGenius]

Well. Salisbury has one other ranked team in their “pod.” Cabrini, who some would argue the only info to support their ranking seems to be that they were the last team to win it all.

Tufts, by comparison, has 3 other teams that sit right around top 10. That seems lopsided.

Just curious as to who (in your opinion) would you drag from Lynchburg's side to Salisbury's side and exchange out? (keeping in mind cost, travel, etc)

[Nosey Ned]

Nosey, don’t you think that Salisbury, Cabrini bracket is a breeze compared to the Tufts bracket? Whichever team wins that second rounder should breeze to the semis. Meanwhile it looks like there are no sure things on the Tufts side. St JF, York are a tough lineup for Tufts.

I think the RIT bracket looks soft too. Granted Tufts and to a lesser extent, Lynchburg path would seem harder than the other 2 but as I said, the 4 teams that are generally thought to have true national champion potential have a path they should be able to navigate successfully. If they can’t then guess what .... they weren’t as good as we thought they were. And so what, York plays F&M earlier than the rankings would suggest. We all know the mileage has always played a part. Get over it. It’s not changing... we hear the same thing every year from the whiners that get a tough matchup early and want to complain about the grass being greener in so and sos bracket. Zzzzzzzz

The die is cast.. time to stop talking about it and just go play. Want to be the best, you gotta.....

[SouthernLaxGenius]

Shocked Stevenson is in. The committee must have mailed the selections in early in the week.

They finished 8-1. Wins over York and Stevens. Loss to York. Biggest thing that helped them was being selected as a host site.

If that's the case, why didn't Stockton get in as they are a hosting site as well

[Unknown Participant]

Don't talk to me about costs and travel. Tufts is traveling 6.5 hours to play Babson that, according to Google Maps, is 27 minutes away. I guess I missed the memo, but when did we stop having first round games at the higher seed?

[SpiritInTheStick]

Shocked Stevenson is in. The committee must have mailed the selections in early in the week.

They finished 8-1. Wins over York and Stevens. Loss to York. Biggest thing that helped them was being selected as a host site.

If that's the case, why didn't Stockton get in as they are a hosting site as well

I would imagine the loss by 20 to Salisbury hurt their chances!

[YCOLaxFanSU]

No disrespect to the teams involved but I am looking at the "Tufts" portion of the bracket and I can't see any team that will give them very much trouble. St. John Fisher is a good team but I think they are elevated in our eyes because they gave RIT a game in 1 of their 2 meetings. York and F&M are still very much unknown because they just really didn't play anybody. York can point to Stevenson but Stevenson is also very unknown and they lost to Stevenson once. We don't know how good the Centennial actually was. For instance, did anybody see that the Franklin and Marshall women, the #1 ranked team in Division 3 playing a conference only schedule, get blown out today in the 2nd round of the women's tournament? All that being said, I hope I'm wrong.

I think the committee did the best they could under the circumstances.

[Unknown Participant]

Nosey, don’t you think that Salisbury, Cabrini bracket is a breeze compared to the Tufts bracket? Whichever team wins that second rounder should breeze to the semis. Meanwhile it looks like there are no sure things on the Tufts side. St JF, York are a tough lineup for Tufts.

I think the RIT bracket looks soft too. Granted Tufts and to a lesser extent, Lynchburg path would seem harder than the other 2 but as I said, the 4 teams that are generally thought to have true national champion potential have a path they should be able to navigate successfully. If they can’t then guess what .... they weren’t as good as we thought they were. And so what, York plays F&M earlier than the rankings would suggest. We all know the mileage has always played a part. Get over it. It’s not changing... we hear the same thing every year from the whiners that get a tough matchup early and want to complain about the grass being greener in so and sos bracket. Zzzzzzzz

The die is cast.. time to stop talking about it and just go play. Want to be the best, you gotta.....

Lynchburg is in the South. The North bracket has 3 of the top 5 contenders, perhaps you are reading it incorrectly?

[richard]

[quote=richard post_id=258204 time=<a href="tel:1620610436">1620610436</a> user_id=418]
Nosey, don’t you think that Salisbury, Cabrini bracket is a breeze compared to the Tufts bracket? Whichever team wins that second rounder should breeze to the semis. Meanwhile it looks like there are no sure things on the Tufts side. St JF, York are a tough lineup for Tufts.

I think the RIT bracket looks soft too. Granted Tufts and to a lesser extent, Lynchburg path would seem harder than the other 2 but as I said, the 4 teams that are generally thought to have true national champion potential have a path they should be able to navigate successfully. If they can’t then guess what .... they weren’t as good as we thought they were. And so what, York plays F&M earlier than the rankings would suggest. We all know the mileage has always played a part. Get over it. It’s not changing... we hear the same thing every year from the whiners that get a tough matchup early and want to complain about the grass being greener in so and sos bracket. Zzzzzzzz

The die is cast.. time to stop talking about it and just go play. Want to be the best, you gotta.....
[/quote]
Yeah the die is cast but if you think that Tufts might not lose to York,if they get there, you haven’t been watching.

[SouthernLaxGenius]

Don't talk to me about costs and travel. Tufts is traveling 6.5 hours to play Babson that, according to Google Maps, is 27 minutes away. I guess I missed the memo, but when did we stop having first round games at the higher seed?

First and second round match-ups, because of Covid, are at pre-determined sites.

Trust me, EVERYONE in D III had a chance to host (another memo went out late as there was question as to if the tourney could actually get going as they had not filled enough sites) and these 4 places were the ones who agreed/volunteered to host 3 games and up to 4 teams in one weekend.

[SouthernLaxGenius]

I think the committee did the best they could under the circumstances.

+1

[SpartanLaxFanatic]

I hope we’ll see the day where every team in the Top 20 gets a bid. Instead of wasting 10 bids on teams who won’t keep their first round game within 10 goals.

This year more than any other year the first round is a complete joke.

The beauty of D3 is the depth of really good teams but we rarely get to see the quality depth in May when the Pool C allotment is so small.

[SpiritInTheStick]

Don't talk to me about costs and travel. Tufts is traveling 6.5 hours to play Babson that, according to Google Maps, is 27 minutes away. I guess I missed the memo, but when did we stop having first round games at the higher seed?

This year (or maybe last year) was supposed to be the start of the new pod system for the tournament. 4 teams would all travel to the highest seed in their pod's home site. Because of covid, the NCAA selected 8 locations out of places that bid to host. I'd imagine Tufts did not submit a bid, as the NCAA would have saved money by having Tufts, Babson, Endicott, UMass Boston or Lasell all play at Tufts instead of traveling farther away.

[Nosey Ned]

[quote=richard post_id=258204 time=<a href="tel:1620610436">1620610436</a> user_id=418]
Nosey, don’t you think that Salisbury, Cabrini bracket is a breeze compared to the Tufts bracket? Whichever team wins that second rounder should breeze to the semis. Meanwhile it looks like there are no sure things on the Tufts side. St JF, York are a tough lineup for Tufts.

I think the RIT bracket looks soft too. Granted Tufts and to a lesser extent, Lynchburg path would seem harder than the other 2 but as I said, the 4 teams that are generally thought to have true national champion potential have a path they should be able to navigate successfully. If they can’t then guess what .... they weren’t as good as we thought they were. And so what, York plays F&M earlier than the rankings would suggest. We all know the mileage has always played a part. Get over it. It’s not changing... we hear the same thing every year from the whiners that get a tough matchup early and want to complain about the grass being greener in so and sos bracket. Zzzzzzzz

The die is cast.. time to stop talking about it and just go play. Want to be the best, you gotta.....

Yeah the die is cast but if you think that Tufts might not lose to York,if they get there, you haven’t been watching.
[/quote]

They might lose ... and if they do, it’s because York was better - at least that day - and they go home. Just because they are Tufts they deserve a free ride to the Final Four? They played 5 games this year, if they lose to York maybe it’s because they weren’t ready to play the tough teams. No ones fault but theirs and their conference. I’m just saying I think the 4 best teams are all in different quadrants .. we can’t say that every year.

[SouthernLaxGenius]

Don't talk to me about costs and travel. Tufts is traveling 6.5 hours to play Babson that, according to Google Maps, is 27 minutes away. I guess I missed the memo, but when did we stop having first round games at the higher seed?

First and second round match-ups, because of Covid, are at pre-determined sites.

Trust me, EVERYONE in D III had a chance to host (another memo went out late as there was question as to if the tourney could actually get going as they had not filled enough sites) and these 4 places were the ones who agreed/volunteered to host 3 games and up to 4 teams in one weekend.

Sorry "8 places were the ones" (not 4). Typing to fast and trying to do actual work as well

Any chance at upsets in the first or second round?