5.5.07 Visiting with Coach Jim Page
This entry was posted on 5/4/2007 8:11 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
I'm down at (gulp) Millsaps helping my son Sam get situated for the fall semester. On Friday afternoon, while Sam was hanging out at the SAE house, I stopped by to introduce myself to (double gulp) veteran baseball coach Jim Page. He's a huge admirer of the Rhodes baseball team (and, of course, of his own), which made it easy for us to fall into conversation.
We spent a good bit of time bewailing (a) some serious flaws in the Quality of Wins Index (QOWI) that the NCAA uses as its primary criterion for determining which fourteen teams will receive "Pool C" bids to the NCAA tournament despite losing their conferences; and (b) the NCAA's reluctance to go beyond this primary criterion and consider its own "secondary" criteria of excellenece
An example of (a): Every team is assigned a certain number of points per game played in its region, depending on whether it's a win or a loss, home or away, and the opponent's end-of-season record. As a member of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, Rhodes had to play four-game series against Eastern Division rivals Sewanee and Oglethorpe this year. We swept all eight games. But because both teams ended the season with such poor records, we received just eight points per win against Sewanee and nine points per win against Oglethorpe: an average of 8.5 points per victory. The rule of thumb for postseason bids to the NCAA is that a team must average 9.5 to count on getting one. So in sweeping two conference rivals that we had no choice but to play, Rhodes's chances of getting an NCAA bid actually went down. What a system!
An example of (b): For fear of appearing subjective the NCAA hardly even looks its own secondary criteria. As a result, even though Rhodes won thirty-six games (the most in Division III) against only ten losses and went 5-2 against the nationally ranked teams we played (the Lynx split with Emory and Millsaps and beat Washington University, Illinois Wesleyan, and Methodist)--there's a real risk that these successes will simply be overlooked.
Are national championships a good idea, or are they a distortion of what Division III is supposed to be all about, a kind of mindless aping of Division I? Coach Page and I did not discuss this question, but it has come up in discussions among national liberal arts college presidents and at gatherings of the Mellon Foundation's College Sports Project. I'll try to get my own thoughts together on the matter and post something when the dust settles after the season is over. Until then, I'm just Go Lynx all the way.
The NCAA still has time to do the right thing this month. No decision will be announced until after midnight on Sunday, May 13. Unlike Millsaps, where Coach Page has closed up shop for the year, Rhodes will start practicing again on Tuesday, just in case.
By the way, thanks for the cool cap, Coach Page.
We spent a good bit of time bewailing (a) some serious flaws in the Quality of Wins Index (QOWI) that the NCAA uses as its primary criterion for determining which fourteen teams will receive "Pool C" bids to the NCAA tournament despite losing their conferences; and (b) the NCAA's reluctance to go beyond this primary criterion and consider its own "secondary" criteria of excellenece
An example of (a): Every team is assigned a certain number of points per game played in its region, depending on whether it's a win or a loss, home or away, and the opponent's end-of-season record. As a member of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, Rhodes had to play four-game series against Eastern Division rivals Sewanee and Oglethorpe this year. We swept all eight games. But because both teams ended the season with such poor records, we received just eight points per win against Sewanee and nine points per win against Oglethorpe: an average of 8.5 points per victory. The rule of thumb for postseason bids to the NCAA is that a team must average 9.5 to count on getting one. So in sweeping two conference rivals that we had no choice but to play, Rhodes's chances of getting an NCAA bid actually went down. What a system!
An example of (b): For fear of appearing subjective the NCAA hardly even looks its own secondary criteria. As a result, even though Rhodes won thirty-six games (the most in Division III) against only ten losses and went 5-2 against the nationally ranked teams we played (the Lynx split with Emory and Millsaps and beat Washington University, Illinois Wesleyan, and Methodist)--there's a real risk that these successes will simply be overlooked.
Are national championships a good idea, or are they a distortion of what Division III is supposed to be all about, a kind of mindless aping of Division I? Coach Page and I did not discuss this question, but it has come up in discussions among national liberal arts college presidents and at gatherings of the Mellon Foundation's College Sports Project. I'll try to get my own thoughts together on the matter and post something when the dust settles after the season is over. Until then, I'm just Go Lynx all the way.
The NCAA still has time to do the right thing this month. No decision will be announced until after midnight on Sunday, May 13. Unlike Millsaps, where Coach Page has closed up shop for the year, Rhodes will start practicing again on Tuesday, just in case.
By the way, thanks for the cool cap, Coach Page.
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5/5/2007 11:21 AM
Conference woes wrote:
I am sure every other contender has teams at the bottom of their conferences as well that they have to play. Your dedication to Rhodes is commendable but a little wider perspective might help.
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5/7/2007 12:54 PM
Major Fan wrote:
As a former player for Millsaps and a semi-diligent fan of the subsequent teams, there has been a significant bias against teams from the deep south, especially the SCAC for a long time. Just look at last season when Millsaps was the #1 seed in the South and gets sent up to Illinois. Regardless, I don't understand all the "nuances" of the NCAA's criteria for selecting at large bids and they would probably just infuriate me if it did. As with and team that has an automatic bid by winning their conference tournament, Millsaps controlled their own destiny this season and faltered, but it's tough to see one of the nations most potent offenses and fundamentally sound defenses, sitting home. I guess there's always next year.
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