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About the 2006 Division III
men's basketball tournament

Our projected Field of 59

As is traditional, we have attempted to project the field of 59 based on the same criteria the NCAA national committee will be using on Sunday night. They give us 37 gimmes in the automatic bids and we have to figure out the 4 Pool B and 18 Pool C bids. (Pool B and C explained)

This year, with 18 Pool C bids, we didn't feel like we left out any national contenders. It's a pleasant change from years past. The NCAA will tell us who is in the tournament tonight, and will give us pairings for those teams on Monday morning.

The Pool Bs remained difficult. After much discussion we ended up with Huntingdon in (see secondary criteria) and Maryville (Tenn.) was the final selection. Villa Julie was fifth for four spots.

Here are our Pool C teams:
Tufts
Gordon
Cortland State
York (Pa.)
Trinity (Texas)
Augustana
Wooster
Carroll
Baruch
Calvin
UW-Stout
Randolph-Macon
Illinois Wesleyan
Widener
Carleton
Trinity (Conn.)
Washington U.
UW-La Crosse

As we went through the process, we took the same tack we have in previous years, and the same the NCAA committee does — putting the top available team from each region on “the board” and comparing them eight at a time.

Here’s the 18 teams with criteria attached:
Team, regional record, regional w%, QOWI
Tufts 20-4 .833 11.167
Gordon 22-3 .880 10.560
Cortland State 22-3 .880 10.440
York 22-3 .880 10.400
Trinity (Texas) 16-3 .842 10.526
Wooster 21-3 .875 10.042
Augustana 19-4 .826 10.478
Carroll 19-4 .826 10.087
Calvin 13-2 .867 9.733
Baruch 21-3 .875 9.958
UW-Stout 18-5 .783 9.870
Randolph-Macon 19-6 .760 9.840
Illinois Wesleyan 15-6 .714 9.952
Widener 20-5 .800 9.920
Carleton 18-5 .783 10.000
Trinity (Conn.) 15-5 .750 9.750
Wash U 14-6 .700 10.050
UW-Lax 18-7 .720 9.88

As we got lower on the list, we looked at other criteria as well, including results against regionally ranked teams and common opponents. Common opponents put UW-Stout in several spots ahead of Carleton, though both made it in eventually.

The seven remaining when we selected UW-La Crosse were Bates, New Jersey City, Utica, Albion, Johns Hopkins, Lakeland and Howard Payne.

The final decision on UW-La Crosse over Lakeland was the head-to-head win by UW-L at Lakeland.

So we've got our 59 — here's how they shake down. This is in order of seedings.

With so many teams in the field now, lots of teams are playing out of their so-called region. Ten Northeast teams qualified, so obviously not all can play in their own bracket. This South bracket would have a regional at Virginia Wesleyan with CNU facing the hosts and Catholic playing Randolph-Macon.

We had five byes to give out. We gave three of them based on convenience and two on merit (Lawrence and Amherst).

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