@anotherparent posted:I don't understand the thing with the Texas and Centenary teams. Why not just add four more teams to fill out the regionals? Why those teams?
I'm not an expert on the selection process, but I think these are the main factors:
- start with the total count, which is based in large part on the NCAA budget. the number seems to vary from year to year in D3. this year it's 60. the NCAA only wants to pay for hotels, meals, travel, etc for that predetermined number of teams.
- D3 uses "600 miles" as the magic number for travel by bus. I'm guessing that no teams are flying in this round, but I haven't checked closely.
- they start with the 60 teams that deserve a bid, and then the teams who deserve to host.
- then they look for teams who can travel (by bus) to those hosts while trying to avoid matching teams from the same conference or region.
- they only play in 4-team and 2-team formats. I don't know why.
- which brings us to Trinity and Texas-Dallas. I guess Centenary is the only other school within 600 miles of them, so not enough teams for a 4-team playoff.
- I guess with LaGrange hosting Centenary, Birmingham Southern was the only other school near them.
I'm sure you'll find exceptions to all of the above since it's not an exact science. For instance, Birmingham Southern is the #1 seed but is traveling to Lynchburg.