News – New Selection Criteria for Division III Championships

Brandon Bianco, Head Men’s Coach at @DenisonUniversity recently took to Twitter to comment on the recent news that the DIII Championship Committee is recommending “That the NCAA Power Index (NPI) be adopted as the selection metric for selecting non-automatic qualifiers for the championship field for Division III team sports.” I had a chance to connect to Coach Bianco to discuss this and his teams performance this past season. With permission, below is the outline he laid out in his Twitter feed when the news broke.

The following was posted on Twitter on 30 March 2024

This new selection criteria- something that will affect the livelihood of coaches- will go into effect this fall! And no one has seen it let alone know how the algorithm is calculated. What was intended to create more objectivity and transparency will do the opposite.

While I agree there could/should be changes to our selection criteria that would benefit all sports, that work should include THOROUGH due diligence, broad feedback, and careful consideration. This hasn’t happened. One question we keep asking is, what is the rush?!?

To be clear, Pairwise is generally coming from a select group on the Champs Committee and NCAA staff. This is not coming from sport committees themselves or the broader membership! Despite what narrative gets put out there about this, the devil is in the details! Let’s look:

High level, what does the Pairwise algorithm do?

1. It ranks every team in every sport #1 through whatever the sport membership is (like RPI)

2. It factors in WL%, SOS, Quality Wins

 3. MOST IMPORTANT- it “adjusts” everyone’s schedule and removes games against “bad” opponents.

So in practice, by adjusting schedules (in some cases as much as 80%!!!!), we’re now drastically changing how Pool C selections are made by no longer evaluating a team’s total body of work. Let’s look at an example from soccer 2023:

Had Pairwise been used last fall in soccer, W&L (Final Four team) who played the 10th-hardest schedule in the country (out of 415), won 70% of their games, and had 5 RvR would not have made the NCAA’s. In fact, they would have needed to jump 5 teams to just be the last team in!!!

Who would have gotten in over them? A team who played 53% of their schedule against teams #217+ (5 against teams in the 300’s!), with only 2 Top 100 wins (#45, 68). All other wins (13!) were #’s 179-365! This is just 1 example. There were more from last year just like this team.

Why does this happen? Maybe soccer is unique w/ ties, but the foundation of the Pairwise algorithm how it “adjusts” schedules will be the same for all. And while this will determine Pool C selections, now our tournaments are essentially fully seeded, hosting is affected, etc.

There is a whole lot more to share, but what I know is this:

1. This will impact ALL team sports, some significantly more than others.

2. Gone are RAC’s as we know it, the intrigue of selection shows, etc.

3. This will give committees an out- “how can you argue with your #?”

4. THERE IS LESS INCENTIVE TO PLAY A COMPETITIVE SCHEDULE- “bad” games get dropped. My team plays Newport and Stevens this year for example- moving forward, there’s less incentive to play these.

 5. Coaches are smart. Goalposts are moved. We’ll schedule to manipulate the data!

6. This coming in for Fall 2024 is terrible. Schedules are done for most teams and no one knows how they’ll be evaluated for Pool C.

7. Why can’t everyone “pilot” this for ‘24 alongside the normal process? We’ve asked and been told no.

8. If you play a great schedule and win a ton of games, you’ll always be fine. It’s that next “tier” that most likely will be affected most. The 12-3-3 high SOS team won’t be as competitive as the higher WL lower SOS. Again, more incentive to schedule wins moving forward.

9. You truly need a statistics PhD to understand this thing (something I don’t have). Why is one game “dropped” for one team and not another? I’d love to know. The ambiguity of this evaluation tool is a step backwards.

10. The NCAA will say, “we’ve engaged the sport committees”. While this is true, the level of engagement, data sharing, understanding of committees is incredibly limited.

11. Finally, this instrument in its current form and the rollout for fall 2024 is really unfortunate if you truly care about D3. This will be bigger than most know and understand. Now more than ever, win your AQ!