In 1997, the NCAA Div. III Committee changed the selection process for national championships, largely in response to the concerns of historically weaker programs and conferences that the national tournaments were too exclusive and rewarded teams for past performance.
The new system awards conferences that meet the criteria - namely, having the minimum seven schools participating in the sport - automatic bids, and fill the remaining slots with at-large selections, both from conferences and independents. These at-large bids are awarded through an objective, numbers-based process that weighs, among other things, win-loss record, strength of schedule, Quality of Wins Index, and results against regional teams. The move was designed to stop the "rich-getting-richer" trend and extend the chance at the national title to weaker conferences.
But awarding bids based on the number at the end of an equation may not be as foolproof as it sounds.
"With the new system, it's all about the numbers, and that was somehow supposed to make it more fair and objective," Tufts Director of Athletics Bill Gehling said. "The problem is that the numbers lie - they don't tell an accurate truth."
Gehling cited the emphasis given to a team's strength of schedule, which is weighted heavily into the at-large equation, as a key shortcoming of the system.
"The only reason you need strength of schedule is because winning percentage is not a valid indicator of strength, so how can you use winning percentage of teams you played to determine strength of schedule?" Gehling said. "It doesn't make sense."
Gehling pulled an example from the 2006 women's soccer season, citing Bates' 5-0 blowout of non-conference Endicott. But while the Gulls earned an NCAA berth with a Commonwealth Coast Conference title, the Bobcats' season ended with no at-large bid and a sixth-place NESCAC finish.
As a second consequence, with a win over a mediocre team likely to have a good record in a traditionally weak conference counting towards strength of schedule, coaches have less of an incentive to risk a loss to a higher-ranked non-conference team.
"What this system has led to is coaches trying to find good teams in weak conferences to play," he said. "They're looking for someone who's going to go 15-3 in a bad conference, so they get an easy win over a team with a great winning percentage. But in reality, playing a weaker team in a stronger conference is often a harder game to win."
But despite its shortcomings, the strength-of-schedule index remains the easiest way to compare teams with comparable records, and isn't likely to go anywhere anytime soon.
"There needs to be more parity before strength of schedule can be truly effective, but I think it's as good a marker as win-loss record, which is to say, not perfect but not bad," Middlebury field hockey coach Katharine DeLorenzo said. "There's just no way you can select without using it, because there aren't enough head-to-head contests. It's not perfect, but that's why they look at other things, too."
- by Liz Hoffman
