11/17/19: #1 Emory, #4 Carthage, #6 Hopkins, #7 Trinity, Clarkson, Bowdoin round out Cedar Rapids field
Chicago Regional Final
#4 Carthage 3, #2 Chicago 2 Carthage’s LeCount: 60 assists, 11 digs.
Emory Regional Final
#1 Emory 3, #8 Colorado College 0 EU’s McKnight: 19 kills.
Johns Hopkins Regional Final
#6 Johns Hopkins 3, Stevens 0 JHU’s Bliss: 17 kills, 12 digs.
Christopher Newport Regional Final
#7 Trinity (Texas) 3, Marymount 0 TU outhit MU, .380 to .056.
Tufts Regional Final
Bowdoin 3, #21 Johnson & Wales (R.I.) 0 BC’s Flaharty: 12 kills, 12 digs.
Clarkson Regional Final
Clarkson 3, Ithaca 2 CU’s Isaksen: 37 digs.
-Ricky Nelson
DIII Women's Volleyball 
Going to the fifth set here at Chicago. Match is worthy of a national championship. Two years in a row the Chicago Regional is the toughest imo. Some very championship worthy teams going home early.
Anonymous
November 17, 2019 at 4:00 pm
Congrats to Carthage on beating the #5 and #2 ranked teams in the country to win the regional. How in the hell is this right? If this happened in Division 1, would there be more of an outcry? CMS, Carthage, and Chicago each could have won a regional if they were to host one or placed in different regionals. The fact that all three teams were placed in one regional is beyond absurd. I saw some great volleyball players and teams and matches this weekend but would have traded it for a fairer regional placements.
Anonymous
November 17, 2019 at 6:30 pm
I do not disagree with anything you say in principle. The simple answer is that D3 is a long way from D1. The NCAA doesn’t really care about D3, they just have to put up with it to cash in on the D1 basketball money (which might be going away in a few years but that’s another story).
Here is the D3 Philosophy straight from the manual:
“The Division III championships philosophy is to field the most competitive teams possible while minimizing missed class time; to emphasize regional competition in regular-season scheduling; and to provide representation in NCAA championship competition by allocating berths to eligible conferences, independent institutions and a limited number of at-large teams, realizing that this may be done at the expense of leaving out some championship-caliber teams.”
This statement really bugs me. They want it both ways. If it is region based then fine. Have each region pick 8 teams and have their own tournament. With the 8 winners going to the elite 8. At least that would make the impossible national comparisons moot.
Of course what I’m just said is on hold with the change to 10 regions as early as next year. But I decided to say all this anyway because it just does not make sense, and I like sense.
NED3vballfan
November 18, 2019 at 7:09 pm
NED3vballfan,
I think the current D III championship structure is good. It is not D I, but it isn’t far off. As you stated, March Madness funds just about everything. I am thankful for that. I wish D III — the largest division — got a bigger slice of the pie for championships than the current 3.18%. But to me the D III championship structure is superior to the hyper regional D II model. Then again the NCAA model as a whole could collapse from above in the relatively near future. D III approximates D I but lacks TV contracts and truly national tournaments.
I like D III’s relative regional focus mixed with the incentive, through criteria, to expand competition across regional borders. I think there are interpretations of criteria that could be improved.
The NCAA is built on membership access to championships. There is not much incentive to have an association if dues do not lead to championship access. Every championship, including the D I MBB tourney, is based on access. And I’m all for it. Championship caliber teams — or at least teams better than several AQ’s — get left out of the D I MBB tourney, too. Conference championships with NCAA bids on the line are some of the most thrilling sporting events we have in this country. Then sometimes those lowest seeds stir up stuff in the national tourney and get referenced until the end of time. That’s the good stuff.
I do not like the D II championship model at all. D III gets funded at a decent level. We have good championships, wishful travel budgets notwithstanding. It wasn’t long ago that teams in all associations sometimes had to turn down postseason invites because schools had to pay their own travel expenses. It also wasn’t long ago that D III postseason teams — far fewer in number — were nearly all on an at-large basis and determined by cabals that did not have guidelines for decisions. The lack of transparency back in the day was ridiculous.
With the current structure, I often get frustrated with some committees’ lack of criteria comprehension/application and debatable bracketing choices. The current process is fairly new and still evolving yearly, so I continue to hold out hope that those committees will catch up to the rest. If you accept the budgetary limitations in D III, which would need a constitutional change among the entire NCAA membership to change (“Can we have more of your money that that you yourselves have increasing need for due to attempts to bridge competitive advantages?”), the current championship structure in our division provides a good mix of access and fairness regarding second chances.
I’m sure everyone knows that 28 D III championships are funded with approximately $26 million that was generously dropped out of D I basketball’s wallet and filtered through D II’s cash-catching net. That’s not nearly enough money to send George Fox women’s lacrosse to play Middlebury during the first round of the NCAA tourney. The ability to do that would be awesome though.
The 10 regions idea has intrigued me from the start. What I liked most was the perceived confidence of the whole undertaking. For an association that frequently stubs its own toes selecting at-large teams to individual tournaments, sure, why not think you can appease the membership and attempt to rejigger the entire foundation of the D III process across all sports with blanket realignments that surely will account for competitive strength while maintaining important rivalries, etc.? Shoot for the stars, I guess. Break a leg, realignment deciders.
Ricky Nelson
November 19, 2019 at 1:11 am