It’s time! It’s finally time! March Madness is upon us. Gone are the days of doing anything productive and in are the days of sitting and watching an unhealthy amount of college basketball every weekend. Who could ask for a better time than that? And don’t forget it’s also a time where people fill out their brackets in hopes that they can win cash prizes and bragging rights.
Well since the bracket has been released, I am going to do a very brief preview and post my bracket. You’re probably wondering, ‘wait, what?! The bracket hasn’t been released yet, it’s still conference tournament time!’. Well my dear reader, that is where you are wrong. Welcome to my preview and bracket of the DIVISION 3 mens basketball tournament that started yesterday! I told you it was finally March Madness time!
*I am NOT an expert on Division 3 basketball and am not trying to be. I wanted to get the word out about the tournament and give a little bit of background on the teams. This is just a basic analysis.
Background
To start, I think it is important to give a little background into how the Division 3 tournament works and teams are selected:
This info is taken from NCAA.com
- Qualifying: “Forty-three conferences have been granted automatic qualification for the 2016 championship, while 19 other at-large teams from the remaining independent teams and automatic-qualifying conferences who did not receive their conference automatic qualification (Pool C) were selected by using specific selection criteria approved by the Division III Championships Committee”
- Tournament Setup: “Two first-round games will be conducted Thursday, March 3 with the winners advancing to play Saturday, March 5 against teams that received first-round byes. Fourteen sites will host four teams for first and second-round competition Friday-Saturday, March 4-5. All games, except the semi-finals and finals, will be played on the campuses of competing institutions. The semi-finals and finals will be conducted at the Salem Civic Center in Salem, Virginia”
Preview:
- Top Left: This region is obviously headlined by undefeated Whitman (27-0), but also has very strong teams in Whitworth (23-4), Rochester (21-4), Guilford (23-5), and Marietta (24-4), to name a few. This is going to be a tough quadrant to get out of, and it is a little bit of a shame that the Whitman and Whitworth will have to meet in just the second round after their exciting OT game in the conference championship.
- Bottom Left: This region also has some quality teams and it doesn’t have any clear-cut favorite either. If Babson (25-2) can get healthy, they will be a very tough team to beat. Christopher-Newport (25-2) is another very good team, currently ranked #2 in the D3 top 25. NJAC Player of the Year Thomas Bonacum is the player to watch in this quadrant. We know how star power can push teams through the tournament and he could do just the same with his Ramapo (25-2) team.
- Top Right: Pretty much every team in this region is solid, but a few teams stand out. Middlebury (24-3) is a very solid team, as is Salisbury (20-7) and Scranton (21-6). This seems to be the most open quadrant of the tournament and will likely result in some surprises.
- Bottom Right: The bottom right quadrant seems to be a little top heavy to me. UW-River Falls (24-3) is among the favorites to win it all, Benedictine (23-4) has had a very good season, as has Hanover (23-3) and UW-Whitewater (21-6). Outside of those, there shouldn’t be too many surprises out of the bottom right and there are a couple teams in this region who could come out on top of the whole tournament.
Bracket
In the spirit of March Madness, here is my D3 Mens basketball bracket. It could be all right (hey it’ll happen eventually) or all wrong (MUCH more likely) but I had fun filling out the bracket and learning a little more about D3 basketball.
*Due to time constraints, this article was not able to be posted by the first games, however the bracket was filled out beforehand
Here is my bracket for the Division 3 Basketball tournament.
I’ll have a recap of the tournament and of how accurate my bracket was after the tournament is over. You can find the schedule of the games and where to watch them here. Enjoy!