It is NCAA Selection Tuesday, so here is a look at the DI contenders before the announcement of the 16 team field later today. The D2 and D3 fields were announced on Monday, and are linked here: 2012 D2 field, 2012 D3 field.
The D1 Selection Show can be viewed here, starting at 5pm ET today.
The five regional #1 teams are definitely in, and there are several top 12 teams who placed well, as teams, in the racing this past "Conference Championship Weekend"--beyond that, there are plenty of teams "on the bubble" and just how that bubble might break will have a lot more to do with regional rankings (by whole team) and cross-regional racing results than with the coaches polls.
This is the last year that the selections will consider the five regions that have been used to determine bids until now; next year, at least half the bids will go to the conference winners in those conferences with enough teams to qualify for Automatic Bids. We won't get into these Automatic Qualifiers--or AQ's--here, but we have noted the schools which also won their conference this year, just to give a sense of how that might look next year. There were a number of conference winners this year who rank well outside the "top 20 nationally/top 4 regionally" criteria that will winnow the field, but for the record--and possibly as a peek at who could be part of Selection Tuesday 2013--here they are, with the name of the conference they won: Bucknell (Patriot), Drake (MAAC), San Diego (WCC), Northeastern (CAA), and Rhode Island (A-10).
We are going to let the NCAA Selection Committee do the actual picking, but here are the teams we think they will be taking a hard look at ahead of today's Selection Show.
A few notes:
we’ve listed teams according to the most recent coaches' poll, from May 2nd, throughout finishes in conference noted below are by TEAM V8 placing at each schools conference championship is also listed, but Team placing will be the primary criteria “key wins” and “key losses” refer to V8 regular season results, unless noted otherwise and, just to clarify, by "team" we mean the three NCAA D1 events--I Eight, II Eight, & Four--that, in aggregate, determine the NCAA champion in Division 1
These are the five projected #1 teams in each of the five DI regions; each will receive a bid:
Harvard-Radcliffe (New England) California (West - PAC-12 Champion) Michigan (Central - Big Ten Champion) Princeton (Mid Atlantic - Ivy League Champion) Virginia (South - ACC Champion)
That gives us 5 of the 16 teams; 11 spots left.
At-Large bids will almost certainly include these three top ten teams, listed in the order they had in the May 2nd poll:
Ohio State (Central)
Second in Big Ten, V8 2nd, projected #2 team in region UCLA (West)
Third in PAC-12, V8 4th, projected #3 team in region Washington (West)
Second in PAC-12, V8 3rd, projected #2 team in region That gives us 8 of the 16 teams; 8 spots left.
These next four squads are likely to garner At-Large bids as well, based on regional ranking and/or V8 finish at each's conference championships--though the case could be made that the bubble starts right here this year, and some of these teams could be on it. Listed, again, in order of the May 2 poll, with a look at each team's key wins & losses in the V8:
Southern California (West)
Fifth in PAC-12, V8 2nd, projected #5 team in region
key wins: (undefeated) Virginia, Washington, UCLA, Princeton, Yale, Michigan State, Notre Dame; key losses: none (until 2nd to Cal at conf champs.) Wisconsin (Central)
Third in Big Ten, V8 3rd, projected #3 team in region
key wins: Stanford, Brown, Minnesota, Indiana; key losses: Cal, Michigan, Ohio State
Yale (New England)
Third in Ivy League, V8 4th, projected #2 team in region
key wins: Harvard-Radcliffe, Brown (at conf champs.); key losses: Michigan, USC, Ohio State, Princeton, Brown, Cornell Cornell (Mid-Atlantic)
Fourth in Ivy League, V8 2nd, projected #2 team in region
key wins: Yale, Dartmouth, Minnesota, Clemson, Penn; key losses: Virginia, Princeton, Harvard-Radcliffe Brown That gives us 12 of the 16 teams; 4 spots left.
That brings us to the five teams clearly “on the bubble” for the last four spots and the case for each. This list includes the (projected) top 3 in each region at least, again in the May 2 poll order, with key wins & losses:
Brown (New England)
Fifth in Ivy League, V8 5th, projected #3 team in region
key wins: Harvard-Radcliffe, Yale, Cornell, Washington State, Texas; key losses: Michigan, Princeton, Wisconsin, Harvard-Radcliffe*, Cornell*, Yale* (*at conf champs) Stanford (West)
Fourth at PAC-10s, V8 5th, projected #4 team in region
key wins: Notre Dame, Texas; key losses: Cal, USC, Washington, UCLA, Wisconsin, Michigan State Michigan State (Central)
Fourth in Big Ten, V8 4th, projected #4 team in region
key wins: Stanford, Northeastern, Clemson, Minnesota, Penn; key losses: Virginia, USC, Michigan, Ohio State Notre Dame (Central - BIG EAST Champion)
First in BIG EAST, V8 #1, projected #5 team in region
key wins: Tennessee, Minnesota, Clemson, Penn, Syracuse; key losses: Virginia, USC, Stanford, Ohio State, Indiana Washington State (West)
Sixth in PAC-12, V8 #6, projected #6 team in region
key wins: Oregon State, Texas; key losses: Cal, USC, Washington, UCLA, Brown, Clemson
To be thorough, and to give each region its due, any of these three teams--all projected to stay ranked within the top three of their region--could well make the field, but only one (Columbia) was even in the top 20 as of May 2nd, so these teams are on the far side of the bubble, at best:
Columbia (Mid Atlantic)
Seventh in Ivy League, V8 #7, projected #3 team in region
key wins: Harvard-Radcliffe, Cornell, Penn (no out of conference racing); Key losses: Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth Clemson (South)
Second in ACC, V8 #1, projected #2 team in region
key wins: Washington State, Tennessee, Texas, Duke; key losses: Cal, Michigan, Ohio State, Washington, Harvard-Radcliffe, Cornell, Stanford, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Northeastern Tennessee (South - Conference USA Champion)
First in Conference USA, V8 #1, projected #3 team in region
key wins: Oklahoma, Texas; key losses: Cal, Virginia, Michigan, Princeton, Washington, Stanford, Washington State, Notre Dame, Clemson Oregon State
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