Regionals Preview I

The dust from Sectionals has settled and teams are eagerly anticipating the action that starts this weekend at Regionals. This post offers up my assessment of what could go down this weekend.

Disclaimer: I haven't been to a single college tournament this year (DUI hardly counts), so most of this analysis is based off of results on the Score Reporter, impressions of teams from years past, reviewing availble rosters, and insider information passed along the grapevine. Hopefully those with more informed perspectives will chime in to offer up their opinions!

NORTHWEST
Bids: 3
Teams: 13
Top contenders: Stanford, UBC, UW, Davis, Berkeley
Spoilers: Santa Cruz, Oregon

With three bids, there are a lot of teams that think they have a shot at going to Nationals. And they are right. Unlike many previous years, there is no clear favorite to win the region outright. Berkeley would have been the top choice before Sectionals as it had not lost a single game to NW competition in the regular season. However, Davis and Stanford have been steadily improving all season and were able to upset the Pie Queens at Sectionals. Stanford's improvement has been especially dramatic: it lost to Berkeley 10-3 at the beginning of the season, lost to Davis by one mid season, and turned around to soundly beat both teams at Sectionals. But will it be enough to hold off UBC and UW? UBC hasn't played much NW competition and is a bit of a wildcard. It has a winning record over UW (2-1) and beat Davis in March, so just because it hasn't played many tough games recently doesn't mean it can't win tight matches. UW's chances will likely rest on how well its starters are able to step up into the void left by Claire Suver's torn ACL and whether the weather forecast changes to offer up more zone conditions. The battles in pool play and throughout both the frontdoor and backdoor brackets are what make NW Regionals so exciting to watch. Based on my biased loyalties, I would bet on (hope for) Stanford to qualify, but the other two spots are too close to call...

SOUTH
Bids: 1
Teams: 12
Top contenders: Texas, Truman State
Spoilers: Kansas, Oklahoma, Rice

Texas is the historical favorite here as it has won South Regionals for the entire college careers of all the players in the region. Melee has also had the strongest schedule of teams in the South this year, and facing the tough competition at three Cultimate tournaments is a great way to prepare for the challenges of one bid to Nationals. Texas did lose to Rice at Sectionals, even though the game's significance is tough to interpret: were the 6-5 and 5-6 games between Texas and Rice simply a product of a weird format that only allowed for hour long games? Did Texas lose its focus at Sectionals? Has Rice become a real contender in the region? Meanwhile, Truman State has an impressive record this year (34-9) and faced tough out-of-region competition at both Mardi Gras and Centex. In fact, Truman State gave Wisconsin a closer game (6-13) than Texas has (1-13 and 3-13) this season. It's nice to see a little more parity emerge in the South and one bid certainly ups the ante. I predict Texas holds onto the region by the skin of its teeth.

GREAT LAKES
Bids: 1
Teams: 12
Top Contenders: Michigan, Illinois
Spoilers: Ohio, Northwestern, Ohio State

The Great Lakes missed a size wildcard by one on-time roster this year, so I sincerely hope that all the teams vying for the lone bid got their paperwork in before the early deadline. Michigan won the region last year, overcoming close games at every step of the way in the championship bracket, and then tied for 9th at Nationals. This year, Michigan's main competition at Regionals will be Illinois. The RRI and UPA Top 25's algorithms disagree over which team should be ranked higher, but the fact remains that both have had solid seasons thus far. Illinois' main claim to fame this year is that it took 5th place at Southerns amidst tough competition. Michigan traveled to more tournaments, including QCTU, Terminus, and Centex, and made quarterfinals twice (at QCTU and Terminus). Assuming Michigan and Illinois make finals, the game will come down to which team's big players make more big plays. My money is on Michigan's veteran cast to pull through in the end. Of course, Northwestern and Ohio will be fighting tooth and nail for their shot at the game-to-go and have the talent to offer up some surprises.

Anyone care to comment?

UPA Rostering

Having to tell someone that they aren't eligible to play in the College Series is one of the hardest things I've had to do as either a Regional Coordinator or a coach. This week, I've had to break the bad news in both capacities. To avoid having that happen again, I've been thinking more about the UPA rostering process and how it could be improved.

First off, I want to start by saying how the current rostering process is MUCH better than it was when I first started playing. Part of improving the process was establishing more firm deadlines. It is imperative to know how many teams can advance from a tournament before the tournament starts, which can only happen if college teams submit their final, registrar-certified rosters before the tournament. It is also imperative that every player's eligibility status be verified before they compete in a tournament, which can only happen if teams submit their final, registrar-certified rosters ahead of time. This is all justification for the UPA's hard and fast deadline of turning in all registrar-certified rosters by the Tuesday before Sectionals.

Unfortunately, the UPA's uniform adherence to its deadlines doesn't quite translate into uniform and timely communication about how to meet those deadlines. To be fair, every team has access to the information on the UPA's site ("Rostering 101") which specifically outlines the deadlines. However, there are a number of things that could make it easier for teams to follow these guidelines.

Here is my list for suggestions that would make the process smoother:

• Re-write the "Rostering 101" instructions to improve their clarity and readability. Currently, the instructions are not easy to navigate and instantly understand--no diagrams outlining the major steps in brief, no calendars listing the various layers of deadlines, no pictures differentiating the various types of rosters. Instead, the dense wording and numerous hyperlinks are not consistently organized and often confusingly vague. For instance, there are numerous places where the directions are not explicit about whether the word "roster" is referring to an online-submitted roster or the registrar-certified roster. I think it would be helpful to use an entirely different term for the online roster (perhaps "team database") to reduce any confusion and prevent the situation where a team added players to its online roster/team database but didn't turn in an additional registrar-certified roster addendum.
  
• Update Online Rostering Instructions and make more accessible. In addition to the Rostering 101 page there is an entirely different set of online rostering instructions on the website. This is a step-by-step guide on how to register a team online, but because the link to the page is so hidden (you can only get to it by clicking hyperlinks embedded in other pages' text), I don't know how many teams even found it. Even more troublesome is that some of the information on these pages pertains only to club or only to years past and has not been adequately updated (i.e. references to August deadlines and paper rosters). This needs to be updated and placed more prominently in the online rostering system.
  
• Provide up-to-date information about the status of teams and players.The online rostering system is a step in the right direction towards better communication with teams about their rostering status. Currently, captains can check their online roster to see if players have been registrar-approved, turned in their waivers, and paid their dues. However, this information is not always updated in a timely fashion, sometimes even weeks after paperwork was received at the UPA headquarters. This lag limits the time teams have to address and fix any problems that may have come up with their roster. I know that UPA HQ is a busy place during the weeks leading up the College Series, but there should be a simple way for the UPA to communicate that it (a) received a paperwork packet from a team and (b) is processing a team's paperwork. Perhaps an additional "status" field on the rostering page that pertained to the registrar-certified roster would suffice.
  
• Provide more information to SCs/RCs. The helpfulness of SCs and RCs is limited by the information for which they have access. The only piece of rostering information sent out to the coordinators that teams couldn't ascertain themselves online was a list of which teams turned in on-time rosters, but this list wasn't e-mailed out until a week and a half after the early registration deadline had passed. If a team didn't show up on this list, or had received an extension, the SCs and RCs would have no way of knowing the status of a team's rosters until it was updated online much later. SCs and RCs should have access to more information than that if they are to adequately encourage and support teams for turning in their rosters. Additionally, SCs and RCs often have to seek out and track down teams from their sections or regions at the beginning of the season without the help of the UPA, because all of the UPA's contact information is only relevant for the previous season. Many teams have list servs or general e-mail addresses that are consistent from year to year and the UPA could facilitate contact for the next year by collecting such "permanent" contact addresses and provide them to coordinators at the end of the fall. This would ensure that teams are contacted earlier in the season by their SCs or RCs, starting them on the rostering process earlier too.
  
• Provide more support for dealing with school registrars. In all the instructional information on the UPA's website, there is only one paragraph on getting the roster signed and sealed by the registrar. Yet, obtaining approval from the registrar is usually the biggest hold-up for teams trying to get their roster on-time. Schools' registrar policies are likely to vary between schools, but the UPA could still provide helpful tips for getting the roster signed and approved. Useful tips could include:
• Make an appointment with the school registrar in January or early February to determine what information the registrar will need to process the roster quickly (for instance, some schools require teams to provide Proof of Enrollment certificates along with the roster to aid the verification process)
  
• Include student ID numbers on the roster to expedite the registrar's certification process
• Set a specific date to come back and pick-up the certified roster (rather than just letting the registrar get to it on its own schedule)
• Whenever possible, don't rely on the registrar to mail the registrar-certified roster to the UPA. If the timing is close, a team will want the flexibility of sending the roster through a faster means than regular mail
• Making sure to have some sort of verification that the roster was delivered (i.e. certified mail with return receipt or UPS/FedEx/DHL delivery)
• Provide options to help teams in a crunch. Often the unexpected happens at the last minute (someone gets injured, someone gets sick, someone has to take a make-up exam, etc.) and the UPA could be more flexible in helping teams add last minute additions based on extreme circumstances. Other uncontrollables include an indifferent or difficult registrar. With the early deadline extensions, the UPA already acknowledges that schools on the quarter system need a little help meeting the on-time roster deadline. I think that the UPA could have an additional extension option for teams that have difficulty meeting the Tuesday-before-Sectionals deadline. For instance, a team that received this proposed extra extension could be required to fax in a copy of its registrar-certified roster and then get an extra day grace period to overnight mail it in. The faxed copy could serve the planning purposes of the SC, and the UPA would still receive the original copy before Sectionals. If limited to teams in special circumstances, this could be a useful way of helping teams play that would otherwise miss the deadline. No one should have to hop on a plane to physically place the roster in the UPA's hands to meet the deadline...

I know that this post is quite lengthy, so thanks for making it this far. My goal is to be able to collect other suggestions for improvements so that I can provide the UPA with feedback as part of the yearly RC evaluation survey. Do people agree with my suggestions? What other changes should the UPA institute for the college rostering process?