What will the committee do with a Whitewater team that has nine losses but a stellar strength-of-schedule? Photo by Steve Frommell, d3photography.com

Our mock selections are a team effort. Dave McHugh, James Wagner, BJ Spigelmeyer and Gordon Mann walked through the process on Sunday's Hoopsville Selection Special. Ryan Scott and Pat Coleman handled the bracketing.

Remember that these picks do not influence the NCAA Tournament selection committee's picks, nor does our Top 25 poll. Those are the two most common misconceptions for people who don't like our picks. 

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We start by projecting the regional rankings for each of the eight regions in Division III basketball because that's how the process actually starts. The regional committees that have been producing regional rankings do it one more time and then send them to the national tournament selection committee. That committee may make adjustments to the regional committees' selections, which can alter which teams are regionally ranked, which then changes some teams' records against regionally ranked opponents (one of the primary criteria for selecting at-large teams).

Compared to Wednesday’s regional rankings, we made a couple of key adjustments:

• Marymount jumps over Mount St. Mary for second in the Atlantic Region
• Smith stays in front of Middlebury in the Northeast Region, though we’re not sure why. We like the Panthers’ resume better than the Pioneers', especially because Middlebury beat Smith. But the Regional committee had that data and kept Smith in front of Middlebury entering the weekend, so we assumed that was still true.
• Emmanuel moves into the bottom of the Northeast Region rankings, which helps St. Joseph’s (Maine)

Eventually the national committee ends up with a final set of regional rankings, which we'll hopefully get to see after the projections are released this year. Those rankings include teams that have clinched automatic bids, which are set aside for the bracketing stage. Then the highest ranked team without an AQ within each region comes to the table for consideration as an at-large candidate. There are eight teams up for consideration at any point, one from each region. When a team is picked, the next highest ranked team within that region comes to the table.

Like last season, we start the mock selection process by picking the team that will receive the one Pool B bid reserved for teams in conferences without an automatic bid.

Unlike last year, when we had slim pickings, this year’s Pool B eligible teams has undefeated Thomas More, which will probably sit atop the Top 25 when the Tournament starts on Friday. The Saints have had this bid locked up since early January because of their front-loaded schedule.

There is another set of Saints with a good candidacy for an at-large bid. Marymount won the Atlantic East Conference, which is in the first year of a two-year waiting period for its automatic bid. Marymount is eligible for one of the 20 Pool C bids, and (spoiler alert) we think they’ll get one.

Moving on to the 20 at-large bids, here's the order of our selections, with the lucky winner noted in bold. The candidates are listed by region in the following order for each round -- Northeast, East, Atlantic, Middle Atlantic, South, Great Lakes, Central and West.

Round 1: Bowdoin, Rochester Tech, Marymount, Gettysburg, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Hope, Chicago, Loras
Round 2: Amherst, Rochester Tech, Marymount, Gettysburg, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Hope, Chicago, Loras
Round 3: St. Joseph’s (Maine), Rochester Tech, Marymount, Gettysburg, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Hope, Chicago, Loras
Round 4: St. Joseph’s (Maine), Rochester Tech, Marymount, Gettysburg, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Hope, Wheaton (Ill.), Loras
Round 5: St. Joseph’s (Maine), Vassar, Marymount, Gettysburg, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Hope, Wheaton (Ill.), Loras

The order may vary, but these teams are all safely into the field so it doesn't matter until we get to bracketing.

UW-Whitewater comes to the table from the Central and the Warhawks will be a tough call for the Committee. The Warhawks have nine losses but a stellar strength of schedule and six wins against regionally ranked teams, including two over the top team in their region (Oshkosh). St. Joseph’s (Maine) is their mirror image. The Monks are 26-1 but with a weak strength of schedule and only one regional win, and that's only if our earlier guess about Emmanuel is right.

Eventually we’ll have to decide which path we favor – higher winning percentages or higher strength of schedule -- because it shapes the rest of the bracket. For now, we’ll try to walk the middle of the road by picking teams that sit between those extremes.

Round 6: St. Joseph’s (Maine), Vassar, Marymount, Gettysburg, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Hope, UW-Whitewater, Loras
Round 7: St. Joseph’s (Maine), Vassar, Marymount, Gettysburg, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Baldwin Wallace, UW-Whitewater, Loras
Round 8: St. Joseph’s (Maine), Vassar, Marymount, Gettysburg, Emory and Henry, Baldwin Wallace, UW-Whitewater, Loras
Round 9: St. Joseph’s (Maine), Vassar, Marymount, Gettysburg, Emory and Henry, Rose-Hulman, UW-Whitewater, Loras
Round 10: St. Joseph’s (Maine), Vassar, Marymount, Gettysburg, Oglethorpe, Rose-Hulman, UW-Whitewater, Loras

The South Region was a demolition derby this week with every regionally ranked team but Texas-Dallas and Emory picking up a loss. We keep Oglethorpe in front of Emory because of a head-to-head win all the way back in the season opener.

Round 11: St. Joseph’s (Maine), Vassar, Marymount, Johns Hopkins, Oglethorpe, Rose-Hulman, UW-Whitewater, Loras
Round 12: St. Joseph’s (Maine), SUNY Geneseo, Marymount, Johns Hopkins, Oglethorpe, Rose-Hulman, UW-Whitewater, Loras

At this point the other teams on the board either have a couple more losses than St. Joseph’s or those teams don’t have an overwhelmingly better strength-of-schedule. So the Monks finally get the call.

Round 13: St. Joseph’s (Maine), SUNY Geneseo, Marymount, Elizabethtown, Oglethorpe, Rose-Hulman, UW-Whitewater, Loras
Round 14: Smith, SUNY Geneseo, Marymount, Elizabethtown, Oglethorpe, Rose-Hulman, UW-Whitewater, Loras
Round 15: Smith, SUNY Geneseo, Misericordia, Elizabethtown, Oglethorpe, Rose-Hulman, UW-Whitewater, Loras
Round 16: Smith, SUNY Geneseo, Misericordia, Elizabethtown, Emory, Rose-Hulman, UW-Whitewater, Loras

Sheesh, we went a long time before picking a West Region team. There are other teams with similar numbers, but we can’t see the West getting shut out completely. Augsburg comes to the board with no wins against regionally ranked teams.

Round 17: Smith, SUNY Geneseo, Misericordia, Elizabethtown, Emory, Rose-Hulman, UW-Whitewater, Augsburg
Round 18: Smith, SUNY Oneonta, Misericordia, Elizabethtown, Emory, Rose-Hulman, UW-Whitewater, Augsburg

We’re taking a chance that the National Committee will value the Warhawks’ strength-of-schedule and finally give them an at-large bid.

Round 19: Smith, SUNY Oneonta, Misericordia, Elizabethtown, Emory, Rose-Hulman, UW-La Crosse, Augsburg

Now we’re down to the last pick. We scratch Trinity (Texas) for its sub-.500 strength of schedule. We scratch SUNY Oneonta because its SOS is only marginally better than Trinity’s. We scratch Augsburg because they lack a win over a regionally ranked opponent and lost to La Crosse who’s still on the board. We scratch Rose-Hulman because it's hard to make a case for them over the other teams based on the numerical criteria.

That leaves us with Elizabethtown, La Crosse and Smith.

We like Elizabethtown’s two wins over regionally ranked opponents better than Smith’s four because E-town beat two teams that are in the field (Scranton and Marymount) and Smith only beat one (Hartwick).  La Crosse has wins over Oshkosh and Augsburg, which are also good, but the SOS advantage is significant enough that we take the Blue Jays over the Eagles.

Elizabethtown is our last pick and Southern Virginia comes to the table as we turn the lights out.

So there you go. Our projected 20 at-large bids go to Amherst, Baldwin Wallace, Bowdoin, Chicago, Elizabethtown, Emory and Henry, Emory, Gettysburg, Hope, Johns Hopkins, Loras, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Marymount, Oglethorpe, Rochester Tech, St. Joseph's (Maine) SUNY Geneseo, Vassar, Wheaton, and Whitewater, with Thomas More getting the Pool B bid.

Now we move on to bracketing.

Every NCAA Division III bracket tends to have the issue of trying to take teams from the eastern part of the country and move them west. That was the same with this bracket. Often those teams land at sites in Ohio, but we don't have any teams in Ohio who are hosting. Therefore, the struggle was, how do we move those teams to Indiana instead? Or Kentucky?

It went like this:

Bracket 1

at Bowdoin: Bowdoin vs. Western New England; Hartwick vs. Haverford
at SUNY New Paltz: New Paltz vs. Rosemont; St. Joseph (Maine) vs. Eastern Connecticut
at Scranton: Scranton vs. Rutgers-Newark; Vassar vs. Merchant Marine
at Amherst: Amherst vs. SUNYIT; Marymount vs. Elizabethtown

The sectional round here could be played just about anywhere.

Bracket 2

at St. Thomas: St. Thomas vs. Bethany Lutheran; Wheaton (Ill.) vs. Wisconsin Lutheran
at Transylvania: Transylvania vs. Piedmont; Illinois Wesleyan vs. Emory
at Chicago: Chicago vs. St. Vincent; George Fox vs. Baldwin Wallace
at Wartburg: Wartburg vs. Ripon; Hope vs. UW-Whitewater

This sectional round could be played at Chicago, at UW-Whitewater if they advance, at Illinois Wesleyan or Wheaton if they advance. There's enough centrally located schools to make this viable.

Bracket 3

at UW-Oshkosh: UW-Oshkosh vs. Greenville; Washington U. vs. Loras
at Messiah: Messiah vs. New England College; Ithaca vs. Hunter
at DePauw: DePauw vs. Rhodes; Emory & Henry vs. John Carroll
at Trine: Trine vs. Shenandoah; RIT vs. Gettysburg

A geographically diverse bracket but with plenty of connective pieces in Indiana to make things possible.

Bracket 4

at Thomas More: Thomas More vs. Hilbert; SUNY Geneseo vs. Oglethorpe
at DeSales: DeSales vs. MIT; Christopher Newport vs. Westfield State
at Texas-Dallas: Texas-Dallas vs. Texas Lutheran; Mary Hardin-Baylor vs. Pomona-Pitzer
at Tufts: Tufts vs. Husson; Johns Hopkins vs. Emmanuel

Imagine a team from New York playing a team from Atlanta in the first round! Or four regions represented in the Trine pod. Transylvania allows us to meet some teams from Georgia in with a team from Illinois. 

This is a bracket where you envision two teams flying to New England for the second weekend. But we got out of here with two first-round flights and a reasonable shot at two flights for the second weekend. Winner! Or maybe the committee would agree to let the No. 1 team in the country host for one final time before leaving for the NAIA.