The Division III Championships Committee is taking another step in responding to concerns over collection and use of data for championships selection.

In addition to procedural and educational steps it listed in February for addressing concerns about the accuracy of the data and education about the selection process, the committee also will experiment during 2009-10 with making data relating to selection criteria publicly available via the NCAA Web site.

It will make available on a “pilot” basis PDF files listing various data for teams in each region in the fall sports of men’s and women’s soccer, the winter sports of men’s and women’s basketball and the spring sports of baseball and softball.

The data will be posted weekly during the final four weeks of each sport’s season, to permit the Championships Committee, the committees overseeing those sports and the national office’s championships staff to evaluate their value as a tool in correcting data errors and improving the transparency of the selection process.

The pilot is another outcome of efforts by the committee to respond to 2009 Convention Proposal No. 8. Its sponsors expressed frustration about errors in data and pointed to a lack of understanding among coaches and administrators of the selection process. The proposal was withdrawn, but the Championships Committee agreed to review those concerns.

The committee asked to receive a status report from the national office staff at its September meeting on details of providing the data and for implementing the other procedural and educational steps listed in February.

In a separate discussion, the committee also approved a recommended change in how criteria are used in selections.

After permitting the Division III Baseball Championship to experiment last season with weighting the “opponents’ winning percentage” as two-thirds of the strength-of-schedule component of primary criteria, the committee agreed to apply that weighting in all team sports except football and rowing during 2009-10.

Based on a consensus that “OWP” should be weighted more than “opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage,” the committee approved a two-thirds/one-third balance in weighting of those criteria in the sports of baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, field hockey, men’s and women’s ice hockey, men’s and women’s lacrosse, men’s and women’s soccer, softball, and women’s volleyball.

It is the first change in how criteria are used since the committee imposed a moratorium on changes following a 2006 revision that replaced the “quality of wins” index with the strength-of-schedule component.

The committee also agreed to solicit feedback on another proposed change from sports committees during September’s annual meeting with committee chairs. That change would incorporate consideration of home and road games into the strength-of-schedule calculation.

Committee members did not support a request from the Division III Football Committee to combine primary and secondary criteria in its selection process, citing the division’s philosophical preference for emphasizing regional games.

Other highlights

In other actions during its summer meeting in Indianapolis, the committee:

• Approved moving the 2010 Division III Men’s Ice Hockey Championship from Minneapolis to Lake Placid, New York, where it will be hosted by the Olympic Regional Development Authority and Plattsburgh State. Because the 2010 Division I Women’s Frozen Four will be conducted in the campus facility that was to host the 2010 Division III championship, the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association now will host the 2011 championship in Minnesota’s Ridder Arena.
• Approved Augsburg as host of the Great Lakes regional and Delaware Valley as host of the Midwest regional in the 2010 Division III Wrestling Championships.
• Approved a date-formula change effective for the 2011 wrestling championships to move the finals from the first to the second full weekend in March. The change moves the tournament away from the weekend on which Division I wrestling qualifying tournaments are scheduled, a conflict that impacted the availability of officials for the Division III championships.
• Responded to an NCAA Executive Committee request for input on whether championships hosting opportunities should be awarded in states that permit sports wagering. The Championships Committee agreed that such opportunities should be denied only in championships in which sites are predetermined and should not be denied to schools that earn the opportunity to host during a season, and also believes any ban on hosting opportunities should apply statewide.
• Agreed to enforce the requirement that an institutional administrator must represent participating schools in pre-event meetings at championships by imposing a $300 fine for failure to attend and notifying the institution’s president of the absence.