Displeasure Boiling Over Surrounding NCR D1 Bracket

11.10.2022

NCR released their Men’s D1 College playoff bracket and not everyone is happy.

The bracket includes 10 teams—six straight into the quarterfinals and four teams in play-in games on November 12. The seeds include one each from the Big 10 and Southern Conference, two each from Rugby East and Big Rivers, and four from the Liberty conference.

Therein lies the controversy. It’s a dispute that has been common within American rugby for decades—which conferences or groups get what number of seeds.

It is never a dispute that top-finishers in a conference get a playoff spot; the dispute is usually about what seeds fill out the bracket. Most competitions have brackets that accept non-champions because a) more teams in any playoff get more people engaged and excited and b) you never know who might make a run from a #2 or #3 spot … Northern Iowa made the D2 final in 2021 despite being a #2 seed, for example.

Extra seeds are awarded based on that conference’s depth and past performance, and in this case teams from the Rugby East were convinced they would have at least three seeds to the NCR playoff.

This expectation was backed up by past accomplishments—Rugby East provided both 2021 D1 finalists, and (after the merger with the Chesapeake) Rugby East teams provided all four 2021 D1 semifinalists—St. Bonaventure, Penn State, Queens, and Kutztown.

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

But various factors contributed to that not happening, and Rugby East getting only two seeds:

1. Siena was moved from D1AA to D1 mid-season. This has been covered on GRR but the key thing here is that Siena continued on in its D1AA season, a schedule NCR (by virtue of moving them up to the D1 playoffs) had deemed not sufficiently competitive. What this accomplished was to add Siena to the playoff mix without them having any games against any NCR D1 opponents, thus where they fit in the hierarchy is, essentially, guesswork.

1a. Belmont Abbey, listed by their conference as D1AA all season long and not announced as a D1 team, is also in the D1 playoffs. The Belmont Abbey coaching staff knew they weren’t eligible for the D1AA playoffs, but a D1 playoff scenario wasn’t floated by NCR until late-ish in the regular season. Even then, nothing was set in stone.

Certainly NCR never announced a move for Siena or a plan for Belmont Abbey publicly, and, it appears, other conferences weren’t brought into the loop.

2. Rugby East’s conference schedule runs through November 12, and November 12 is the weekend NCR has assigned for the play-in round. Makes sense since Round 1 is November 19 and December 3 is the weekend for the semifinals. Rugby East’s schedule was released in April—GRR reported on it and listed it April 6. So NCR knew about that date well in advance of finalizing their playoff schedule or making the decision to add teams to the playoff picture.

Thus, going into the 2022 fall season Rugby East teams and their commissioner Scott Zavrel were under the impression that they would be getting more than two seeds and that the schedule as published was fine with NCR. In fact, Zavrel reportedly requested four seeds for Rugby East.

3. In the summer, the Big Rivers conference, made up of six school-supported teams from various divisions, was formed. It was also in the summer that more teams were added to the NCR D1 mix, with Indiana being probably the most important name here because they wanted to play in a playoff and have qualified. Notre Dame and Purdue were possible, but Notre Dame tends not to play in any playoffs, and Purdue struggled this fall.

Will the Plan Survive?

By the beginning of the fall there seemed to be a bracket forming, with Indiana, the Big Rivers Champion, the top two teams from a revamped and expanded Liberty Conference, and as many as four Rugby East teams—such a format would have left room for a play-in or two for, say the Big Rivers #2, Purdue if they played well, or Liberty’s #3.

But Siena being moved to D1 in the middle of the season, basically because they were winning all their D1AA games by massive margins, shook that up. Siena needed a play-in, most certainly, but no efforts were pursued to find them a regular-season game against, for example, a Liberty D1 team. We asked NCR Men’s D1 Commissioner, Brad Dufek, about what NCR could have done to facilitate that and he said it wasn’t his responsibility to set Siena’s schedule.

Belmont Abbey, meanwhile, was performing better than even they expected, running the table in the Southern D1AA Conference. And with Liberty’s top end being perhaps a bit stronger than last year—you could argue that all four semifinalists were strong teams—things started to get complicated.

What we Have Here is NCR’s Failure to Communicate

We are going to refer to “NCR” here and not Dufek or anyone else specifically, because this is a complete organization issue from from the top down. It is unfair to point at one person.

Having decided by fiat to move Siena into the D1 playoffs, NCR needed to take control of the rest of the situation and specifically facilitate a game or two between Siena and D1 opposition. Reports are that Siena could have been included in Liberty’s round of games this past weekend, but what is clear is while that idea was floated, no one followed through. It certainly wasn’t David Chapman’s responsibility at Liberty—NCR had made this bed and should have at least figured out who would lie in it but instead they made the division change and did nothing more.

Having decided by fiat to include Belmont Abbey in the D1 playoffs, NCR could have facilitated a game between Belmont Abbey and Siena. Both Siena and Belmont Abbey were idle November 5—that could have solved that. Also, both Iona and Siena had the week off on October 15, and being within a few hours of each other, could conceivably have played each other.

Rugby East Commissioner Scott Zavrel should have been told much, much earlier exactly how many seeds his conference should expect. The conference members, especially Notre Dame College, which thought until recently they were playing for a playoff spot this coming weekend, are livid. Zavrel, to his credit, took the blame and publicly apologized to the conference members, saying it was up to him to secure seeds and know how it would all shake out.

Zavrel did what NCR is very bad at doing—acknowledging a mistake and apologizing.

Hard to Say I’m Sorry

What NCR members will not say publicly is that they aren’t perfect. The fact that this is only the organization’s second full season running major playoffs other than small college is reason most would be forgiving if NCR acknowledged mistakes. Instead their leadership closes ranks and either keeps quiet or blames others. This is partly because they marketed themselves as a new, shinier, better option than USA Rugby, and thus see any USA-Rugby-like mistakes as inexcusable.

NCR staff refused to acknowledge that including Life University’s development team in their Women’s D1 playoffs in 2021 was a mistake, when it obviously was.
NCR staff refused to acknowledge that leaving Siena in the small-college challenge bracket in 2021 was a mistake, when it obviously was and could have been easily fixed.
More than once collegiate coaches have communicated to NCR staff about sideline discipline or behavioral problems only for the problem to be blamed by NCR on USA Rugby's previous permissive culture.
And now playoff brackets are released late on November 9 for a playoff season that starts on November 12—publicizing everything at the last minute just like NCR’s rival, USA Rugby, always used to do. Meet the new boss …

And finally this fall, the D1 bracket is questionable. Does a brand-new conference with teams brought in from other divisions deserve the same number of seeds as possibly the best conference in the nation? Should teams that have played zero D1 opponents be in the playoffs without being tested? Should Rugby East have been awarded some accommodation for their conference’s strength and size with a third seed straight into the quarterfinals?

Maybe Rugby East doesn’t deserve an extra seed, and then it is up to NCR making that decision to communicate it as early as possible. NCR probably wanted to hedge their bets in case they needed another team—OK, then communicate that.

Or ... It Is What It Is

There certainly are few easy answers in this landscape. With Labor Day, Thanksgiving , and Christmas providing hard edges to the fall season, everything has to be completed on a tight schedule—witness Queens vs Kutztown being postponed because of a hurricane and not being replayed. But if there are no easy answers, pretending you have all the answers is a fool’s game.

The upshot is that there are 10 teams in the NCR D1 playoffs and four of those seeds come from Liberty, while two come from a brand new conference. Meanwhile, the Rugby East, the strongest conference involved, gets two. Moreover, the real upshot is that, justified or not, there are some very unhappy Rugby East coaches and teams.

Notre Dame College is playing Penn State this weekend in a game that would have decided a playoff spot. Now it does nothing of the sort.

And, in case you think we at GRR just point fingers and don't come up with solutions ...

Our Suggested Bracket:

Rugby East #1 vs Belmont Abbey or Siena (Nov 12 play-in)
Thomas More vs Indiana

Rugby East 2 vs AIC or Wheeling (Nov 12 play-in)
Rugby East 3 vs Brown