Seeing Arkansas make last year’s NCAA tournament, while Air Force and Drexel got nothing, was bad enough. I never thought I’d see a series of decisions that bad again—at least from anyone not named Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Architects, Inc. Turns out I was wrong. Quite wrong.

The NCAA Division III women’s basketball selection committee released its brackets Sunday night. In a decision that should ease Kentucky fans’ ire towards Gardner-Webb and San Diego, Wesleyan was not among the field of 63, while NESCAC rival Bowdoin, which lost to Wesleyan in Brunswick 62-49, earned an at-large bid. With all due respect to the Polar Bears, there is simply no justification for awarding them an at-large bid while leaving Wesleyan at home.

Let’s first take a look at our friends from Maine. Bowdoin finished 18-8 overall this season (one game better than the 17-9 Cardinals) and 6-3 in NESCAC play. The Polar Bears finished tied for third with Wes, but the Cardinals won the tiebreaker and received the third seed. Both teams bowed out in the semifinals of the NESCAC tournament, with the seven-time defending champion Polar Bears dethroned by eventual champion Amherst and Wesleyan falling to Tufts for the second time this season.

And that’s where the similarities end.

Let’s look at the team’s quarterfinal games first. Wesleyan defeated Williams by double digits for the second time in as many weeks, cruising to a 19-point win over the Ephs after trouncing them by 18 in the season finale. Bowdoin, on the other hand, edged Bates 55-51 after trailing by seven at halftime. Bates had beaten Bowdoin 62-52 in the teams’ season finale. Both teams were playing at home. Bates entered the game 15-9; Williams, 16-8. Bowdoin’s win was certainly impressive, but it’s pretty tough to beat your archrival by 18 in consecutive games. Advantage, Wesleyan.

But let’s heed Jim Mora’s advice and not talk about playoffs. The teams’ records were virtually identical, but Wesleyan played the 11th most difficult schedule in New England. Bowdoin twice played in-state rivals Bates and Colby—the latter of which was the only team in the NESCAC to win fewer than ten games (9-16)—while Wesleyan had two each against Amherst and Williams, the only two teams in the nation to beat Tufts (23-3) so far this season. Both teams played difficult non-conference schedules, with Wesleyan going 10-3 and Bowdoin 9-4 (excluding Little Three and BBC games, respectively). Wesleyan went 6-2 against opponents that finished with a winning record, while Bowdoin went 5-4.

However, more than half (five) of Bowdoin’s non-conference wins came at home (5-1). The Polar Bears were 2-2 on the road and 2-1 in neutral-site tournament games. Wesleyan went 4-1 at home but 5-0 on the road, including a win at Springfield in Springfield’s own tournament. (Wesleyan went 1-2 in neutral-site games.) Again excluding Little Three and BBC games, the teams had two common non-conference opponents: Salve Regina (14-11) and Emmanuel (22-6). Both teams trounced Salve Regina, with Wesleyan winning 62-44 at home and Bowdoin winning 58-44 in Rhode Island. Both teams played Emmanuel at home, but while Bowdoin fell 72-68, Wesleyan came away with a hard-fought 74-66 win. (Emmanuel finished 12-1 in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference and won the GNAC tournament.)

And then there’s the head-to-head result. Wesleyan defeated Bowdoin 62-49 on Jan. 26 at Bowdoin, against a team that once won 76 in a row at home. When the two teams are so evenly matched, shouldn’t the edge to the team that beat the other in its house by 13?

One could certainly make the point that Wesleyan’s home loss to Middlebury in the penultimate game of the regular season did in the Cardinals. Certainly, losing 36-32 at home to an inferior team hurts. But you know what else hurts?—Losing the best player in the conference an hour before tip-off.

Had Ali Fourney ’09 not been rushed to the hospital just before that game, there’s no question that Wesleyan would have won. That would have made the Cardinals 7-2 in the NESCAC (though their seeding would not have changed) and 18-8 overall. Still, the difference is negligible—and the selection committee is supposed to take those things into account. (For the record, Bowdoin barely escaped Middlebury, 54-51, on a three-point play with one second left.)

There really is no justification for choosing Bowdoin over Wesleyan. Ideally, the NESCAC would have gotten four bids, and both teams would have made it in. But as it is, they’re Bowdoin, the seven-time NESCAC champions, and we’re not. Like it or not, you can’t deny that big-name teams generally don’t have to worry too much about their bubbles bursting. There really is no other way to explain Bowdoin making it in over Wes.

It’s a shame the committee can’t just take the 21 best teams that didn’t win their conference tournaments.