Mississippi College and Mary Hardin-Baylor are in the same conference. This may not be news to most but it apparently was to the NCAA selection committee. Photo by Pat Coleman, D3sports.com

The American Southwest Conference has sent a letter to the Division III championships committee chairs regarding the importance the committee places on geographic proximity when selecting tournament host sites.

This past season, both the Mississippi College men and Howard Payne women were ranked No. 1 in the South region by the respective committees, won their conference tournaments and advanced to the Sweet 16. Because of the emphasis on geographic proximity, both teams were sent on the road to play at lower seeds.

"Student-athletes ... deserve to play in a postseason tournament whose bracket and subsequent site selection is determined by season-long play (i.e., seeding) and not by cost-saving prompted by geography," the letter, signed by conference commissioner Amy Carlton, states. "The message now being sent to a student-athlete seems to be cost-savings are more important that competing in a fairly bracketed tournament."

In addition to the conference being snubbed for sectional hosts, the Division III men's committee released its original bracket with ASC members Mary Hardin-Baylor and Mississippi College scheduled to play each other in the first round, contradicting the committee's own published guidelines. Teams were told the mistake was made because the committee did not realize Mary Hardin-Baylor and Mississippi College were members of the same conference.

"The geographical location prong ... includes rotation of sites," the letter continues. "The American Southwest Conference coaches would like for that 'rotation of sites' to more regularly include our institutions, regardless of the cost to travel other teams. ASC basketball members, along with other institutions located in the western United States, continue to travel in the sectional round, despite earning the opportunity to host as a higher seeded team in the bracket. The 500-mile radius standard and the premise of choosing sites based on the fewest air flights means ASC and other western schools are much more likely to not host a basketball sectional, especially if any tournament participants located within 500 miles of the higher-seeded campus have probably already been paired up in first/second-round contests, leaving no one to lessen the number of air flights.

"To clarify, the American Southwest Conference basketball coaches are not opposed to traveling in the championship if that is how tournament seeding and true bracketing falls. It is the contrived bracket that places geographic-proximity and cost-savings above seeding which is unacceptable to our basketball membership."

The conference also rejected a proposal to cut back the number of conference games scheduled from 21 (20 in the ASC's East Division) to 18 and 17. The change would have opened up teams in the conference to schedule games against other Division III teams. East Texas Baptist's women's team went 22-5 but was not selected as an at-large team, most likely because the Tigers played zero non-conference games against Division III schools.

The proposal was defeated 17-3, with three abstentions.