You may hear the NCAA Tournament-speak being thrown around and if your team is new to the playoff chase or you are new to Division III in general, there are some terms you may not be familiar with.

One of them is the concept of "Pool B." That's the term the NCAA uses for a handful of bids that it sets aside every year for teams that aren't in a conference with an automatic bid.

There's no safety net for these teams. If you have a bad November or December you can't make up for it by winning your conference tournament. So every game counts, and it's hard to rest easy.

Take Aurora, for example. The Spartans lost their starting point guard, then lost two games in November and two games within the past two weeks. How are they holding up as tourney time approaches? Read more in Around the Nation.

&&g-boxr&&Pool B has some familiar faces among its perennial contenders as well. Chapman, an independent, has been a mainstay in the NCAA Tournament on the women's side and Maryville (Tenn.) has done the same on the men's side, each winning a first-round game before falling last season. Each is looking strong in 2008 and we check in with them as well.

Getting into a conference with an automatic bid is usually the goal, however, or getting your own conference up to seven eligible teams and through the two-year waiting period. That may have come one year too late for Grove City, which won the Presidents' Athletic Conference men's tournament in an upset last season but, at 16-12, wasn't going to get a bid. Thankfully, this year they're still in a position to take advantage of their league's new automatic qualification. More about the Wolverines in Around the Nation.

Plus, we take a look at conference tournaments to look forward to, along with a great Senior Day gift and a tough debut season.