WBB: American Southwest Conference

[inthepaint]

The day is coming, and will soon be here, when HSU is an automatic addition to any top ten list! 

Regroup and gear-up Cowgirls!  It's a long off season but 2009 will be here before you know it!

[twoblindrefs]

Top 5 discussion:

How can you have Messiah 6th? They played in the National Championship, shot lights out in the semi-finals and played a very good Tufts team in the Elite Eight. While Hope may well be 2 (I haven't seen them), Messiah is the 2nd best team I have seen all year.

[Ralph Turner]

Top 5 discussion:

How can you have Messiah 6th? They played in the National Championship, shot lights out in the semi-finals and played a very good Tufts team in the Elite Eight. While Hope may well be 2 (I haven't seen them), Messiah is the 2nd best team I have seen all year.

How can I have Messiah 6th?

Respectfully, because I think that side of the bracket was that weak, relative to the five teams that I have above them.

Messiah was dismantled by HPU and handled as effectively as they handled McMurry.  I saw the webcast of that game. Messiah pushed to within single digits in the second half, and HPU stretched it back out.  Most of my HPU friends think that the toughest defense played on Daniels this season came from McMurry's guards, Amber Horton and Dominique Brown.  Messiah did not have near the tenacity of defense in the front court that we saw in McMurry vs. HPU.

Messiah goes to Shani, and HPU counters with stronger defense than Messiah had seen in the tourney.

If Hope had won in Brownwood, then I think that Hope wins the tourney by 20 points in front of the home crowd. 

[fanstand]

Ralph, YOU ROCK!!

[sethhpu]

Nice explanation Ralph, interesting points!

[Ralph Turner]

Nice explanation Ralph, interesting points!

Seth, I had one other thought about the defense that McMurry put on Daniels.

Meia scores 37 on Hope!  Does anyone of us think that McMurry's Amber Horton or Dominique Brown let Daniels score 37 points on them?  Hope took away the post play and got killed by Meia!

I was sitting with a friend from another part of the country who was seeing Meia for the first time as she played Hope.  He just kept nudging me and mumbling quietly...

"Daniels has score 9 points."
"Daniels has score 12 points."
...
"That's 17!"
...
"Thirty-seven points."

In fact, after Marcus Fitzsimmons, the Hoopsville South Region beat-reporter, saw Amber Horton, he thought that she was the most aggressvie defender that he had seen.   He really liked her defense.

IMHO, after Meia had had to go against Horton and Brown four times this year, she was ready for anyone else in the country.

And boy, her play in the tourney was a thing of beauty. 

[Pat Coleman]

Oglethorpe at home beat Trinity by 11; McMurry at home beat Oglethorpe by 3.

I had Oglethorpe ahead of Trinity. Because Messiah beat Oglethorpe, I had Messiah ahead as well.

[dballa]

If we're all comparing scores then we have to look at the Messiah/Concordia game even though it was in Cancun.

Messiah beat CUA by 32 and McMurry beat CUA by 15 in Abilene then 7 in Austin.

[sethhpu]

I agree that McM played the best defense on Meia. It may have been the opportunity to see her for so many games that they knew the best way to stop her. Horton and Brown defintely were more physical with Meia than anybody else was for sure.

[mcmfan]

Oglethorpe at home beat Trinity by 11; McMurry at home beat Oglethorpe by 3.

Pat,
When did McMurry play Oglethorpe?

[golfniz1]

HPU had other weapons to help Meia and that was key in all their games this year.
By having these weapons it openrd alot up for her so she could do her thing.  As posted earlier McMurry and HSU were the 2 toughest over all teams that HPU played this year.  As good as Hope is I feel that if Hope would have played these 2 teams 4 and 3 times this year like HPU they would have lost to 1 or both of these teams.  Just my thought seeing all 3 teams play this year. Go HPU and the ASC!

[Ralph Turner]

Oglethorpe at home beat Trinity by 11; McMurry at home beat Oglethorpe by 3.

I had Oglethorpe ahead of Trinity. Because Messiah beat Oglethorpe, I had Messiah ahead as well.

Oglethorpe beat Trinity by 3 at Hendrix in the post-season SCAC tourney.

Yeah, that is a good resume.

[gordonmann]

I don't have a vote in the women's Top 25, but I think the voters have McMurry slotted appropriately.  That is, I don't see enough evidence to justify putting McMurry as high as number 5.

Four of the loses come to Howard Payne, which I don't hold against McMurry, given Howard Payne's undefeated run.  But it's also hard to use loses alone as proof of a team's strength.  Everyone lost to Howard Payne so that's not a distinguishing characteristic. 

If you want to compare margins of HPU defeats between McMurry and the tournament teams, McMurry lost to Howard Payne by 12 and 15 on the road.  That's better than DeSales (who is ranked below McMurry) and worse than Hope (who is ranked above McMurry).  On a neutral floor McMurry lost to HPU by 22.  That's far worse than either Messiah or UW-Whitewater did.  That's also worse than Chapman fared, though that's going really far back.

McMurry's other loss came to Birmingham-Southern.  You could throw that out since the Panthers still have scholarship players.  Then again, BSC was beaten by unranked Hendrix and Rhodes so it's not like beating the Panthers was an impossible task.  I'd call it a wash and just ignore it.

While McMurry is admittedly a victim of its geographic placement, there aren't any wins on their schedule against ranked teams.  St. Thomas and Greensboro made the tournament but didn't receive a single vote in the final poll.  Trinity (Texas) got just two votes and was beaten by larger margins by Carthage (at home) and Oglethorpe.  Like the HSU wins, these are nice but they don't look better than other teams' victories over ranked opponents.

And if you play the comparative score game again, Oglethorpe had a larger margin of victory against Trinity at home than McMurry did.  Oglethorpe beat Trinity by one less point in the SCAC playoffs than McMurry did in the NCAA playoffs, but the Stormy Petrels played on a neutral court, not at home.

This isn't intended to pick on McMurry who had a great season.  And I know they can't help their isolation or the reported absence of willing opponents.  But there really isn't much to justify putting McMurry higher other than a shared affiliation with the champion.

PS – I'd consider the UAA and NESCAC as stronger conferences than the ASC based on the strength of the top four teams in each.

[Ralph Turner]

I am glad to get the discussion of the ASC by the gurus. 

Since the ASC-West swept the ASC-East in the post-season tourney, I think that we must use HPU, McM, HSU and UMHB as the top of the ASC.

The games versus NESCAC and UAA teams by ASC opponents include only the Concordia-TX win over Carnegie Mellon (7-18/0-14) by 56-65.

Respectfully, the last 4 BSC losses occurred in the last 7 games, when Reba Ross was injured.

[mytwocents]

Excuse me Ralph.  I did not see it posted here but Messiah did beat DePauw by 14 on a neutral court.  I understand you are proud of HP and your conference (deservedly so) but cut us Yankees some slack.   You would rank Messiah 6th?  Geesh. IMHO D3hoops final ranking is spot on.  Whatever, Besh Wishes to You and all the HP faithfull.