Top 25 discussion

[VT-Alum-NOVA]

to level set, do coaches vote on top 25 based on who they believe will be in Round of 32 come March?

[gordonmann]

No, probably not.

The criteria for selecting the 64 teams in the NCAA Tournament is different from choosing the Top 25 teams in the country and geography is such a dominant factor in how the Division III bracket is set up that I suspect everyone on the panel understands that some worthy teams may miss the tournament or draw each other in the first round.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

I've never heard a coach or anyone else on a Top 25 panel ever say they are voting with the tournament in mind. As Gordon indicated, there are so many factors in play that would affect that ... but the tournaments are never designed to be the "best 64 teams" in the country. So not fair to vote thinking about a tournament.

[scottiedawg]

It definitely makes sense to ignore the ramifications of NCAA Tournament seeding, regions, hosting, when selecting the D3hoops.com top 25.
That said, it would be very rare for any team in the final poll's top 25 to miss the tournament, right??  If a team isn't getting a Pool A or aren't one of the top ~10-15 Pool C's, doesn't sound like a top 25 team to me.

[scottiedawg]

Okay, here's some stream of consciousness.


Simpson should move from not receiving votes, to the top 25. Beat Wartburg, and a road win over Dubuque. Massey #10. Massey #23 SOS.
North Park had nice wins over Carthage and Elmhurst. They should get some votes.
UW-Oshkosh is a TOUGH one. 7 losses. Just won at Point and vs. Whitewater. VERY hard schedule. I doubt they get votes, but wonder if they would beat 1/3 of teams receiving votes....
Luther is a very similar case. 7 losses. Just won at Loras. Massey has them with the hardest SOS.
Ohio Northern should get some votes. Nice wins at Otterbein and vs. Capital.


Of course, if they're receiving votes, some teams have to receive less.
Misericordia only got 15 votes in the latest poll, and lost this week.
Catholic only had 4 votes; they did win twice, but again, I'm bearish on teams with bad SOS.
Widener is similar. Got only 6 votes. Won twice. Meh SOS.
Messiah, ditto, though a bit better SOS.
Pacific only got 11 votes, and lost this week. They were borderline to begin with.
DeSales would be on the cutting block, but they beat Misericordia this week. They might sneak into the top 25, though I don't think they should.

D3hoops.com 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, all lost this week.
Amherst losing @Hamilton isn't a very good loss.
Whitewater losing @Oshkosh IS a very good loss.
Wartburg losing @Simpson is a good loss.
Loras losing to Luther is meh. Home loss to a team they should beat. But Luther is good.
BW losing at John Carroll is a good loss.

I'd drop Amherst below Whitewater, Wartburg, Loras, Bethel.
Transylvania should NOT move up. They won twice, and their SOS got worse, lol. I'd absolutely keep Amherst, Whitewater, Wartburg, Loras, ahead of Transylvania.

Chicago had a great week. They should get a good bunch more votes.
Outside of those 2 wins, and LaCross beating Stout, not sure any other D3hoops.com top 25 teams beat any Massey top 50 teams this week. So not a lot to move that needle.

Super weird for Austin College to play University of Dallas home and away in the same week.

Cortland had a nice week. Beat Paltz, and 2 road wins.

John Carroll with the big win over BW.

All of my comments above about "x should get more/less votes after their past week" is a relative statement on the votes they received in the latest poll.



What follows below is how I'd slot the teams myself.

How I'd rank them:
1. Hope (Tufts and Bowdoin only seem to get more votes b/c of being ahead in preseason poll. All 3 are undefeated, and Hope has beat much better teams on average.)
2. Tufts
3. Bowdoin

4. DePauw
5. Bethel

6. UW-Whitewater
7. Wartburg
8. Loras

9. Amherst
10. Whitman
11. Trinity TX
12. Baldwin-Wallace
13. Simpson
14. St. Thomas
15. UW-LaCross

16. Augsburg
17. Chicago
18. Mary-Hardin Baylor
19. John Carroll
20. Emory
21. Trine

22. Transylvania
23. Gustavus Adolphus
24. George Fox
25. Albion
26. UT-Dallas
27. IL Wesleyan

28. Scranton
29. Oglethorpe
30. Gettysburg


These 5 teams have among the worst SOS of teams that received votes. I bet if any of these teams lost, they would fall precipitously. Which is why I would rank them lower than the pollsters. I don't know how much their combined 83 wins tell us. Heck, if you gave them each another 5 wins, against the #122 team in the nation (their average SOS), would we care??
Bowdoin
Transylvania
Scranton
Oglethorpe
Gettysburg

Similarly, if Illinois Wesleyan had an easier schedule, they could easily be 14-3 with a #30 SOS, instead of currently 12-5 with a #8 SOS. I bet the former team gets votes, while the latter one doesn't. Granted, losing a game is worse than not playing one at all.

Adjusted record:
W = Win vs. Massey top 100 opponent
L = Loss vs. Massey > 100 opponent

UW-Oshkosh, 4-0
Luther, 4-0
Illinois Wesleyan, 5-0

Bowdoin, 4-0
Transylvania, 3-1
Scranton, 3-1
Oglethorpe, 2-1
Gettysburg, 2-0

Wins over Massey > 250 opponents: "disregards"
UW-Oshkosh, 1
Luther, 2
Illinois Wesleyan, 1

Bowdoin, 3
Transylvania, 7
Scranton, 7
Oglethorpe, 6
Gettysburg, 4

I repeat, we DO NOT KNOW what Transylvania, Scranton, Oglethorpe are. Their resumes are buyoed by wins over teams that no one receiving votes would lose to.


you can play around with the thresholds, but the result is the same, the top 3 have more "good" wins" and fewer "bad" losses.  (Exclude Bowdoin from the bottom group, I included them in the analysis because I was curious. They have an impressive body of work)

And for comparison, the top 3:
Tufts, 6-0
Bowdoin, 4-0
Hope, 8-0

Change the W threshold to 125:
Tufts, 9-0
Bowdoin, 5-0
Hope, 9-0

Bethel is 7-0 vs. Massey top 100. 10-0 vs. top 125.
Simpson is 7-0, 9-0
Only 1 "disregard" for each

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

It definitely makes sense to ignore the ramifications of NCAA Tournament seeding, regions, hosting, when selecting the D3hoops.com top 25.
That said, it would be very rare for any team in the final poll's top 25 to miss the tournament, right??  If a team isn't getting a Pool A or aren't one of the top ~10-15 Pool C's, doesn't sound like a top 25 team to me.

It has happened ... and nearly happened ... often. Remember, criteria is different from the Top 25 voters and the NCAA committees.

There has already been discussion that Wittenberg could be in trouble this year. Their SOS is not very good currently (below .500 I believe; a major Mendoza Line in DIII) and if it stays that way and they lose in the conference tournament... it might happen.

This isn't DI where the top teams are almost assuredly picked ... because the Top 25 hardly consists of mid-majors who might be in jeopardy.

I'd have to go back into the archives, but Top 25 teams in both men and women have missed out on the NCAA tournament in DIII.

[scottiedawg]

How is the criteria different? (I realize I don't know if D3 voters are given criteria they should value or not).

It seems like Win% in conjunction with SOS, are (err, should be?) top line criteria for both??

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

The NCAA SOS is a specific criteria. I don't think voters should be saddled with absolutely using that in their criteria. You are quoting Massey all over the place, so I assume you expect voters to look at it (even though there are some who do not). But that Massey stuff isn't used by the NCAA for it's criteria. Voters vote using the criteria they feel appropriate to guide them on their ballot. NCAA committees use ONLY the criteria DIII has approved for it's championships. There are significant differences.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Here is the NCAA information for your information: https://www.d3hoops.com/interactive/faq/ncaatournament

[scottiedawg]

The NCAA SOS is a specific criteria. I don't think voters should be saddled with absolutely using that in their criteria.

Absolutely. But whether you use OWP, OOWP, some combo, Massey, "bucketizing" (only count "good" wins, or "bad" losses), something else.... how far apart can you really be?

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

The NCAA SOS is a specific criteria. I don't think voters should be saddled with absolutely using that in their criteria.

Absolutely. But whether you use OWP, OOWP, some combo, Massey, "bucketizing" (only count "good" wins, or "bad" losses), something else.... how far apart can you really be?

Simple - Massey's numbers are completely different than the NCAA SOS. We see and discuss it all the time.

Here are the NCAA numbers for women based on our system (there could be a few errors per regional games that I've picked up recently that need to be fixed): https://www.d3hoops.com/seasons/women/2019-20/schedule?tmpl=sos-template (warning, it takes a bit of time to load as it calculates everything).

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Heck - even in DI the numbers are different. Do you think Massey agrees with NET in how they are ranked? And the top seeded teams in the NCAA Tournament don't line up with the Top 25.

[VT-Alum-NOVA]

I would hope final top 25 would not include more than 1 team that did NOT make 64.  I understand AQ and "fluke" losses in conference tournaments could cause a team to miss 64.  But if your team is in top 20 before tournament than miss 64, shouldn't the team be excluded from final top 25 poll?

[scottiedawg]

This brings up a very good point. Often times we're arguing over x team vs. y team, when really we should be arguing that "the NCAA SOS is flawed or good for this reason" and "The Massey algo is flawed/good for this reason." Otherwise we're comparing apples and oranges.

I like the sentiment of VT-Alum-NOVA's comment,

to level set, do coaches vote on top 25 based on who they believe will be in Round of 32 come March?

which can be paraphrased (my interpretation and paraphrase): "is the D3hoops.com poll attempting to use NCAA tourney criteria, to rank teams 1-x in the order that the NCAA selection committee would select 1-x, if all teams were Pool C's?"

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

I'm not sure why you are trying to shoehorn a cube into a cylinder.

I can't spend any more time ... but you now want the D3hoops.com Top 25 to be a Pool C poll? Please name me a single Top 25 (20, 15, whatever) in the country that (a) has any relevance on an NCAA tournament or it's selections and (b) uses NCAA criteria to come up with it's structure? If it was just Pool C, should we just eliminate all the Pool As? SMH

BTW - there are a lot of good teams out there that look lousy when it comes to the selection criteria. I realize you guys may not have been around then, but a few years ago Lancaster Bible was in jeopardy of losing their only game of the season in their conference (NEAC) tournament ... and missing out on the NCAA Tournament.

And Top 25s miss out on the tournaments often - actually. Just happened in football this year. Happens in other sports. You have to understand that there are 42 AQs - more than Top 25 slots - and that leaves us just 22 more selections to the NCAA tournament. When the criteria for everything is wildly different ... you aren't going to always get the Top 25 teams, based on a poll, into the tournament. Some teams look better on "paper" per NCAA criteria than they do to voters. That is just reality.