Top 25 discussion

[gordonmann]

Puget Sound with a nice week, especially the win over Pacific (rough week for Pacific, losing to 2 good teams). (Dave is vidicated!)

I was the UPS voter in the poll, though I assume this refers to Hoopsville. I still might drop them off my ballot because their top player didn't return from her injury in the Whitman game.

[deiscanton]

Scottiedawg,
Very good initial appearance on hoopsville by you; looking forward to the additional coverage you'll be providing of the D3 women's game.
  Heard u say in the wrapup that u attended the 2006 Hope championship Final 4; would have been there myself, save for a family need at the time. It was back-to-back Final 4s for Hope's 2 opponents there(Scranton and Southern Maine) and I watched the videostream of the semi(arguably, the "championship") where the outcome was within a missed 3-pt attempt of going to OT.   

I personally attended 3 Division III Women's Basketball "Final Fours"-- (1) the 2001 one in Danbury, CT where Wash U won their 4th national title by beating Emmanuel in the semifinals and Messiah in the championship game. (2) the 2006 one in Springfield, MA which had Hope with Bria Ebels, Scranton with Taryn Mellody, Southern Maine starring Ashley Marble and Megan Myles, as well as Hardin-Simmons, and (3) the 2007 one, also in Springfield, MA with DePauw, Wash U, NYU, and Mary Washington. 

No DIII basketball "Final Four"-- either men or women, have been played in the New England region since 2007, and I don't anticipate any DIII basketball "Final Four" will be played in the New England region anytime in the near future given the need for an arena at least the size of Tsongas Arena in Lowell or Agganis Arena in Boston to host those championships.  Even in Springfield, MA, the DIII basketball "Final Four" (men or women) would have to be played in downtown Springfield at the MassMutual Arena now, rather than at Blake Arena on the Springfield College campus.

The Brandeis women played in the 2006 and 2007 NCAA DIII basketball tournaments (the first 2 of a 4 year streak of making the field in those tournaments)-- but lost in the second round in both of them.  (Bowdoin knocked out the Judges in 2006, and Emmanuel knocked out Brandeis in 2007-- DePauw defeated Emmanuel in Boston, MA in the "Sweet 16" the following Friday, which enabled me to personally attend DePauw's run to the national title through the Sweet 16/Elite 8 in Boston as well as the national semifinals and championship game the following weekend in Springfield, MA.)

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Hoopsville is airing at 1:00 PM today and for the next several shows (due to schedule conflicts).



Here is what we have on tap today in terms of guests:
- Jordan Olufson, Webster women's coach
- Meg Barber, #9 NYU women's coach
- Sean Foster, Salve Regina men's coach
- Raul Placeres, #16 Maryville men's coach
- Ryan Scott & Mike Rejniak, Men's Top 25 Double-Take

We will recap the NCAA Convention and hit on some other notes as well.

Again, starting at 1:00 PM ET today. Watch the show here (or On Demand if you missed it): www.d3hoops.com/hoopsville/archives/2021-22/jan24

[gordonmann]

Spoiler alert: I did keep UPS on my ballot and moved them up a slot. And I may even have company voting for them this week!

[saratoga]

Amherst falls a whopping 4 spots after losing to a 7 loss team at home.
Unbelievable.

[scottiedawg]

Biggest Movers:
Wisconsin Lutheran: +60
Springfield: +55
E Tx Baptist: +55
NYU: +53
John Carroll: +49
Mary Hardin-Baylor: +47
Tufts: +40
Wartburg: +36


Marietta: -38
Baldwin-Wallace: -56
UW-Whitewater: -67
Hardin-Simmons: -85
Mary Washington: -87
UW-Oshkosh: -96
Amherst: -131


@saratoga, I do agree with you on Amherst. They just don't have the resume to match their spot and just logged a bad loss. They DID lose the most votes though.  On average voters dropped them 5.24 spots--I think that's a healthy correction.

[scottiedawg]

Vote change as a percentage:
Scranton, 338%
Puget Sound, 330%
Ohio Northern, 200%
Gettysburg, 175%
UC Santa Cruz, 100%
Smith, 75%
Augsburg, 75%
Catholic, 53%
St. John Fisher, 52%
Mary Hardin-Baylor, 51%
Wisconsin Lutheran, 45%
E Tx Baptist, 41%


Marietta, -20%
Bowdoin, -21%
Amherst, -27%
Gust Adolphus, -29%
UT Dallas, -35%
Hardin-Simmons, -47%
WPI, -50%
Bates, -63%
Redlands, -67%
Mary Washington, -84%
UW-Oshkosh, -97%
Salisbury, -100%
Millikin, -100%

[Royals85]

Question why is Amherst only falling 4 spots?They lost two games in a week?I have seen teams lose two games in 3 weeks and fall out of the top 25!!!

[Royals85]

Yes big jump but they started at 286 pts and with two losses went all the way down to 8 pts during a 9 game winning streak they kept falling!Last loss Dec-12 against a very good Steven's team 12-2 ,Also beat some good teams in Desales,@Catholic,@Susquehanna,Salusbury,Etown!Dont forget also had BW lined up in Florida.(Covid did that in).So two losses Ithaca 14-2 3rd game of the season

[scottiedawg]

To properly value a team you have to look beyond their resume. It's the relative comparison of their resume to every other team's resume. And the resumes for other teams are also changing as well.

[Royals85]

Agree like Hamilton 8-8 after they beat Amherst. They lost to Middlebury.In my eyes that is a very ugly loss for Amherst and should have stumbled alot further down.Just my opinion

[Royals85]

But Thank You!

[scottiedawg]

Yup. I think what we're seeing is the voters in general value Amherst higher than you and I do. And those voters absolutely revised their sentiments on Amherst downward in the latest poll. Now, not as far as you and I would advocate for, but such is the nature of voters, non-voters, and differing values of the data!

[gordonmann]

I'm an outlier among the voters, but I'm with you guys. I dropped Amherst 10 spots on my ballot because losing to Hamilton at home is not a good loss. How bad is it? Here's the list of games lost by Top 25 teams to opponents with .500 or worse records.

* Amherst loss to Hamilton on Saturday
* Mary Hardin-Baylor loss at Colorado College on November 26.

That's it. That's the list.

So there's no question that Amherst is being treated differently than the other teams.

Why?

Two potential explanations

1) Amherst beat Tufts and Tufts is ranked in the Top 10: I personally discount that win because Tufts was missing Maggie Russell. Without her, Tufts struggled to beat NJCU. With her, they beat Bates pretty comfortably. And Bates and Amherst played each other close twice and split the results, so I don't consider the Amherst loss to Bates to be a fluke. Those teams are evenly matched. But it's tough to just waive that win at Tufts away when it happened about two weeks ago.

2) Amherst is still Amherst Do you remember the last time a GP Gromacki led Amherst team played in the NCAA Tournament and lost in the first weekend? It's a trick question -- it hasn't happened! They've been a Top 16 team for over a decade. So I do understand voters giving them the benefit of the doubt, even if I've decided that other teams have a better resume this year. I half expect to hear about this post from Amherst during the second weekend of the tournament, after they shut down some poor host team in the second night of the tournament and beat them by 20. Gromacki's teams are that good defensively.

This week I decided to add a couple teams to my ballot with clusters of losses -- Carroll (which lost three straight in December) and Augsburg (which lost its first three games). Carroll smashed the IWU team that handled my preseason CCIW favorite, Millikin. They also beat UWW which is on the very short list of teams that I think could hang with Hope. Voting for Carroll -- what could go wrong?

Augsburg has quietly won 12 straight and is leading the MIAC. There's a good chance the best team in that conference, whomever it is, is one of the best 25 teams in the country.

But that raises a question. Is there some kind of expiration date on wins or losses?

I basically decided there is for these two teams and, whatever that date is, we're past it. I made the same decision for Scranton whom I have in front of Carroll and Augsburg. The Lady Royals' loss to Stevens is a while ago. They just beat Salisbury and Etown, albeit both at home. So folks don't think I'm pandering, I do have Amherst in front of Scranton because of what happened the last time I picked Scranton to go farther than Amherst.

For reasons I can't fully explain, I don't discount wins the same way. Wins have a longer shelf-life, maybe for the whole season or at least until the NCAA Tournament.

Is that the right approach? Or do we count all games equally?

[scottiedawg]

I feel like you absolutely should. Not sure anyone would disagree. The real question is how much.

Someone might have the opinion that an early November loss is only worth 99% of a mid January loss. Someone else might discount it to 50% or even less.

It's a fascinating aspect to think about.