Top 25 discussion

[Royals85]

8-9 team Amherst lost to!

[Royals85]

Sorry Ryan when I posted that didn't see your message agree with that!25 plus because you always have those other teams fighting to break the top 25!

[Royals85]

My other question is how many women voters do you have because by some statements made for asking a question about the top 25 man did your egos go up especially Patrick Bohn?Sorry for asking not a hypothetical question(Pat Coleman) I'm just curious how the voters vote and why losing to an 8-9 team moves you  only 4 spots down?That was it.Im just a lady asking questions!Seems like you 3 (men)have a problem with a lady asking question

[CNU85]

I've always held the opinion that the top 25 logic has a similar analogy to college acceptance practices. I've personally known someone accepted to Princeton and wait listed at William & Mary. Does that mean W&M is a better school? (rhetorical).

So my analogy is that most of it makes sense but some of it will leave you scratching your head.

Trying to get an answer about why 25 people voted a certain way in a forum where maybe there are 3 of those voters is a futile attempt. You will never get an answer that will get you what you want. Heck...even if all 25 explained their process in detail, I highly doubt that will suffice.

Just my thoughts.

[Roundball999]

I've always held the opinion that the top 25 logic has a similar analogy to college acceptance practices. I've personally known someone accepted to Princeton and wait listed at William & Mary. Does that mean W&M is a better school? (rhetorical).

So my analogy is that most of it makes sense but some of it will leave you scratching your head.

Trying to get an answer about why 25 people voted a certain way in a forum where maybe there are 3 of those voters is a futile attempt. You will never get an answer that will get you what you want. Heck...even if all 25 explained their process in detail, I highly doubt that will suffice.

Just my thoughts.

Well put.  There are no prescriptive rules that the voters have to follow so they're all on the same page.  So much of this is based on the experiences of the individual voter, what games they've been able to see, their personal perceptions of what makes a team strong or weak; a lot of it must boil down to an eye test and visceral reaction to what they see.  While I do think Amherst is given the benefit of the doubt maybe a little too much, there is nothing that says they have to drop more than 4 spots if the voter can't find more than 3 other teams that they honestly believe are better than Amherst.  If it was just about wins and losses we wouldn't need voters.  I'm sure we've all seen undefeated teams that we just know by watching that they aren't better than some .500 teams.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

You also have to look at the teams below them. I haven't voted for Wartburg in a month. I don't think they're better than Amherst. I think Eau Clair is, but they've been just as erratic. Would you definitely pick Springfield or WI Lutheran to beat Amherst?

I think you're better off making the case for other teams to move up than for Amherst to move down. This week, I was fully expecting to leave Amherst off my ballot all together, but by the end, I couldn't justify it.

No one is making an impassioned defense of Amherst here, because, I think, lots of people are skeptical, but they're also skeptical of all but 5 or 6 other teams as well.

[scottiedawg]

I've always held the opinion that the top 25 logic has a similar analogy to college acceptance practices. I've personally known someone accepted to Princeton and wait listed at William & Mary. Does that mean W&M is a better school? (rhetorical).

Terrific analogy. Much agreed.

[scottiedawg]

You also have to look at the teams below them. I haven't voted for Wartburg in a month. I don't think they're better than Amherst. I think Eau Clair is, but they've been just as erratic. Would you definitely pick Springfield or WI Lutheran to beat Amherst?

I think you're better off making the case for other teams to move up than for Amherst to move down. This week, I was fully expecting to leave Amherst off my ballot all together, but by the end, I couldn't justify it.

No one is making an impassioned defense of Amherst here, because, I think, lots of people are skeptical, but they're also skeptical of all but 5 or 6 other teams as well.

Well said.  Looking at past resume and underlying statistics, I have Amherst at 21. But thinking more predictive-ly, looking at all these teams I have right ahead of Amherst, who would I actually pick straight up in a single game? I bet I would move Amherst up a lot:
Marietta
DePauw
Springfield
Baldwin-Wallace
UW-Eau Claire
Wartburg
Roger Williams
Carroll
Puget Sound
Wisconsin Lutheran

[Pat Coleman]

Exactly right so my question still stands why treat one team that loses two games in one week differently?

Five games is greater than two games.

[scottiedawg]

How do we evaluate UC Santa Cruz? Do I see correctly they've played only 7 games against D3 opponents? And will only play 4 more?

[IC798891]

My other question is how many women voters do you have because by some statements made for asking a question about the top 25 man did your egos go up especially Patrick Bohn?Sorry for asking not a hypothetical question(Pat Coleman) I'm just curious how the voters vote and why losing to an 8-9 team moves you  only 4 spots down?That was it.Im just a lady asking questions!Seems like you 3 (men)have a problem with a lady asking question

I could not care less if you're a lady or a man.

Your original question asked why one team (DeSales, in this case) was pushed out after losing two games. As I pointed out, they weren't pushed out after losing two games. They were pushed out after losing three.

[scottiedawg]

and also, if there are voters like Ryan who attempt to not use their previous week's votes as a starting point for the new week (which IMO is the way to do it!), then I imagine the preseason poll would have VERY VERY little carryover. You started with basically zero information, and now have a bunch more.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Exactly right so my question still stands why treat one team that loses two games in one week differently?

Five games is greater than two games.

This .. I came here to say this.

So they lost two or three games .. but they played FIVE. And so did a lot of other teams ... in fact the entire DIII world had played a lot of games in the three or four weeks before the first in-season poll came out. So DeSales had played and had results and so had 440 other institutions. ALL of those factor in - not only that DeSales went 2-3. You cannot look at things in a vacuum of only one team ... because NO Top 25 voter is looking at things from the perspective of just one team.

Ryan said it best: so, I'm going to remove Amherst from my Top 25 and indicating there are 25 teams that can beat Amherst. Eh, that's not possible. These 20 ... nope, maybe these 15 can beat Amherst but I'm not sure the rest could. So ... Amherst lost a few games, but they are still better than those a voter is voting for behind Amherst.

You HAVE to look at the ENTIRE poll and ALL the teams being voted on ... NOT just the team you want to see move up or down the poll. There are FAR too many factors and metrics to measure.

... and I'm not a women's voter unless needed. With that in mind ... I would have a hard time not including Amherst in my Top 25 considering mainly the questions and uncertainty of many other programs.

[saratoga]

Royals 85:

"I'm just a lady asking questions"
Was the surgery done in Stockholm?
Not that there's anything wrong with that. 

[scottiedawg]

Top 25 losses by:
#1 Hope
#12 Wartburg
#15 Springfield

#9 UW-Whitewater up by 2 in Double OT

and just noticed some really not great losses on 1/24 by Mary Washington and Carroll

Hoopsville gonna be fun tomorrow!