Top 25 discussion

[CNU85]

Correct. It is 18 to be eligible to participate in post season play

[Augie2020]

Thanks

[Darryl Nester]

How They Fared (Complete)

Three results to be added when those games are complete.

Top 25

Rank	Pts	Team	W-L	Results
#1	600	Christopher Newport	19-0	02/05 at Mount Mary canceled; won at Wheaton (Ill.), 69-53; won at Finlandia, 90-67
#2	579	Trine	17-2	def. Kalamazoo, 82-38; won at Alma, 83-56
#3	576	Hope	18-1	def. St. Mary's (Ind.), 80-46
#4	567	Transylvania	17-0	02/02 vs. Franklin postponed; won at Defiance, 87-53
#5	531	Simpson	19-1	won at Luther, 85-49; def. Luther, 90-66
#6	502	Whitman	20-1	won at Pacific, 60-52; won at Linfield, 82-45
#7	455	Tufts	17-3	def. #25 Smith, 78-69; LOST at Trinity (Conn.), 42-60; won at Connecticut College, 78-45
#8	440	UW-Whitewater	20-2	def. UW-La Crosse, 56-54; won at UW-River Falls, 63-54
#9	404	John Carroll	17-2	won at Heidelberg, 105-71; won at #26 Marietta, 83-67
#10	394	New York University	17-1	def. Rochester, 85-63; def. Emory, 66-55
#11	348	Amherst	16-2	won at Worcester State, 59-49; won at Colby, 59-47; won at #28 Bowdoin, 72-54
#12	338	Baldwin Wallace	15-3	won at Mount Union, 66-51; def. Otterbein, 68-48
#13	322	DePauw	18-2	def. Hiram, 77-44; def. Allegheny, 98-37
#14	261	Wisconsin Lutheran	17-0	won at Lakeland, 70-49; def. Aurora, 76-69
#15	241	Mary Hardin-Baylor	17-2	won at T#34 Texas-Dallas, 55-46
#16	238	East Texas Baptist	15-4	won at Howard Payne, 73-48; LOST at Sul Ross State, 73-77
#17	203	Messiah	17-2	def. Lebanon Valley, 67-46
#18	139	Catholic	17-2	LOST to Elizabethtown, 63-72 OT; def. Juniata, 70-39; won at Drew, 59-50
#19	114	Wartburg	16-4	won at Luther, 73-45; won at Nebraska Wesleyan, 69-52
#20	113	UW-Eau Claire	17-5	won at UW-River Falls, 67-54; def. UW-La Crosse, 71-58
#21	95	Scranton	19-2	def. Moravian, 60-59 OT; def. Goucher, 82-36
#22	86	St. John Fisher	19-2	won at Houghton, 65-46; def. Hartwick, 67-61; 02/05 vs. Sage postponed; def. Sage, 98-63
#23	79	Springfield	18-2	def. Clark, 87-43; def. T#37 WPI, 61-56
#24	76	Trinity (Texas)	18-2	def. Centenary (La.), 84-48; def. Austin, 74-51
#25	72	Smith	17-2	LOST at #7 Tufts, 69-78; won at Wheaton (Mass.), 71-50; won at Coast Guard, 87-57

Others receiving votes

Rank	Pts	Team	W-L	Results
#26	68	Marietta	17-4	won at Muskingum, 91-73; LOST to #9 John Carroll, 67-83
#27	63	Hardin-Simmons	14-4	won at University of the Ozarks, 92-63
#28	51	Bowdoin	16-5	def. Maine-Presque Isle, 87-59; def. Hamilton, 78-41; LOST to #11 Amherst, 54-72
#29	44	Gettysburg	18-2	def. Bryn Mawr, 100-27; def. Franklin and Marshall, 56-36; def. Ursinus, 63-49; won at Ursinus, 69-48
#30	28	UW-Oshkosh	15-5	won at UW-Platteville, 59-47; LOST at UW-Stout, 56-58
#31	15	Bates	11-6	LOST at Connecticut College, 50-63; LOST at Trinity (Conn.), 59-64
#32	14	UC Santa Cruz	13-2	won at La Verne, 117-72; def. Lincoln (CA), 100-58
#33	13	Albion	16-5	def. Kalamazoo, 75-45
T#34	11	DeSales	15-3	def. Stevens, 80-63; def. FDU-Florham, 81-44
T#34	11	Texas-Dallas	10-5	LOST to #15 Mary Hardin-Baylor, 46-55
#36	8	Roger Williams	19-1	won at Curry, 93-24; won at Gordon, 71-59; def. Endicott, 67-54
T#37	7	Gustavus Adolphus	14-4	LOST at St. Mary's (Minn.), 64-67; def. St. Catherine, 95-45
T#37	7	WPI	16-3	won at Wellesley, 54-32; LOST at #23 Springfield, 56-61
#39	5	Ohio Northern	14-5	LOST at Otterbein, 60-65; def. Capital, 71-46
#40	4	Ithaca	17-3	won at Union, 66-56; won at Skidmore, 71-60
#41	2	Redlands	14-4	LOST to Whittier, 40-43; won at Chapman, 75-57
#42	1	Augsburg	15-4	won at St. Catherine, 67-50; def. St. Olaf, 58-42

[Baldini]

One more thought crossed my mind today -- the emergence of the spoiler in D3 women's hoops. They need a cooler name. Maybe something like Bounty Hunter? Boba Fett is cool again, right?

In a Galaxy Far Far Away (two years ago), the really good Division III women's basketball teams very rarely lost to teams outside the Top 30 or so. They lost to each other or not at all, even in the NCAA Tournament.

This year we have a couple teams that I think are Bounty Hunters -- someone who could bust a Tournament bracket by beating a home team hosting in the First Round, and not just someone hosting because the men's team somewhere else had hosting priorities for the first weekend.

Because these are Bounty Hunters and not Jedi Knights, they are probably not Top 25 teams. They will not go on long Tournament runs. They will fall into a Sarlac pit and lose by double digits in the second round.

Think Bethany Lutheran.

The Vikings beat UW-Oshkosh early in the season and I got irrationally excited about the Vikings.

Could they go 25-0? Should I look at flights to Mankato, Minnesota to cover the NCAA Tournament? Would my wife mind if we renamed our first child Hanna Geistfeld Mann?

Then they lost to St. Benedict by 19.

Then I went through this mood swing again when BLC beat UW-Eau Claire.

That's it! They're back! Get in here, Hanna Geistfeld Mann, and we're going to do the Skol chant!

And then they lost four in a row. I think BLC is really good and really exciting, but not really deep enough to go deep in the Tournament. But, man, I'd hate to face them in the first round.

So who else is a Bounty Hunter?

Maybe Bates? If Bates beats Tufts this weekend and bags Amherst, Tufts and Bowdoin in the same year, they should get their own Mandalorian-style miniseries. But they aren't Jedi Knights because they lost to WPI and Susquehanna. They have to reach at least the Sweet 16 and maybe the Elite 8 to earn this totally arbitrary accomplishment I just made up.

Maybe UW-Eau Claire is really a Bounty Hunter? They have four losses, but they have two wins over Trine and Simpson!

If Albion beats Hope or Trine the second time around, the Britons are Bounty Hunters.

The Banana Slugs of UC Santa Cruz are Bounty Hunters, though I also have them on my Top 25 ballot. There are slug-shaped characters in the Star Wars universe? Something cooler than Jabba the Hutt, I hope?

Who else?

That's really good stuff.

Maybe Redlands with a win over Wartburg?

Ithaca could be a tough first out also, don't think they have played a bad game yet.

Carroll has the win over UW-Whitewater and seems to be hitting a groove.

Are you starting to warmup to Ithaca Gordon?

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Interesting to me how these two teams are being treated in their respective rankings:

Team A: 18-2 (17-2 vs D3), best win vs Massey 103, Avg Massey ranking of D3 wins 305
Team B: 17-0 (14-0 vs D3), best win vs Massey 84, Avg Massey ranking of D3 wins 253

Team A is the Yeshiva MBB - currently ranked #6 but will no doubt fall in the next ranking due to their recent loss to Massey 196. 

Team B is the Webster WBB team - has not had a single vote this entire season.

Yes, I get that MBB and WBB are two different worlds so to speak, just seems pretty interesting to me...

[HOPEful]

Prior to the latest contest, Hope had beaten Trine in every one of their previous 7 meetings. Every single one of those games featured a elite Trine team. Beating an elite in conference rival 3 times in one season is extremely difficult, and Hope was able to do it both last season and the season prior.

My point is... losing to the now #2 team in the country after beating them on their court and in the previous 6 meetings hardly warrants a drop in the rankings.

If they had played CNU's schedule, I'm convinced both Trine and Hope would be undefeated. I think the same of Simpson. I'm not a voter, but if I were, my rankings would go 1. Hope, 2. Trine, 3. Simpson...

My fourth team would be a toss up between Whitewater and CNU. I totally understand why CNU has received 1st place votes. What I don't understand is how the unanimous #1 team loses one game in 62, to the #2 team in the country the second time seeing them this season, and they lose 22 of the 25 first place votes!?

[scottiedawg]

Interesting to me how these two teams are being treated in their respective rankings:

Indeed fascinating.

I would guess Yeshiva got a lot of cred via the winning streak & Turrell. And lots of people HAVE seen them play. But wooooooo is that a terrible SOS.

[scottiedawg]

RE: HOPEful

I think in general (very very very hand wavey) voters REALLY dock a team for a loss, since the top teams in D3 WBB lose so rarely.

e.g. Albion has 5 losses. But 3 are to Hope, Hope, Trine. Do we really think Albion is that different from 2-3 loss teams like Puget Sound, WPI, Ithaca, St. John Fisher, Scranton, DeSales, MHB, Catholic, Trinity? I would say not.

And then there's the problem of the #1 spot having a ceiling. If the #2 team loses, there's a limit to how much the #1 team can "move up" (they likely gain a few vote advantage over the #2 spot if the team in the #2 loses). But in the extreme hypothetical where the #2 ranked team loses every week (different team each week), I think you could still see a scenario where if the #1 team loses, they fall out of the top spot.

[gordonmann]

Baldini:

Yeah, I've come back around on Ithaca.

I was pretty high on the Bombers coming into this season, then cooled after the losses to Cortland and Rocheter. Now those losses don't look so bad. Cortland is running away from the rest of the SUNYAC and has won 15 in a row. Rochester beat NYU. Even Vassar isn't a really bad loss.

Plus Ithaca has two very decisive wins over teams in our Top 25 (Scranton and St. John Fisher).

During the last two weeks I've gone back to some teams which were on my preseason ballot, and then dropped off because of losses last semester. Ithaca is one of those teams, as is Messiah and Rhodes (whom is on my ballot this week).

HOPEful:

I think Scottie is exactly right. Teams generally drop when they lose, even if the loss was as much a case of the law of averages as anything else. Hope wasn't going to beat Trine forever.

Flying Dutch fan:

One key difference between Yeshiva and Webster is that the last time there was a national postseason Yeshiva won two games in the first round of the NCAA tournament and was headed to the Sweet 16. If Yeshiva had lost in the Skyline finals in 2020 or the first round of the 2020 NCAA Tournament, they don't have the winning streak, the expectations or the national profile.

The Webster women also made the 2020 Tournament but they got blown out by DePauw in the first round.

That said, Webster won't be totally shut out in the voting this week.

[HOPEful]

I think Scottie is exactly right. Teams generally drop when they lose, even if the loss was as much a case of the law of averages as anything else. Hope wasn't going to beat Trine forever.

I understand and even agree to some extent. What I think is crazy is just how prevalently they fell. The fact that only Ryan Scott and two other voters think Hope is still the best team in the country seems ridiculously low to me.  They're still the Massey #1 by a fairly substantial margin. They're still the only team in the country with a top 10 scoring offense and a top 10 scoring defense. Did I expect Hope to lose some first place votes? Yes. Did I expect them to perhaps fall out of first. Probably. But I did not expect them to lose all but 3 first place votes.

[CNU85]

I think Scottie is exactly right. Teams generally drop when they lose, even if the loss was as much a case of the law of averages as anything else. Hope wasn't going to beat Trine forever.

I understand and even agree to some extent. What I think is crazy is just how prevalently they fell. The fact that only Ryan Scott and two other voters think Hope is still the best team in the country seems ridiculously low to me.  They're still the Massey #1 by a fairly substantial margin. They're still the only team in the country with a top 10 scoring offense and a top 10 scoring defense. Did I expect Hope to lose some first place votes? Yes. Did I expect them to perhaps fall out of first. Probably. But I did not expect them to lose all but 3 first place votes.

I tend to agree. If I was voting I would have had it...Hope, Trine, then CNU.  CNU's sos is weak but what has impressed me is how they are handling the travel and the crazy scheduling prompted by the weird conference arrangement.

[scottiedawg]

I think there's at least 3 and perhaps as many as 6 teams that are quite defensible as #1.

I think if we wiped all past polls from voters' memories, and had them construct a "first poll of the year" based on what they've seen and team's resumes, I think we have a differently ordered poll. Prior polls are likely a mental anchor.

(and to be clear, I'm not placing myself "above" this. I'm sure I'd be pulled in by the same anchoring were I a voter)

[VT-Alum-NOVA]

When are regional rankings coming out?

[deiscanton]

When are regional rankings coming out?

Women's regional rankings come out on Wednesdays, starting this week.  First week will only have the ranked teams listed alphabetically since results vs RRO cannot be used to make rankings this week since we have no RROs yet.

[Baldini]

I believe the SOS's have just been added to D3 Hoops, am I wrong, or has it been there all basketball season?

https://www.d3hoops.com/seasons/women/2021-22/schedule?tmpl=sos-template