Top 25 discussion

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

There are a lot of teams who could be #1, but let's make it interesting: who do you all think should NOT be #1 to start the year and why?

[RogK]

No team should be #1 "to start the year."
A pre-season poll is a forecast, not a ranking. Let's get some games played before anyone is positioned ahead of anyone else.

[Baldini]

There are a lot of teams who could be #1, but let's make it interesting: who do you all think should NOT be #1 to start the year and why?

Thomas More should Not be #1 to start the year! 

[jamtod]

There are a lot of teams who could be #1, but let's make it interesting: who do you all think should NOT be #1 to start the year and why?

St Thomas should not be, after finishing last year #3 and losing Hannah Spaulding and several other starters from last year. They'll be good and others will step in to fill the void, but not #1 to start the year.

[gordonmann]

Here's the Top 25.

https://www.d3hoops.com/top25/women/2019-20/preseason

Tough call for No. 1 this year. I considered about six different teams before settling on Tufts, narrowly over Amherst and Scranton.

[ronk]

   Lady Royals garner most first-place votes in the preseason poll but are slotted 3rd behind Amherst and Tufts when all the votes are considered. I figured it would be among those 3 for #1. Bowdoin got 4 1st-place votes, but they lost too much to justify that.

[Baldini]

Nice to see Transylvania get some love in the poll. Without having to deal with Thomas More anymore in their region they could be a sleeper pick to go deep in the tournament this season. 

Thought that Bethany Lutheran would get a few votes and be on the also received list.

[gordonmann]

The UMAC teams are weighed down by their non-competitive results in the NCAA Tournament. They are one of very few conferences without an NCAA Tournament win in the last decade. Being within driving distance of the WIAC schools, Wartburg and St. Thomas doesn't help. But their margins of defeat are comparable to what weak or middle of the pack schools do in the WIAC, ARC and MIAC.

2019: Wartburg 91, BLC 63
2018: UW-Whitewater 81, UW-Superior 46
2017: St. Thomas 98, UW-Superior 56

[Baldini]

The UMAC teams are weighed down by their non-competitive results in the NCAA Tournament. They are one of very few conferences without an NCAA Tournament win in the last decade. Being within driving distance of the WIAC schools, Wartburg and St. Thomas doesn't help. But their margins of defeat are comparable to what weak or middle of the pack schools do in the WIAC, ARC and MIAC.

2019: Wartburg 91, BLC 63
2018: UW-Whitewater 81, UW-Superior 46
2017: St. Thomas 98, UW-Superior 56

At first glance I thought they compared favorably to the Wisconsin Lutheran's and Oglethorpe's of the world, but going with a side by side comparison I agree that their pedigree isn't quite there.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Kind of surprised to see Trine ranked that high, given what they lost to graduation:

Trine lost 4 seniors from last years team (William, Duff, Martin, and Dawson).  4 of their top 6 players who accounted for 56.6% of the points, 41.0% of the rebounds, 49.6% of the assists, and 46.4% of the minutes

[gordonmann]

First, as the poll administrator, let me say that I'm very thankful to all our voters and my opinion is more likely to be wrong than right on lots of things.

That said, Trine is too high.

Trine isn't on my preseason ballot and I didn't even think that long about it before putting them in the "nope" pile.

[Baldini]

Kind of surprised to see Trine ranked that high, given what they lost to graduation:

Trine lost 4 seniors from last years team (William, Duff, Martin, and Dawson).  4 of their top 6 players who accounted for 56.6% of the points, 41.0% of the rebounds, 49.6% of the assists, and 46.4% of the minutes

That is a lot to lose. Hard to believe that they have anyone that will step in and replace what Brandi Dawson gave them, she gave them the luxury of having a player that could always get her shot when they needed one.

[gordonmann]

Agreed.

My question with Trine is whether the Thunder are a great program or whether they had a great senior class with Dawson and Cassidy Williams. They will have a chance to prove themselves during the first semester with road games at Chicago, at Baldwin Wallace and at Calvin in their second MIAA game of the season.

[Darryl Nester]

How They Fared (So Far)

Friday afternoon is an unusual time for me to post my first HTF report, but I figured it was time for me to confirm that my program still worked correctly. (Happily, it does ... one of the few times I have not had to make some beginning-of-season tweaks to the code.)

This lists games through Sunday, November 24 ... but I can change that for my next report, depending on the date of the first in-season poll. If memory serves, it has typically been the first Monday after Thanksgiving, but everything feels different this year (with football season ending so late), so I was not sure. Gordon, can you confirm when the next round of voting takes place?

Top 25

Rank	Pts	Team	W-L	Results
#1	576	Amherst	0-0	11/17 vs. New Jersey City; 11/23 vs. #22 Ithaca
#2	574	Tufts	0-0	11/15 vs. Roger Williams; 11/16 vs. #30 SUNY New Paltz; 11/18 vs. University of New England; 11/23 at Brandeis
#3	568	Scranton	0-0	11/15 vs. Ursinus; 11/16 vs. TBD; 11/23 at King's; 11/24 vs. Wilkes
#4	536	Wartburg	0-0	11/15 vs. #19 UW-La Crosse; 11/16 at UW-Eau Claire; 11/19 at UW-Platteville; 11/24 at Westminster (Mo.)
#5	512	Bowdoin	0-0	11/16 at Endicott; 11/19 at Southern Maine; 11/22 vs. Colby-Sawyer; 11/23 vs. TBA
#6	475	Hope	2-0	def. (n) Luther, 78-48; def. (n) T#42 Benedictine, 92-48; 11/15 vs. Finlandia; 11/16 vs. Hanover; 11/22 vs. Case Western Reserve; 11/23 vs. Juniata
#7	461	Mary Hardin-Baylor	0-0	11/16 vs. Wayland Baptist; 11/19 vs. Concordia (Texas); 11/22 at St. Thomas (Texas)
#8	389	George Fox	1-1	LOST at #39 Trinity (Texas), 55-74; def. (n) #26 East Texas Baptist, 77-69 OT; 11/16 vs. Pomona-Pitzer; 11/17 vs. UC Santa Cruz; 11/22 vs. Chapman; 11/23 vs. Cal Lutheran
#9	364	St. Thomas	2-0	def. (n) #26 East Texas Baptist, 54-40; won at #39 Trinity (Texas), 71-68; 11/20 vs. UW-Superior; 11/23 at St. Catherine
#10	357	DePauw	1-0	won at Earlham, 69-43; 11/15 vs. UW-Stevens Point; 11/16 at UW-Whitewater; 11/22 vs. #17 UW-Oshkosh; 11/23 at #40 Wisconsin Lutheran
#11	354	Trine	0-0	11/15 vs. Marietta; 11/16 vs. Ohio Wesleyan; 11/20 vs. Oberlin; 11/22 at #18 Chicago; 11/23 vs. Kenyon
#12	329	Texas-Dallas	0-2	LOST at #14 Wheaton (Ill.), 62-66; LOST at #18 Chicago, 69-74; 11/16 vs. Southwestern
#13	248	DeSales	1-0	won at Arcadia, 69-47; 11/16 vs. Salisbury; 11/17 vs. TBD; 11/20 vs. Muhlenberg
#14	242	Wheaton (Ill.)	2-0	def. #12 Texas-Dallas, 66-62; def. Lakeland, 59-38; 11/15 vs. Lake Forest; 11/16 vs. TBA; 11/20 vs. #18 Chicago
#15	231	Christopher Newport	2-1	def. TCNJ, 87-45; LOST to #20 Messiah, 50-74; def. N.C. Wesleyan, 95-78; 11/16 vs. Washington and Lee; 11/17 at Bridgewater (Va.); 11/20 at William Peace; 11/23 at Meredith
#16	227	Transylvania	1-0	def. Spalding, 79-57; 11/19 at Berea; 11/23 at Wittenberg
#17	214	UW-Oshkosh	1-0	def. St. Mary's (Minn.), 68-54; 11/15 vs. Augustana; 11/16 vs. TBA; 11/22 vs. #10 DePauw; 11/23 vs. Ohio Northern
#18	193	Chicago	1-1	def. #12 Texas-Dallas, 74-69; LOST to #28 Illinois Wesleyan, 82-89; 11/16 at UW-Platteville; 11/20 at #14 Wheaton (Ill.); 11/22 vs. #11 Trine; 11/24 vs. Kenyon
#19	148	UW-La Crosse	2-0	won at Carroll, 58-55; won at Coe, 61-46; 11/15 vs. #4 Wartburg; 11/16 vs. Simpson; 11/23 vs. Cornell
#20	134	Messiah	3-0	def. Penn St.-Lehigh Val., 71-31; won at #15 Christopher Newport, 74-50; def. T#37 Gettysburg, 68-61; 11/16 at Johns Hopkins; 11/20 at Eastern; 11/23 at #35 Marymount
#21	127	Whitman	0-0	11/15 vs. Concordia (Texas); 11/16 vs. Carroll (Mont.); 11/20 at Walla Walla; 11/23 at Redlands
#22	123	Ithaca	0-0	11/15 at TCNJ; 11/19 vs. Cortland; 11/23 at #1 Amherst; 11/24 vs. TBD; 11/24 vs. Babson
#23	122	Augsburg	2-0	won at UW-Superior, 81-55; def. Northwestern (Minn.), 86-63; 11/19 vs. St. Scholastica; 11/23 at Concordia-Moorhead
#24	120	Washington U.	0-0	11/15 at Loras; 11/16 vs. Augustana/UW-Oshkosh; 11/22 vs. Rhodes
#25	79	Emmanuel	0-0	11/16 vs. St. Joseph's (Bklyn.); 11/17 vs. TBD; 11/19 vs. Connecticut College; 11/21 vs. Becker; 11/23 at Mass-Boston

Others receiving votes

Rank	Pts	Team	W-L	Results
#26	53	East Texas Baptist	0-2	LOST to (n) #9 St. Thomas, 40-54; LOST to (n) #8 George Fox, 69-77 OT; 11/15 vs. Sul Ross State; 11/16 vs. St. Thomas (Texas); 11/23 vs. #39 Trinity (Texas)
#27	45	Guilford	1-0	won at Meredith, 54-45; 11/15 vs. St. Mary's (Md.); 11/17 vs. Mary Baldwin; 11/20 at Ferrum
#28	44	Illinois Wesleyan	2-0	won at Governors St., 78-71; won at #18 Chicago, 89-82; 11/15 vs. UW-Stout; 11/16 vs. TBD; 11/23 at UW-Whitewater
#29	41	Haverford	1-0	won at Immaculata, 65-57; 11/15 at #35 Marymount; 11/16 vs. TBD; 11/21 at Eastern; 11/23 vs. Ursinus
#30	39	SUNY New Paltz	1-0	won at Rochester Tech, 83-80; 11/15 vs. MIT; 11/16 at #2 Tufts
#31	37	Claremont-Mudd-Scripps	0-0	11/16 vs. Puget Sound; 11/22 vs. #34 Emory
#32	32	Baldwin Wallace	1-0	def. (n) Skidmore, 77-63; 11/16 vs. TBA; 11/16 vs. TBA; 11/19 vs. St. Vincent; 11/23 at Washington and Jefferson
#33	25	John Carroll	0-0	11/15 vs. Fredonia; 11/16 vs. La Roche; 11/20 at Denison; 11/23 at Pitt-Bradford
#34	24	Emory	1-0	won at Piedmont, 84-67; 11/15 vs. Lynchburg; 11/17 vs. Colorado College; 11/22 at #31 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps; 11/23 at Pomona-Pitzer
#35	18	Marymount	1-0	won at Shenandoah, 64-39; 11/15 vs. #29 Haverford; 11/16 vs. TBD; 11/20 at Salisbury; 11/23 vs. #20 Messiah
#36	16	Austin	1-0	def. Rhodes, 89-79; 11/23 at Hendrix
T#37	14	SUNY Geneseo	2-0	def. Hilbert, 83-49; won at William Smith, 68-54; 11/16 at Rochester Tech; 11/19 vs. Morrisville State
T#37	14	Gettysburg	0-1	LOST at #20 Messiah, 61-68; 11/16 at Bridgewater (Va.); 11/17 vs. Washington and Lee; 11/20 at McDaniel; 11/23 at Swarthmore
#39	9	Trinity (Texas)	1-1	def. #8 George Fox, 74-55; LOST to #9 St. Thomas, 68-71; 11/17 vs. Hardin-Simmons; 11/23 at #26 East Texas Baptist
#40	7	Wisconsin Lutheran	0-0	11/15 vs. Alma; 11/16 vs. Lake Forest/Wheaton; 11/20 at Aurora; 11/22 vs. Ohio Northern; 11/23 vs. #10 DePauw
#41	2	Oglethorpe	2-0	def. LaGrange, 78-54; def. Piedmont, 83-76; 11/15 at Emory and Henry; 11/16 vs. Randolph-Macon; 11/22 vs. Maryville (Tenn.); 11/23 vs. Otterbein
T#42	1	Benedictine	1-1	won at Augustana, 74-69; LOST to (n) #6 Hope, 48-92; 11/20 at Illinois Tech
T#42	1	Capital	0-1	LOST to Denison, 77-84; 11/15 vs. La Roche; 11/16 vs. Fredonia; 11/19 vs. Wittenberg

[CCD3Basketball]

As a voter, I'm personally hoping we do a new poll this weekend, as based on the results of the last week plus I've got some serious rearranging to do in my poll