The Undefeated and the Winless

[Mr. Ypsi]

Sheesh!!  I make a throwaway comment (Loras losing to 'mediocre' Millikin) and it sparks the great debate of 2013!

While mediocre literally means 'middle', to me, at least, it has connotative negative overtones.  (My family mocks me for often referring to restaurant meals I didn't absolutely hate, but obvious didn't like, as 'highly mediocre'.)  I meant that Millikin was what they have recently become: not awful (like a couple of years ago), but not yet average.  I have hopes that this year they break through to slightly above average.

(Though I also agree that in the grand scope of 400+ D3 teams, Millikin may already have been above average.  There are a LOT of really bad teams out there. )

[sac]

Massey's greatest flaw is counting exhibiton games prior to Nov 15 as real.  Most of those games happen in the Midwest/West and by association pulls everyone 'up'.

F'instance Hope and Calvin are both having games against D2's Grand Valley State and Ferris State count in his algorithm.  Both were exhibitions and clearly stated as such, so these aren't even the dreaded counts for one but not the other games.

Anyone whose schedule touches those two is 'tainted' to a certain degree.

I've also noticed or think I've noticed more really real games against D2/D1 happen West of the Allegheny's.
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That said I think even if you pull all of those games out and have clean numbers I think you still see the WIAC rate high.   KS's efficiency tracking on his blog should show that nicely once he gets enough data.

[Gregory Sager]

While mediocre literally means 'middle', to me, at least, it has connotative negative overtones.

This is America, Chuck. We like winners. Don't make me recite George C. Scott's Patton speech!

(If I had a nickel for every time I've heard some gung-ho coach say something to the effect of, "We're only interested in being champions here; second place is nothing but the best of the losers," I'd have ... well, a bunch of nickels. )

[KnightSlappy]

Massey's greatest flaw is counting exhibiton games prior to Nov 15 as real.  Most of those games happen in the Midwest/West and by association pulls everyone 'up'.

F'instance Hope and Calvin are both having games against D2's Grand Valley State and Ferris State count in his algorithm.  Both were exhibitions and clearly stated as such, so these aren't even the dreaded counts for one but not the other games.

Anyone whose schedule touches those two is 'tainted' to a certain degree.

I've also noticed or think I've noticed more really real games against D2/D1 happen West of the Allegheny's.
-------------------------------------

That said I think even if you pull all of those games out and have clean numbers I think you still see the WIAC rate high.   KS's efficiency tracking on his blog should show that nicely once he gets enough data.

I know at least the Calvin Ferris game isn't counting, he has it noted ad exhibition on the site. If you see games that were exhibitions for both trends, send him an email. I do it usually one or twice a year and Massey is always appreciative of the input.

[KnightSlappy]

I think Massey was off on that one. I don't see anything in Millikin's performance last season that merited such a high ranking.

If we get down to comparing the dregs of the midwestern teams (Blackburn, Principia, etc.) versus the dregs of the northeastern teams, in order to ascertain whether a team squatting on the midwestern dung heap deserves the glorious title of "mediocre", then we may finally have come to the reductio ad absurdum of D3 basketball cross-regional discussions.

That's one of the drawbacks of Massey... they were "good by association" in the same way that bottom WIAC teams have been in the past...

Oshkosh was 8/17 last year and 166.  Massey had them 6 spots ahead of 24-5 Albertus Magnus for goodness sakes...

Oshkosh defeated one team above .500 last year, Concordia (WI), which puts them a bit higher than Millikin in that regard... And I'm a big fan of Matt Nadelhofer and what he's doing down in Big Blue land... but...

Or River Falls, who was also 8/17 and 139. At least they beat three teams with winning records.

At least 9/18 Superior (136) beat Whitewater... though that was their only W against a .500+ team.

It's not all about wins and losses though with Massey, he takes MOV into account. Oshkosh had their share of blowout losses, but they also lost by 4 at Augustana, by 2 at Stout, and by 10 at Stevens Point. Those are all fairly good results if you're trying to figure out how good a team is, even if they didn't win.

[smedindy]

Sorry, smeds, but I just don't buy it. Given the fact that Millikin lost two out of every three games last season, and had only one victory over a team that even sniffed the .500 mark -- and I saw several of Millikin's victims last year, and they were bloody awful regardless of the time zone that they called home -- I simply can't buy the idea that the Big Blue, who were a team manned almost exclusively by freshmen last season, were middle-of-the-road in 2012-13.

Did you see Lasell? Emerson? Anyone that Magnus played? You may change your tune. You're spoiled, for sure, in your region with quality teams left and right. THAT'S my point. There's a huge universe of teams we don't see that all we have to go by is the results. Let's not be provincial here and consider everything in our D3 set when talking about teams that are great, horrid and in the middle. We tend to know the great teams and the horrid teams - the ones in the middle can have ugly records because they play top competition, but they're still BETTER than teams with gaudy records and weaker competition. We get so hung up on what we see we lose sight of the infinite approximate universe of D3. I'm guilty of it too - that's why I use data and metrics to reign in my eyes and heart.

That's all we have is the data when we compare teams against regions. I can't help you if your 'sensibilities' aren't in line with the calculations when you connect all the teams together - and see who played who - who played who close and who was blown out and how those calculations occur over time.

I'd be accurate to say, "Boy, Millikin is a bad team in the league." Or, "Wow, Millikin doesn't stack up against the teams I've seen."  But really, they're not horrid, just in a tough crowd. The teams we 'celebrate' here - they're the ones that are bad. I'm sure Millikin would have beaten Cairn by multiples of ten last yaer.

I'd prefer to use Pomeroy or Sagarin but they don't do D3. I had a calculation worked out taking three data sets that I found but I don't have that time or energy anymore.

And one way to eliminate the so-called "WIAC Halo" is to stop them from beating quality teams in non-conference, and then have schools from the MIAC stop playing close games with the WIAC schools. Problem solved.

[smedindy]

Massey's greatest flaw is counting exhibiton games prior to Nov 15 as real.  Most of those games happen in the Midwest/West and by association pulls everyone 'up'.

F'instance Hope and Calvin are both having games against D2's Grand Valley State and Ferris State count in his algorithm.  Both were exhibitions and clearly stated as such, so these aren't even the dreaded counts for one but not the other games.

Anyone whose schedule touches those two is 'tainted' to a certain degree.

I've also noticed or think I've noticed more really real games against D2/D1 happen West of the Allegheny's.

I don't know how you can get around the insane "counts for one - not the other" trend. That's a pox on the NCAA. You can't throw out the result for one team - and I'd rather include it than exclude it. Besides, it should only really affect things IF the D3 team has a result that is unexpected. Then, of course, that may indicate the strength of the D3 team anyway (or weakness of the D1).

It'll take a while for any ranking to settle down because of the number of data points. The more data points, the more these things will normalize.

Now, back to the show...

[smedindy]

I think Massey was off on that one. I don't see anything in Millikin's performance last season that merited such a high ranking.

If we get down to comparing the dregs of the midwestern teams (Blackburn, Principia, etc.) versus the dregs of the northeastern teams, in order to ascertain whether a team squatting on the midwestern dung heap deserves the glorious title of "mediocre", then we may finally have come to the reductio ad absurdum of D3 basketball cross-regional discussions.

That's one of the drawbacks of Massey... they were "good by association" in the same way that bottom WIAC teams have been in the past...

Oshkosh was 8/17 last year and 166.  Massey had them 6 spots ahead of 24-5 Albertus Magnus for goodness sakes...

Oshkosh defeated one team above .500 last year, Concordia (WI), which puts them a bit higher than Millikin in that regard... And I'm a big fan of Matt Nadelhofer and what he's doing down in Big Blue land... but...

Or River Falls, who was also 8/17 and 139. At least they beat three teams with winning records.

At least 9/18 Superior (136) beat Whitewater... though that was their only W against a .500+ team.

It's not all about wins and losses though with Massey, he takes MOV into account. Oshkosh had their share of blowout losses, but they also lost by 4 at Augustana, by 2 at Stout, and by 10 at Stevens Point. Those are all fairly good results if you're trying to figure out how good a team is, even if they didn't win.

If you don't use MOV (with a diminishing return) you really don't get a true sense of quality. The hugest bungle of the BCS was taking away MOV because some nimrods and luddites didn't understand the diminishing returns aspect of it.

[NEPAFAN]

I'm out guys, Scranton gets upended at Cabrini.

[KnightSlappy]

I'm trying to do Pomeroy-like rankings this year.

http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/p/division-iii-mens-basketball-efficiency.html?m=1

Takes some time so I can't promise the fastest of updates, but I'm aiming to keep it updated every few days.

[smedindy]

Very nice, Mr. KS.

[smedindy]

A quickie quick look at who is lef in our contest...

UNDEFEATED

FCGrizzlies----Calvin (1)
Greek Tragedy--UW-Stevens Point
NEPAFAN----Scranton
Smedindy----Wooster
hopefan----Mary Hardin Baylor (1)
*Knightslappy----Calvin (2)
Ralph Turner----UMHB (2)
Augie77----Amherst

WINLESS
FCGrizzlies----Cairn (1)
Hoopsfan----Maine Maritime
smedindy----Wheelock
hopefan----Blackburn College
Greg Sager----Cairn (2)
Ethelred----Green Mountain

[John Gleich]

Did you see Lasell? Emerson? Anyone that Magnus played? You may change your tune. You're spoiled, for sure, in your region with quality teams left and right. THAT'S my point. There's a huge universe of teams we don't see that all we have to go by is the results. Let's not be provincial here and consider everything in our D3 set when talking about teams that are great, horrid and in the middle. We tend to know the great teams and the horrid teams - the ones in the middle can have ugly records because they play top competition, but they're still BETTER than teams with gaudy records and weaker competition. We get so hung up on what we see we lose sight of the infinite approximate universe of D3. I'm guilty of it too - that's why I use data and metrics to reign in my eyes and heart.

I get this... but I think, too, that there's something to the fact that teams who tend to win more games find a way to win... and teams who tend to lose more games find a way to lose. 

Teams who win gain more confidence and that begets winning... teams who lose lose their confidence and that begets losing.  As Coach Jack Bennett used to say (modifying Lou Holtz's quote) "You're never as good as you think you are when you win, and you're never as bad as you think you are when you lose."

If Millikin had played Magnus' schedule, perhaps they WOULD have had a much better record (and for Magnus, playing in the CCIW, much worse). But until that trend of winning (or losing) begins, it's so hard to say. At this point, it's all speculation (for goodness sake  ).

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Boy there's been a lot of carnage in such a short time. Down to just smed and myself in the battle to stay alive in both. Could we have everything wrapped up before New Years?

[hopefan]

My winless candidate, Blackburn, loses in Triple OT to Rockford... Doesn't give me much hope for down the road when BC plays Principia or Iowa Wesleyan... perhaps I should have stuck with Prin?