The Undefeated and the Winless

[NEPAFAN]

My pick of Scranton has their biggest test of the young season tomorrow on the road against Cabrini. Fingers crossed!

[smedindy]

WINLESS
Knightslappy----Macalester      Beat Lake Forest  92-89

A 3-OT heartbreaker!

Only for you and the Lake Forest faithful!

[hopefan]

If I can dodge Maine-Augusta next week, I'm feeling pretty good about my winless pick.

Then there is that big game with Green Mountain on 12/14... 

[Gregory Sager]

IWU (and Mr. Ypsi and HoopsFan) fall off the unbeaten list, 80-75 to Loras.  Loras is the early frontrunner for 'Jeckyl and Hyde' of the year, as they have now knocked both Preseason #5 Wheaton and #2 IWU (both of whom were unbeaten picks), while losing to mediocre CCIW team Millikin and generally sub-par even for the NathCon Rockford.  I defy anyone to make sense of that!!

at least one explanation may be that Millikin is quickly growing out of the 'mediocre' status....

I wouldn't say that. Millikin isn't even at mediocre status yet by CCIW standards. Remember, mediocre means "middle" -- and MU was 4-10 and finished sixth in the CCIW last season. If the Big Blue finishes 6-8, 7-7, or 8-6 and in fourth or fifth place, then I think we can safely describe them as "mediocre" this season.

We're not talking about a micro-set here (the CCIW) - we're talking about the macro-set (the D3 universe) - by those standards Millikin IS mediocre.

I disagree. I'd say that Millikin was south of mediocrity last season. In 2012-13 the Big Blue went 8-17 on the year, which meant that they went 4-7 outside of CCIW play -- and Millikin, which never plays a schedule that's notably difficult by CCIW standards, had an OWP of .448 (129-159) in non-conference play. The Big Blue's four wins came at the hands of Blackburn (2-23), Principia (0-25), Fontbonne (8-17), and Rockford (8-18). MU didn't beat a single team that had a winning record last year; splitting with 12-13 Carthage was the biggest accomplishment of the season.

By the looks of it, Millikin may actually pass by mediocrity and join the above-average by this season's end, though.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

If I can dodge Maine-Augusta next week, I'm feeling pretty good about my winless pick.

Then there is that big game with Green Mountain on 12/14... 

Green Mountain is on a whole other level.

[hopefan]

If I can dodge Maine-Augusta next week, I'm feeling pretty good about my winless pick.

Then there is that big game with Green Mountain on 12/14... 

Green Mountain is on a whole other level.

.. hoops, I think i know what you mean, but heck, they have lost their first two games by an average of 40 per game... against two good teams though....  there's a chance?

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Just wanted to throw this out there... Franklin falls from the ranks of the unbeaten losing @ NAIA-2 Southeastern (FL) 107-97 in OT... 3 of their first 4 games have gone to OT

[smedindy]

IWU (and Mr. Ypsi and HoopsFan) fall off the unbeaten list, 80-75 to Loras.  Loras is the early frontrunner for 'Jeckyl and Hyde' of the year, as they have now knocked both Preseason #5 Wheaton and #2 IWU (both of whom were unbeaten picks), while losing to mediocre CCIW team Millikin and generally sub-par even for the NathCon Rockford.  I defy anyone to make sense of that!!

at least one explanation may be that Millikin is quickly growing out of the 'mediocre' status....

I wouldn't say that. Millikin isn't even at mediocre status yet by CCIW standards. Remember, mediocre means "middle" -- and MU was 4-10 and finished sixth in the CCIW last season. If the Big Blue finishes 6-8, 7-7, or 8-6 and in fourth or fifth place, then I think we can safely describe them as "mediocre" this season.

We're not talking about a micro-set here (the CCIW) - we're talking about the macro-set (the D3 universe) - by those standards Millikin IS mediocre.

I disagree. I'd say that Millikin was south of mediocrity last season. In 2012-13 the Big Blue went 8-17 on the year, which meant that they went 4-7 outside of CCIW play -- and Millikin, which never plays a schedule that's notably difficult by CCIW standards, had an OWP of .448 (129-159) in non-conference play. The Big Blue's four wins came at the hands of Blackburn (2-23), Principia (0-25), Fontbonne (8-17), and Rockford (8-18). MU didn't beat a single team that had a winning record last year; splitting with 12-13 Carthage was the biggest accomplishment of the season.

By the looks of it, Millikin may actually pass by mediocrity and join the above-average by this season's end, though.

Well, Millikin was 213 out of 412 in the Massey. We tend to forget some of the dregs of the East and, conversely, how tough some of the teams are in the Midwest and Great Lakes.

I still stake my claim that mediocre was a good choice. Mediocrity isn't always shown in records.

[Gregory Sager]

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.

[John Gleich]

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.

[Gregory Sager]

Exactly. I think that Massey ratings are a useful tool, but I'd love to see Ken Massey tweak it in order to switch off the WIAC halo effect that PS talked about. Among other things, it's turned the MIAC into the equivalent of Greenland on a Mercator map.

[smedindy]

Yet I rather much debunked that so-called 'halo effect' last year, if you recall. I was defending it against some absolute luddites, but still.

It's all logical if you follow the algorithm and the math. Good by association, yes, but you have to have the results to be good by association (wins, close losses, etc.), else you get thrown to the wolves anyway (see Macalester). One bad result or good result, when the dust settles, doesn't affect things much when you have 400+ schools playing 25 games. If I recall, someone wanted to throw it out because a .500 MIAC team had a high Massey rating, yet in the data was a win over a school that handed another D-2 school its only loss and some other good results (wins and close losses against highly ranked teams). Connect the dots, and, Frank Viola, it makes sense.

I don't care if Magnus is 24-5 for goodness sakes. They lost to Johnson and Wales and Suffolk, for goodness sakes. They had close games against Coast Guard, Lasell (they only beat 'em by 14 points combined in two games, for goodness sakes) and Emmanuel. For goodness sakes, they wouldn't be 24-5 in the CCIW or WIAC. May not even have been .500. Alvernia schooled them in the tourney. There is a decent enough data set to make this work for the most part.

The question is, playing Millikin's schedule, what would their record be? If Millikin played Magnus' schedule, could they be 24-5. Data says prolly.

The halo effect is over-stated. Millikin is mediocre in the entire UNIVERSE of D-3, not our select viewpoints. As I have said many times about defensive stats in baseball - the eyes, they deceive. The numbers, they do not (and the proper numbers to boot).

There's a whole wide world of teams out there - ok - mostly in the Northeast ripe for the NESCAC to pick through to boost their SOS, but still. We get agitated when some hipster doofuses denigrate D-3 because the one time they saw Bard play while they were visiting their bro...

And yes, I realize we are over-analyzing a flippant, throwaway comment on a message board celebrating the good, bad and ugly of D-3 hoops. But it's our job - it's what we do. The egg cannot be put back into its shell. There are a bundle of teams out there, and I think we get spoiled or frustrated by what's in our backyard.

BTW - absolute mediocrity last year could be these teams, near .500 and near the center of the Massey Ratings:

Gettysburg (12-14) - 201
Gwynned - Mercy (15-12) - 202
LaVerne (11-14) - 205
SUNY - New Paltz (11-15) - 209
Chapman - (13-12) - 210
Clark - (12-14) - 211
Bluffton (11-14) - 212

[smedindy]

However, any algorithm has flaws - even the artisan, hand-crafted, small-batch power rankings you find at your farmer's data market. At least they don't have GMO data or preservatives.

[hopefan]

WHAM   BANG     

Mary Hardin Baylor loses at Southwestern.... hopefan and Ralph Turner drop out of the winners contest

Scranton loses to Cabrini...... NEPAFAN out of the winners contest

[Gregory Sager]

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.