Top 25 talk

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) · January 31, 2006, 05:15:19 PM

It's still way early for a lot of conferences to be blown apart yet. The NESCAC has five teams within two games and all five of them have 4 regional losses or less. They are just dominating the NE this year.

smedindy · January 31, 2006, 05:24:03 PM

As opposed to any other year?

Mr. Ypsi · January 31, 2006, 07:47:53 PM

Quote from: Old School on January 31, 2006, 01:07:40 PM
Quote from: Hoops Fan on January 31, 2006, 11:40:04 AM
The same thing happens in the WIAC. There are a bunch of teams in the 18-30 range that would struggle to win four games in the WIAC, but we have to discount some of these teams because they beat up on each other. It's exactly the reason so many of the WIAC teams are getting votes.

River Falls is a stellar 5-14 on the season and just 4-7 in conference ...

I hadn't noiced that record 'til you pointed it out.

So RF is 1-7 nonconference and 4-7 in the WIAC - hmmm! And here I always thought you guys were tough!

sac · January 31, 2006, 10:13:34 PM

Quote from: Hoops Fan on January 31, 2006, 05:15:19 PM

It's still way early for a lot of conferences to be blown apart yet. The NESCAC has five teams within two games and all five of them have 4 regional losses or less. They are just dominating the NE this year.

Call me when they play a round-robin schedule otherwise their standings are completely irrelevant to any conversation comparing different conferences or regional records.

Greek Tragedy · January 31, 2006, 11:37:50 PM

Quote from: Hoops Fan on January 31, 2006, 05:15:19 PM
It's still way early for a lot of conferences to be blown apart yet. The NESCAC has five teams within two games and all five of them have 4 regional losses or less. They are just dominating the NE this year.

NESCAC....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I'm with sac!

Also, I don't think it's too early to see what conferences have run-away leaders or not. The WIAC is nearly 3/4 done with their conference schedule (11 of 16) and just about all of the conferences are past the midway point of their respective schedules.

smedindy · January 31, 2006, 11:43:00 PM

Our league plays a round / robin minus two (due to travel concerns with a few teams) and I sometimes feel inadequate about that - it's not like the NESCAC schools have to drive from Meadville, PA to Crawfordsville, IN on a weekday. Beating the snot out of Babson and Connecticut College doesn't do much good, I don't think, when an extra game against Trinity or Tufts or Bates could really help.

Mr. Ypsi · February 01, 2006, 12:43:21 AM

Quote from: smedindy on January 31, 2006, 11:43:00 PM
Our league plays a round / robin minus two (due to travel concerns with a few teams) and I sometimes feel inadequate about that - it's not like the NESCAC schools have to drive from Meadville, PA to Crawfordsville, IN on a weekday. Beating the snot out of Babson and Connecticut College doesn't do much good, I don't think, when an extra game against Trinity or Tufts or Bates could really help.

Depends on what you mean by help.

The NESCAC gets more than their share of pool C bids because they DO play the (absurd) NCAA tourney rules just right. They don't beat each other up, and instead feast on NE teams who are mediocre, but have gaudy records because they play the truly lousy! For NCAA tourney purposes, it is the CCIW and WIAC who do it wrong. If top CCIW teams played more games against top SLIAC teams instead of each other, they'd have 4 (or more!) teams in the tourney!

Nevertheless, for those who care about CONFERENCE standings, anything short of a double round-robin is a disservice. To use the usual NESCAC standings lately (rather than this year), how fair is it to Trinity if both Amherst and Williams happen to be road games? In the NCAC, how fair is it if a team gets to play Woo and Witt only once this year? (I'll make an exception for large, two division, conferences: a double round-robin within the division, and once each again teams in the other division is the best one can do!) Aside from those two division conferences, anything short of a double round-robin makes a mockery of the conference championship. Unless a team is truly dominant, the schedule-makers rather than the teams may decide the title.

Knightstalker · February 01, 2006, 09:42:55 AM

When the NJAC split the ten teams into two five team divisions that is what they did. Each division played a round robin and then once against the teams in the other division. I thought this would help the NJAC get two teams in but only NJCU made it in 03-04. It was abandonded last year when NJCU left for a year and we are back to double round robin this season which I like better even though the NJAC endes up beating each other up, I think it makes for a stronger champion.

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) · February 01, 2006, 09:59:36 AM

The MWC does the double round-robin minus two, which is helping Grinnell this year as they only have to play Carroll once.

The NESCAC is ovbiously the class of the NE region; they always are. However they rarely have five teams among the six best teams in the region. Usually the top of some of the other conferences can compete, but they're not having it this year. If I were a Midwest fan, I'd be worried about the "nationally by regional criteria" when it comes to these NESCAC teams this year. I think its dumb too, but its going to give them a better shot at three tournament teams, when the CCIW deserves it just as much, if not more.

diehardfan · February 01, 2006, 12:42:38 PM

Quote from: Hoops Fan on February 01, 2006, 09:59:36 AM
The MWC does the double round-robin minus two, which is helping Grinnell this year as they only have to play Carroll once.

The MWC is a rather different case. They have an abbreviated schedule for academic reasons (22-23 games), and they play in a region with some pretty great teams. People are already whining and moaning about how Lawrence doesn't play anyone... can you just imagine if they played two more conference games?

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) · February 01, 2006, 12:45:19 PM

We've been kind of discussing this on the MWC board, but it seems like it would be more fair to cut out two non-con games and make the conference schedule a full round robin, especially when only four teams make the tournament.

diehardfan · February 01, 2006, 12:53:58 PM

Oh, I totally agree that it is more fair as far as internal conference affairs are concerned... the fairness of things like that drive me nuts (some sorta wheaton complex about how everyone should be doing the fair and right thing, but anyhow).... I was just pointing out that the situation is significantly different.

The anal retentive in me had to correct my spelling.... (cough)

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) · February 01, 2006, 12:59:13 PM

I'm not defending the NESCAC, just saying that they are much more competitive amongst each other than in years past. Although, I think the emergence of five teams to the top of the region is more a case of the region being down slightly this year. Not to take anything from Bates and Tufts, they are good, but the NESCAC, overall is no better than it was last year.

diehardfan · February 01, 2006, 01:12:02 PM

It actually never occured to me that you were defending the NESCAC. I think we are completely in agreement here... as long as you admit that it is probably better for the best MWC schools to play a CCIW school, or a WIAC school, or a HCAC school over one of the bottom teams in their conference.

Greek Tragedy · February 01, 2006, 02:26:31 PM

Quote from: Mr. Ypsi on February 01, 2006, 12:43:21 AM
The NESCAC gets more than their share of pool C bids because they DO play the (absurd) NCAA tourney rules just right. They don't beat each other up, and instead feast on NE teams who are mediocre, but have gaudy records because they play the truly lousy! For NCAA tourney purposes, it is the CCIW and WIAC who do it wrong. If top CCIW teams played more games against top SLIAC teams instead of each other, they'd have 4 (or more!) teams in the tourney!

They don't beat up on each other because they only play each other ONCE! I know what you mean.

OK, so the NESCAC beats up on weak NE teams and then, in turn, have great records, but how does that explain their high (if they do) QOWI if all the teams they beat up on suck? It's a serious question. I mean, are they beating up on bad teams that are beating up on really bad teams? So, does that mean we have to look at the opponents' opponent's records?

At first thought, I would love just to play the other WIAC teams just once, adding another 8 nonconference in-region games, but then again, I wouldn't change it at all. I love being able to play the home and home series. One thing I would probably do is go the MWC route and just have the top four make the conference tourney and having the top seed host a Friday/Saturday tourney.