Top 25 talk

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Springfield beats Amherst 71-70 - Pride tried to give it away down the stretch, but they just barely hung on.  Great defense from Springfield and an unwillingness to concede when Amherst pretty quickly removed the first half deficit.  Maybe the NEWMAC will be a little tougher than I thought.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

It looks like Denison lost as well.  Capital really getting some big wins this year - too bad they're losing a bunch, too.

[Darryl Nester]

How They Fared (So Far)

A light week of action leading up to the final poll of 2016, with 16 of the 50 vote-receiving teams idle., and 23 more playing just one game.

I discovered late last night that the file format for each team's schedule had changed slightly, so I had to do a little recoding this morning. The good news is that, because of the format change, future reports should now show when a game went to overtime. (The aggregated score reports have always included this information, but individual team pages had not.)

Top 25

Rank	Pts	Team	W-L	Results
#1	622	Amherst	8-1	LOST at Springfield, 70-71
#2	595	Babson	9-1	IDLE
#3	576	Whitman	6-0	12/18 vs. T#35 Wooster
#4	525	Marietta	7-1	12/17 vs. Wilmington
#5	489	Christopher Newport	6-1	12/17 at #10 Salisbury
#6	474	St. Norbert	5-1	IDLE
#7	456	Rochester	10-0	def. Union, 77-58
#8	435	Whitworth	5-1	12/18 at La Verne
#9	396	Tufts	8-2	won at Framingham State, 74-56
#10	390	Salisbury	7-0	12/17 vs. #5 Christopher Newport
#11	336	UW-Eau Claire	8-1	IDLE
#12	314	Benedictine	7-2	won at Aurora, 96-93; 12/17 vs. Marian
#13	267	North Central (Ill.)	6-2	won at Albion, 68-57; 12/17 vs. Robert Morris-Chicago
#14	257	Hope	5-2	IDLE
#15	201	Swarthmore	7-0	12/17 vs. Rowan; 12/18 vs. TBD
#16	187	Denison	8-1	LOST at Capital, 75-84
#17	184	Washington U.	6-2	12/17 vs. #21 Illinois Wesleyan
#18	175	Susquehanna	7-1	12/18 vs. LaGrange
#19	170	North Park	6-1	12/17 vs. Trine
#20	135	UW-Whitewater	7-0	IDLE
#21	112	Illinois Wesleyan	6-2	12/17 at #17 Washington U.
#22	97	Wesleyan	9-0	IDLE
#23	93	Wartburg	8-1	IDLE
#24	63	Augustana	7-3	LOST at UW-La Crosse, 63-74; 12/16 vs. #31 Central
#25	62	UW-River Falls	8-1	won at Carleton, 69-64; 12/17 at Hamline

Others receiving votes

Rank	Pts	Team	W-L	Results
#26	54	New Jersey City	8-1	12/17 vs. Albertus Magnus
#27	49	Neumann	8-0	IDLE
#28	39	Emory	6-2	IDLE
#29	38	Middlebury	7-1	IDLE
#30	30	Endicott	6-2	IDLE
#31	29	Central	7-1	12/16 at #24 Augustana
T#32	27	Chicago	6-1	12/17 vs. Monmouth; 12/18 at Rhodes
T#32	27	Lycoming	8-1	def. Alvernia, 86-85; 12/16 vs. Nazareth; 12/18 vs. SUNY Potsdam
#34	25	Keene State	6-2	IDLE
T#35	23	Wooster	5-3	12/18 at #3 Whitman
T#35	23	Virginia Wesleyan	6-2	12/17 vs. Wesley
#37	19	Claremont-Mudd-Scripps	6-0	12/17 at Westmont
#38	18	Baldwin Wallace	6-2	def. Pitt-Greensburg, 121-59; 12/17 vs. Capital
#39	17	Brockport	8-1	IDLE
#40	15	Misericordia	8-1	IDLE
T#41	14	Bethel	6-1	12/16 at Concordia-St. Paul
T#41	14	Mount St. Joseph	7-2	LOST at Thomas More, 62-65; 12/17 vs. Defiance
T#41	14	Scranton	6-2	LOST at Arcadia, 66-77; 12/18 vs. Emory and Henry
#44	13	Ramapo	8-0	12/15 at Farmingdale State
#45	12	Williams	8-1	IDLE
#46	4	Carroll	5-2	IDLE
T#47	3	WPI	7-2	IDLE
T#47	3	UW-Stevens Point	4-3	LOST at #49 St. Thomas, 64-73
#49	2	St. Thomas	6-3	def. T#47 UW-Stevens Point, 73-64
T#50	1	MIT	7-3	LOST at Mass-Dartmouth, 70-72
T#50	1	Ripon	6-0	IDLE

[HOPEful]

I don't compare one season to the next, generally.  Based on the one actual game between the two, it seemed like Amherst played at or near their abilities throughout - they made fewer errors, hit big shots, and got stops when they needed them.  Still, it feels like mistakes from Babson opened the door to Amherst's heroics more than anything Amherst did to earn them.  Again, we're talking the two best teams in the country, so it's not as if I'm trashing one and praising the other - we're really splitting hairs - as a 2OT game would indicate.

I'd imagine, in a 100 game sample, Amherst would play most games at about 95% of what they did in this one and Babson would play about the same.  That's the difference for me.  I had been voting Amherst #9 until this point, mostly because I hadn't seen anything from them that told me they could really hang with a top team.  The Babson game certainly put those questions to rest - as much as I love you all, your word that these players could step up wasn't quite enough for me to vote on.  Last year, I thought the team relied too heavily on Connor Green and I wanted to see them play good competition without him...

Two takeaways from this...

1.) The first part is a whole lot of subjective opinion. I think it is unfair to respond to any team who just won an incredible back and forth battle to one of the best teams in the country with, "They didn't do anything special to win, Babson just didn't play their best"... Add to that predictions on how it would go if they played again, or at a neutral site, etc. places your subjective opinions to those questions ahead of the existing results. I find that to be somewhat irresponsible.

2.) The second point is important. Amherst may have jumped 7 spots on someone's ranking after that win. I still think it's irresponsible to vote Babson 1 and Amherst 2 immediately following a game in which Amherst beat Babson. However, I do respect the decision more knowing where Amherst and Babson each started before the game was played. How much should Babson be punished for losing to a top 10 team on the road in 2OT?

I try to do my voting as much on subjective opinion as possible.  It seems like the only point of a human poll is to be subjective - we've got lots of computers and conference stands to be objective for us...

...I'm much more comfortable approaching things this way because we do have a tournament.  I'd have a much harder time in something like D1 football where the polls really do count for something.

Thank you for sharing this Ryan. I thinks it's natural for us all to view these things differently, but I find hearing the rationale for other opinions to be fascinating!

Also, it is only fitting that Amherst loses to Springfield after I have been arguing for them as number 1. The amount of undefeated teams out there sure is dwindling!

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

Marietta up 45-19, not even halftime yet.

Just ridiculous how much game dominance they can assert.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Marietta up 45-19, not even halftime yet.

Just ridiculous how much game dominance they can assert.

Spence, we are all aware that Marietta is VERY good this season.  But you're gonna brag about dominating Wilma??  Seriously?  WILMA??

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

Marietta up 45-19, not even halftime yet.

Just ridiculous how much game dominance they can assert.

Spence, we are all aware that Marietta is VERY good this season.  But you're gonna brag about dominating Wilma??  Seriously?  WILMA??

They're usually not a half bad team in the league. Not their best year this year, but certainly no one has beaten up on them like this. Marietta had a 40-12 stretch after being down 7-5.

If they played Babson's schedule they'd probably 7-2. Most of the teams they've lost to are not bad teams.

That people seem to have a problem about reporting events taking place within the top 25 (seemingly on topic) confuses me.

Edit: Wilmington finally started scoring (as they can, again not a bad team), but AJ Edwards had a monster game -- 30 points, 17 rebounds (9 offensive) in 28 minutes. Just unstoppable in the second half.

[Smitty Oom]

Thank god AJ Edwards finally had a monster game, I was going to ask if he belonged in All-American talk still after an average start to the year! 

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

Thank god AJ Edwards finally had a monster game, I was going to ask if he belonged in All-American talk still after an average start to the year! 

You don't know what you're talking about if you think he's been average. No star player I've ever seen has less plays run for him because Marietta doesn't need to. John Carroll basically played 2 guys on him (fronted the post with a spy behind) and he still got double figures.

I'm glad 18 and 10 or so on 56% FG for a top 5 team playing 26 mpg is average to you.

Keith Richardson in his first start of the year had a "quiet" 21 with 4 assists. He's playing like an all-American too. Averaging 17 a game playing 21 mpg (that will surely go up). 51% FG, 61% from 3.

Next week in Florida should be fun to watch. I won't be there but at least I won't be in Minnesota. Leaving at 6 am on the coldest day in 5 years is going to be the opposite of awesome.

[Gregory Sager]

#19 North Park 81
Trine 62

[smedindy]

Looks like a lot of the Top 25 are idle. Are they also shiftless?

/Replacements 4-ever

//Anything to change gears of the board

[sac]

That's really stretching for it, Spence.  Virtually everyone uses the shorthand of Wilma (for Wilmington), Heidi (for Heidelberg), Musky (for Muskingum), etc.  No offense is intended (and certainly not misogynistic - know any women named "Musky"?)

Perhaps you should cut back on your coffee intake.

I know a couple places in the U.P., if you stick around late enough.......

[sac]

That's really stretching for it, Spence.  Virtually everyone uses the shorthand of Wilma (for Wilmington), Heidi (for Heidelberg), Musky (for Muskingum), etc.  No offense is intended (and certainly not misogynistic - know any women named "Musky"?)

Perhaps you should cut back on your coffee intake. 

You're not the bull

[smedindy]

I've used Wilma and Musky. I use Berg for Heidelberg.

But we all use shorthand for some schools (Witt, DPU, Wash U, C-M, CMS, Cal Tech, MIT, CWRU, UMHB, etc.)

Then there's all of those SUNY schools.

If you're familiar with a school and it's naturally nicknamable, I use it. Heck, it's standard to call a team Ole Miss, or KU for Kansas.

Otherwise, we'd all be calling it Rutgers, the State University of New jersey

[Gregory Sager]

Looks like a lot of the Top 25 are idle. Are they also shiftless?

/Replacements 4-ever

//Anything to change gears of the board

Yep, more personal attacks and excuses for your own misbehavior.

Are you just too lazy to type out the names of OAC schools? Do you just have that little regard for the conference that they aren't worth your time to use the full names?

As close to true as that might be, that's not the right. Those names came about because of the schools' weaknesses in football more than anything else.

And Musky? Boy there's a real brain buster. Their team nickname is the Fighting Muskies! Wow, craaaaaaaaazy to call them Musky, isn't it? Nothing similar to the mildly disparaging terms for the other two that you used.

Fact remains that you accuse me of doing that which you actually did. I haven't called Babson "Babs", have I? Or Amherst "Amy"...

I say again, you are a hypocrite.

And oh...it's hard to cut back intake of anything to a point below 0 (except the temperature in Minnesota).

But by all means, keep trying to make it about me. Seems that's what half the board wants anyway. I just want to discuss and share regarding top 25 teams or teams worthy of discussion for same.

Funny how you have a problem with that. What's your agenda that you're against that?

Here comes a regular.