Top 25 talk

[imderekpoe]

Here's one Wooster fan that's happy to see IWU win today!!  It seems that every time the Scots move to #1 their next game is against Wittenberg and they lose!  At least they won't have the added pressure of that #1 ranking next Saturday night!

Go Scots!!

[wooscotsfan]

Final:  Carnegie Mellon 72  #12 Rochester 71

Bad home loss for Rochester as CMU hits the winning shot with just over 2 seconds left in the game.  Rochester had won 23 straight UAA games at home until today's loss.  Rochester already has 2 home losses this season and will no doubt drop in the next national poll.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Final:  Carnegie Mellon 72  #12 Rochester 71

Bad home loss for Rochester as CMU hits the winning shot with just over 2 seconds left in the game.  Rochester had won 23 straight UAA games at home until today's loss.  Rochester already has 2 home losses this season and will no doubt drop further in the next national poll.

'...drop further'?  They ROSE 11 slots between the pre-season and week one polls!

With that much of a move, they strike me as a team that voters mostly have no clue about.  If so, a loss (their second) AT HOME to a team receiving ZERO votes is probably a death knell - I suspect they will fall totally out of the poll next week (low 20s AT BEST).

[tommygun]

I tried last year to convince people that the UAA was probably a little better league then people thought.  To no avail despite the fact that the only team in the league to make the tournament made it to the final (only to finish two spots behind the team it beat in the semis in the final poll).  I would again ask you to consider the possibility that a 6-0 CMU team with two first team all UAA players back, one of which is a player who was considered to be one of the top 10 players in the country by this web site before the 03-04 season might be a little better than the people who write into this sight might realize. 

Again the UAA's non-conference record (before tonight) was 30-10 which compares very favorably to almost every other league.  A Chicago team that was picked 6th in the pre-season polls lost to the unbeatable IWU by four.  Rochester has a 2 point loss to Witt, and a 1 point loss to CMU (a team that won 19 games last year, and again has their two best players back).  Keep in mind Rochester beat John Carroll by 30.  I would ask you to consider the possibility that perhaps CMU should be receiving some votes in the top 25 poll instead of the fact that Rochester lost to a very good league opponent by 1 as some kind of season killer for them.  If Wooster had lost to Earlham tonight would that mean they aren't good?  Of course not.  It's basketball, sometimes a good team loses.  Rochester probably has a very good team.  CMU also probably has a very good team.  One of them had to lose.  I will try once again to point out (probably to no avail) that the UAA is a much better league than people on this site realize.

[fritzdis]

tommygun,

I'm not saying you're wrong about how good CMU might be this year, but look at the teams they beat before Rochester:

Wash & Jeff: 0-5
Grove City: 1-3, their only win is over 0-4 (and 0-25 last year) Medaille
Oberlin: 0-7
Bethany: 4-3, this was CMU's only decent win, and it was at home by only 2 points
La Roche: 1-2, their only win is over 0-3  (and 4-21 last year) Hiram

There's nothing impressive about going 5-0 against that schedule.  The victory over Rochester is a bit of a validation of their record, but I doubt it's enough to get them more than maybe a few votes.  That said, I don't think the voters will push Rochester all the way out the top 25 because of a 1 point loss to a top conference opponent.

[Titan Q]

I don't think anyone questions the top of the UAA year-in and year-out...I know I don't.  Afterall, between Rochester, Wash U, and Chicago, I believe the conference has had a team in the D3hoops.com Top 10 just about every week since Pat Coleman's crew started doing a poll.  Between following Illinois Wesleyan (which plays Chicago and Wash U every year) and making the annual trip to Salem where I saw Seth Hauben and Rochester, I know how good the UAA's champ has been every year...I'd say the UAA's best has been right there with the CCIW's best for the last 8 or 9 years.

The UAA isn't a very deep league most years though like the WIAC, CCIW, and OAC are pretty consistently.  The last few years, there has been a significant falloff after the #1 team, and an even bigger falloff from #2 to #3.  There has only been one UAA team in the D3hoops.com Top 25 poll...and it is not because the second best team gets overlooked in the poll, but rather because a second team doesn't seem to put together a strong Top 25 case over the course of the full schedule.  Like Wash U in 2003-04...the UAA's second place team beat CCIW champ Illinois Wesleyan but lost to Webster of the SLIAC.  Or last year's runner up Carnegie Mellon drops games to Westminster and Grove City.  Now can UAA teams besides the champs knock off good teams? Absolutely - Chicago had a chance yesterday vs #1 IWU.  But, again, they're prone to inconsistency.  I think for a league to get that national respect as one of the best, it's gotta have 3 teams in the Top 25 discussion pretty regularly. 

I'm not sure the Carnegie Mellon victory @ Rochester was a huge surprise.  Afterall, as pointed out below, CMU returned two 1st Team all-conference players and Rochester lost a ton (Hauben, Gabe Perez, etc).  My suspicion is that the UAA does not have one great team this year as the league has had lately, but rather a bunch of pretty even squads.  I'll bet Carnegie Mellon, Rochester, Wash U, Chicago, and maybe another team play a lot of very close games against each other this season.  I think it will be an enjoyable season for fans of a lot of UAA schools to follow...and for the rest of us looking in from the outside.

[tommygun]

I don't necessarily disagree.  But they pounded the "bad" teams in question.   I believe the Wash & Jeff and G.C. (usually pretty good, apparently a little down this year) games are traditional games, and LaRoche is local for them as well.  I'm simply saying that they proabably are better than people on this site realize.  As I pointed out last year there are lots of teams that haven't played a ton of great teams to this point.  Wooster has beaten one team with a winning record and almost lost to Earlham.  Same thing, does that mean they don't deserve a high ranking?  Of course not, you can only beat who you're playing that night.  The problem with any pre-season poll is exactly this.  Anyone assumed to be good has to prove that their not good.  Any team assumed to not be good has a huge level of burden placed on them to prove they are good.  Especially in d-III where your not on TV and people tend to see the couple of teams in the league they follow a national league like the UAA suffers in this setting.

The main point of my post from before is that if you drop Rochester almost out of the poll you are again doing a disservice to the UAA.  It once again is a top league (I'm not saying the top league, just a top league,) and to simply say well Rochester isn't as good as last year so the league is down (which is exactly what people incorrectly said last year,) is a mistake.  The voters wouldn't have no OAC or MIAA or other leagues of that ilk with no teams in the top 25.  All evidence suggests the UAA is every bit as good as those leagues (again I'm not saying better.)  Simply as good yet never get half the recognition these other quality leagues receive on this site.  

The other problem is that when league play starts in a month it is very difficult for teams to move much because no matter what you do its only against league opponents.  So if the perception is that the UAA is down then the teams can't ever have a good win because no matter who they beat it's a team that's not ranked, or not ranked very high.  So remember that when Chicago beats some people at home this year, it's the same team that lost to IWU by four.  That was all I was saying.

[Titan Q]

I was at the Illinios Wesleyan/Chicago game yesterday.  After the game I recalled that last year's national champion, UW-Stevens Point, had some trouble at the Ratner Center a year ago.  Looking back at that boxcore, Chicago led the #1-ranked Pointers 29-20 at halftime...IWU was tied yesterday at 28.  UW-SP's lead (once they got it) in the 2nd half was very similar to what IWU's was yesterday in the 2nd...the Pointers just didn't get that big push from Chicago in the final 3 minutes.

http://www.uwsp.edu/athletics/mbb/04-05/MBBGM-02.HTM

http://www.iwu.edu/~iwunews/sports/mbb2006/miwu5.htm

Mike McGrath is a good coach and he seems to prepare his team really well.  These aren't the first two times he's given a great team a ballgame.

Chicago is a good team when they're making their 3's, as the Maroons did vs IWU connecting on 9 of 20 attempts.  They'll probably be a very inconsistent team though, prone to nights like they had earlier this week at Wheaton, a team picked to finish in the in the bottom half of the CCIW this season.  Chicago was 4-21 from beyond the arc in that game and was down 15-16 points most of the 2nd half. 

The UAA gets another crack at Illinois Wesleyan Saturday as the Titans visit Wash U.

[tommygun]

Titan Q the argument last year was the exact opposite.  The league was deep but the top teams couldn't compete with the top teams in other leagues.  This culminated with the absolute slap in the face Rochester received by being voted below a Calvin team it beat and had an almost identical record to.  I'm not unreasonable I could certainly understand the argument with them being voted behind Trinity.  If they had beaten Stevens Point would they have been voted sixth? 

I'm simply saying the UAA fights an uphill battle on this site.  When N.C. lost to Santa Clara at the beginning of last year were they not top 25 worthy?  When Mich St. lost to Hawaii should that preclude them from being in the top 25 and out of the tournament?  Of course not.  Yet the losses you point out are exactly that, early losses by a couple of points to pretty good teams from weaker leagues at the very beginning of the year.  If a team is from a league that the people on the site perceive to be good then things like this are largely overlooked, but if not then you are reminded forever about the one game that was lost as opposed to the overall excellant quality of play. 

I'm getting a little long winded so I'll let it go.  My points are all I heard last year was, "well I just think the UAA is down."  "I just think Calvin is better than Rochester."  When there was absolutely no hard evidence to support these claims (in fact to the contrary most of the evidence refuted these claims, see game played Rochester v. Calvin).  There are very few teams that beat everybody all the time at any level in today's college basketball.  You would be hard pressed to find a couple of teams in d-III that could go into Rochester, Wash U., Chicago, NYU, CMU, and even Brandeis and not come away with a couple of losses, especially given the travel and the two games in 36 hours. 

I'm simply asking the people who vote to consider the possibility that the league which at least at the top of it (Roch, CMU, Wash, NYU) is devoid of these "bad losses," so far this year are possibly a little better than people think.  Just remember when you talk about the top of the league if the coaches know anything (which they very well may not) Chicago is not at the top of the league this year.  Again does that mean IWU wouldn't win the UAA, of course not.  They probably would.  It would just be a lot tougher than most people realize.

[Titan Q]

Tommy, I agree with just about everything you've said.  And yes, I do think the UAA "fights and uphill battle" in terms of perception, just as a lot of Division 1 conferences do. 

The good news for conferences like the UAA, MWC, and others that feel this way is that there is really zero subjectivity left in the Division III tournament selection/seeding process.  The tournament field is determined strictly by in-region records, Quality of Wins Index, and pretty much all black and white factors.  UAA teams are on a level playing field with everyone else and the conference will have a chance to keep changing those perceptions on the court in March.

The uphill battle you speak of only affects polls, and polls like the D3hoops.com Top 25 really don't mean anything.  The NCAA regional poll is the only one that matters.

[Pat Coleman]

I am amused that there's so much crying about a loss dropping someone out of a poll that hasn't been voted on yet, let alone released.

[Ralph Turner]

Pat, your Top 25 has arrived!  It is the authoritative source of D3 prowess!

[tommygun]

Pat that's totally fair.  I just saw someone post how a bad loss for Rochester would probably knock them out of the poll, and it got my blood pressure up a bit.  

[PowerBall]

Rochester gets a lot of pats on the back, (no pun intended) but is in the process of reloading.  The Tartans may have wins over teams that have presently losing records but they've handled them decisively.  Having attended several of the games I see were they have a killer instinct to put teams away and not let up as they have in the past.  They deserve recognition and votes to the elite bracket of top 25. 

[retired12]

Well Potsdam is 5-0 after a 24 point win yesterday. Any thoughts on this weeks top 25 more specifically if Potsdam will be included. Also,I agree with the fact that the East region is generally a weak region but with any team getting (UofR) getting to the finals last year, they deserve a little credit.
As regards to the Potsdam UofR game it was a 2 point game with 3:30 to go and if Potsdam could have bought a shot who knows what the outcome would have been. Overall I think Potsdam deserves a little credit and at least a top 25 ranking. Any thoughts?