Top 25 talk

[Ralph Turner]

No score yet for #17 Elmhurst and McMurry.

MacMurray (SLIAC) (McMurry, ASC, opens at D-1 UT-San Antonio on Tuesday Nov 25th)

[KorsairKILLAH]

coast guard got crushed at umass dartmouth in the hamton inn classic.

[John Gleich]

No score yet for #17 Elmhurst and McMurry.

MacMurray (SLIAC) (McMurry, ASC, opens at D-1 UT-San Antonio on Tuesday Nov 25th)

Guess I should have looked at the scoreboard a little closer, "A"?

[Hugenerd]

Anyone voting for Chicago next week? 

You thought it was bad losing to Edgewood, but that was nothing.  Today they lost to Illinois Tech (5-25 last year), who is 1-3 on the young season with losses to Waldorf College and Grace College.  This is shocking coming from a team that was picked to finish 2nd behind national champ WashU in the UAA preaseason coaches poll. Is Chicago really that bad?

[Gregory Sager]

Anyone voting for Chicago next week? 

You thought it was bad losing to Edgewood, but that was nothing.  Today they lost to Illinois Tech (5-25 last year), who is 1-3 on the young season with losses to Waldorf College and Grace College.  This is shocking coming from a team that was picked to finish 2nd behind national champ WashU in the UAA preaseason coaches poll. Is Chicago really that bad?

See my post in the UAA room for my take on the Maroons. I witnessed Saturday's debacle at the Ratner Center, although I spent Sunday on the couch watching the other Monsters of the Midway post a debacle of their own at Lambeau Field.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I can't recall from past seasons.  Will the frst in-season polls be this week or not 'til next?

[Pat Coleman]

Well, this is an unusual year with the early start. We are waiting until after Thanksgiving, however, so we end up with the same number of polls as previous years.

[Ralph Turner]

Well, this is an unusual year with the early start. We are waiting until after Thanksgiving, however, so we end up with the same number of polls as previous years.

I think that the same number of polls is more important as a feature over the course of a decade.  The slack times around holidays don't have too many games that impact the changes in the polls, especially early in the season.  We may look back at Wash U/ Augie in OT as exactly what #1 vs #2 should have looked like! 

Thanks for the info.

[John Gleich]

I did some legwork over on the MWC board comparing last year's preseason top 25 with this year's, responding to the following post:

Nonetheless, it feels like there have been more of these "upsets" than usual at this time of year.  It will be interesting to see whether this is a harbinger of things to come for the rest of the season, or will order be restored to the D3 universe.  These upsets are making for some intriguing speculative possibilites for the rest of the season. 

I dunno... it seems to me like the upsets have been about like normal.  Buena Vista and Gustavus Adolphus have been tying 'em up early on since '02-03... ORV GAC beat ORV BV that year, #8 BV beat #2 GAC in 03-04, #19 BV beat #20 GAC in 04-05, #19 GAC beat ORV BV in 05-06, ORV BV beat ORV GAC in 06-07, and this year, GAC beat BC last year (both unranked), and unranked GAC beat #8 BV this year.  There have been a number of close games between these two squads... and this looks like a pretty good rivalry, so that's a game you can toss out, even though it is a high profile "upset" this year.

Chicago isn't as good as their #22 ranking... after 4 losses, this is fairly clear.  They may BECOME the #22 best team in the country by the end of the year... but they're not there yet.

Most years a top 5 team loses pretty early on... This year, #2 Augie lost to #1 Wash U (for once actually not an upset).



Last year, #1 Wash U lost at Calvin in the second game of the year and #5 Augustana in game 4 and #2 UWSP lost to #20 UW Whitewater on Dec 1st (rankings after poll #1... they started preseason #3 and #25)

In 06-07, #1 Virginia Wesleyan lost to unranked Averett in game #2 and #4 UW Whitewater lost game #2 to unranked Illinois Wesleyan (and then dropped their first two conference games by Dec 6th)

In 05-06, #2 UW Oshkosh lost games #1 and #3 to ORV Lawrence and ORV UWSP and #4 Puget Sound lost game #2 to NAIA DII Warner Pacific

In 04-05, #3 Hanover lost game #5 to non-D-III Brescia and #5 Rochester lost game #5 and #7 to UW Superior and Carnegie Mellon

In 03-04, #2 Gustavus Adolphus lost games #1 and #2 to Luther and Buena Vista

These are the top 5 teams, preseason.  It doesn't say anything for what happened in the first few polls for #'s 6-25.  Truthfully, the toughest poll to put out is the preseason, because the only info to go off of is coach's reports (can be over- or under-inflated), last year's results and projections on this year based on players who might have been injured last year, etc.

Right now, here are the standings for the top 25 teams:

#25 Elms 5-0
#24 Va Wes 3-2
#23 Widener 4-2
#22 Chicago 0-4
#21 Wooster 1-3
#20 Hope 2-0
#19 Lawrence 2-2
#18 IWU 2-0
#17 Elmhurst 4-0
#16 RIC 2-1
#15 Amherst 3-0
#14 Randolph Macon 1-2
#13 Centre 2-1
#12 Ursinus 3-0
#11 Gettysburg 3-0
#10 Mary Hardin-Baylor 0-3
#9 Brandeis 0-3
#8 Buena Vista 3-1
#7 UW Platteville 5-0
#6 UW Stevens Point 4-0
#5 St Thomas 3-0
#4 UW Whitewater 4-0
#3 Wheaton 3-0
#2 Augie 3-1
#1 Wash U 3-0

The top 8 are a combined 28-2... that's a 93% win percentage... pretty darn good, especially because one of the losses (and wins) is to another top 8 team.  So, really, in games not involving 2 top 8 teams, they're 27-1 (96%).

65-24 is how the top 25 has done thusfar... 73% Not terrible... but the supposed top 25 have only beaten their opponents fewer than 3 out of every 4 times.  If you take away the 3 winless teams though, it gives you 65-14 it jumps up to 82%.

Contrast this year's top 8 above with last year's... at the first regular season poll, the preseason top 8 18-4 (82%).  One win (Augie) and loss (Wash U) was to another top 8 team, so that jumps to 17-3 (85%).  I'm not going to figure out last year's entire top 25... but one thing that jumps out is that there were no teams from the preseason top 25 that went winless in the first few weeks and only 3 lost 2 or more games (#1 Wash U  3-2, #20 Bald Wally 1-3, #13 Aurora 1-3).  It's pretty easy to surmise that last year's preseason top 25 did better in the first few weeks... eh, what the heck, I'll figure it out:

#25 Whitewater 3-0
#24 Stevens 3-0
#23 Mississippi College 1-0
#22 Keene St 3-0
#21 Lewis and Clark 2-1
#20 Bald Wally 1-3
#19 UPS 5-0
#18 Elmhurst 3-0
#17 Calvin 3-1
#16 Plattsburgh St 2-0
#15 Williams 4-0
#14 Mary Hardin-Baylor 1-0
#13 Aurora 1-3
#12 Brandeis 4-0
#11 Hope 1-1
#10 Capital 4-1
#9 Rochester 5-0
#8 Wooster 2-1
#7 Brockport St 1-1
#6 Va Wes 3-0
#5 Augie 3-0
#4 Guilford 1-0
#3 UWSP 3-0
#2 Amherst 2-0
#1 Wash U 3-2

So the top 25 last year at the first reg season poll was 64-14.  So this year's top 25 has played 11 more games... and lost 10 of them.  WOW.

I think there's going to be a lot of shake-up for the next top 25!

[ausid]

No. 1 Wash U (4-0) defeated Aurora (0-4) 97-89 (OT) at the Anderson University Tournament.

[LogShow]

Does anyone think Puget Sound has done enough to get back into the Top 25...or do they need a few more wins under their belt?

[scottiedawg]

I definitely think they have a chance.  We'll see how voters treat three-loss Brandeis and MHB, as well as two-loss Lawrence, Widener, and VWC.  I think all five should fall out of the top 25, with the possible exception of Lawrence.  Hope, Maryville, Puget Sound, Whitworth, St. Mary's, Lawrence, and UMD should all be hovering around the end of the top 25. 

[Greek Tragedy]

Ouch!


1. Washington U. 5-0
2. Augustana 3-1 (lost to Washington U, plays St. Ambrose Monday)
3. Wheaton (Ill) 3-0
4. Whitewater 5-0
5. St. Thomas 3-0
6. Stevens Point 4-0
7. Platteville 6-0
8. Buena Vista 4-1
9. Brandeis 1-3
10. Mary Hardin-Baylor 0-3 (plays Univ. of Ozarks on Monday)
11. Gettysburg 3-0
12. Ursinus 3-1
13. Centre 2-1 (plays Berea on Monday)
14. Randolph-Macon 1-3
15. Amherst 3-0
16. Rhode Island College 2-1
17. Elmhurst 5-0
18. Illinois Wesleyan 2-0 (playing Maryville (Mo.) today)
19. Lawrence 2-2
20. Hope 3-1
21. Wooster 2-3
22. U. of Chicago 0-5
23. Widener 4-2
24. Virginia Wesleyan 3-3
25. Elms 5-0

[LogShow]

I definitely think they have a chance.  We'll see how voters treat three-loss Brandeis and MHB, as well as two-loss Lawrence, Widener, and VWC.  I think all five should fall out of the top 25, with the possible exception of Lawrence.  Hope, Maryville, Puget Sound, Whitworth, St. Mary's, Lawrence, and UMD should all be hovering around the end of the top 25. 

Thanks for the input!

[LogShow]

Ouch!


1. Washington U. 5-0
2. Augustana 3-1 (lost to Washington U, plays St. Ambrose Monday)
3. Wheaton (Ill) 3-0
4. Whitewater 5-0
5. St. Thomas 3-0
6. Stevens Point 4-0
7. Platteville 6-0
8. Buena Vista 4-1
9. Brandeis 1-3
10. Mary Hardin-Baylor 0-3 (plays Univ. of Ozarks on Monday)
11. Gettysburg 3-0
12. Ursinus 3-1
13. Centre 2-1 (plays Berea on Monday)
14. Randolph-Macon 1-3
15. Amherst 3-0
16. Rhode Island College 2-1
17. Elmhurst 5-0
18. Illinois Wesleyan 2-0 (playing Maryville (Mo.) today)
19. Lawrence 2-2
20. Hope 3-1
21. Wooster 2-3
22. U. of Chicago 0-5
23. Widener 4-2
24. Virginia Wesleyan 3-3
25. Elms 5-0

Ouch is right...looks like there will be some moving and shaking  8)