Top 25 talk

[smedindy]

How about we put  those aforementioned five teams in a hat and draw them out? We could have David Stern MC it, in his own style. "The fifth ranked team in D-3 Hoops.Com is.....Amherst...." 

[sac]

Coach C and Pat, I don't want Hope ranked #1.

Unless we're talking about the final poll, attendance or best facility.   

My prediction is

1. IWU
2. Witt
3. Woo
4. Albion
5. Hope

But the points margins will likely narrow significantly.  "Wait and see" on Hope/Albion seems logical to me.  Of course we should probably wait and see what happens THIS weekend first.

One thing to consider

Albion beat BW by 3
BW beat Woo in 2 OT
Woo beat Witt by 3 on last 2nd shot

Personally these 4 GL teams may be to close to be able to logically rank in a correct order.

....and NCC debuts in the top 15 

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I think Baldwin Wallace is proving their mettel at this point.  Those teams from the Great Lakes Region are really rolling so far.  Check out this chain:  Witt's only loss is to Wooster, their only loss is to Baldwin Wallace, their only loss is to Albion and their only loss is outside d3.

Normally chains like this fall apart quickly and don't make for ver accurate rankings, but this one seems to hold up quite well.  You throw in Hope to the mix (who hasn't lost yet, but could top the chain with a win over Albion on the 11th) and you've got a solid core of 2-6 which would be hard to argue with.  Add Stout, Lawrence and any two of the following (Amherst, WPI, UPS, Augustana or Wartburg) and you've got a kick-ass top ten.

I posted this before all the upsets the other night, but the chain is very interesting (as aluded to by sac).  The Great Lakes is going to be a very tough region, especially if they get teamed up with the Midwest again in the tourney.

[Titan Q]

Illinois Wesleyan has played a very tough schedule to date, and in my opinion (having seen all 11 of the games) the North Central team the Titans faced last night was the toughest IWU opponent to date by far.

Trying to evaluate each opponent at its best and ranking them as neutral court games might turn out, I think I'd go...

1. North Central (lost at home 74-70)
2. St. Xavier - NAIA I (won at home 81-61)
3. Westmont - NAIA I (won on road 76-60)
4. #8 Puget Sound (won neutral 104-87)
5. #24 Hanover (won at home 71-61)
6. Wash U (won on road 83-56)
7. Wabash (won on road 79-67)
8. Olivet Nazarene - NAIA I (won at home 87-68)
9. Chicago (won on road 71-67)
10. Texas-Dallas (won neutral court 71-58)
11. Illinois College (won on the road 85-57)


Sometimes the games don't end up as they are supposed to on paper.  For example, I feel 8-3 Wash U is a better than 7-4 Chicago and I think the full UAA season will show that (Chicago is a solid team though), but IWU won at Wash U by 27 in a game IWU was up as much as 40 I think and won at Chicago by 4.  There are going to be games where the "underdog" just simply outplays the favorite and there are going to be games when absolutely everything clicks for the favorite and it leads to a blowout win, sometimes even over a very good team. 

Last night's IWU/NCC game was one of those cases where NCC just outplayed Illinois Wesleyan, but the underdog Cardinals are actually very close in talent to Illinois Wesleyan -- that formula is going to lead to an upset almost every time.  In the Chicago game, IWU was just simply more talented and, as well as the Maroons played and as close as they game got at the end, Chicago just wasn't going to win the game without IWU making some big mistakes (say, missing FT's, turning the ball over, etc).  I'd same the same about the IWU/Puget Sound game last week...a very substantial talent gap.

The voters have a tough job.  They have to sort through the entire body of work (the full schedule to date), which is something that gets easier as the season goes on.  Now they are looking at 10-12 games played instead of 2-3.  They have to try to identify the games where a given team may have overperformed and the games where a team underperformed.  This week they'll have to ask themselves where IWU's entire body of work stacks up vs Wittenberg's, Hope's, Wooster's, Albion's, etc.  In this case, you really can't argue with however it turns out.  Too close to call.  And in general, as long as the voters truly are looking at the complete picture - and not over-reacting to one game - it is hard to argue with how they vote.  Afterall, this is Division III - they didn't all just watch the IWU/North Central game on ESPN2.  Most of the voters are just looking at a piece of paper with numbers on it, just like we are.

[Coach C]

Q -

Actually, I would argure that it gets easier to a point, and then it begins to get harder to sort thought the whole season.  This may be exactly the point where it starts to get harder and the voters start earining their pay.

C

[Mr. Ypsi]

Q -

Actually, I would argure that it gets easier to a point, and then it begins to get harder to sort thought the whole season.  This may be exactly the point where it starts to get harder and the voters start earining their pay.

C

Actually, this week is 'easy' - just take Smed's suggestion (except for his Amherst example - they can go in the 6-9 drawing with Lawrence, UPS, and WPI!) and do a blind drawing amongst IWU, Witt, Woo, Albion, and Hope.  I'm firmly convinced those will be nearly unanymously the top five, but have NO clue in which order they will fall!

Assuming no weekend upsets, MY order (for what little it is worth!) would be the order I listed them, with (if no further losses the next week) the winner of Hope-Albion jumping all the way to #1 the following week.  That's how close I see the top five (or perhaps the top six - I think Lawrence should probably also be in the draw).

[Titan Q]

Illinois Wesleyan (10-1)
* Loss: vs North Central (10-0), 70-74
* Wins vs D3's .500+:
- @ Wabash (8-3), 79-67
- @ Chicago (7-4), 71-67
- @ Wash U (8-3), 83-56
- vs #24 Hanover (8-4), 72-61
- (n) #8 Puget Sound (9-2), 104-87

Wittenberg (11-1)
* Loss: @ #3 Wooster (10-1), 83-86
* Wins vs D3's .500+:
-  (n) Tufts (8-2), 69-65
- @ #18 Rochester (7-2), 52-50
- @ Transylvania (10-2), 62-51
- vs #22 Ohio Northern (8-3), 65-54
 
Wooster (10-1)
* Loss: vs #12 Baldwin-Wallace, 108-113 (2OT)
* Wins vs D3's .500+
- vs #10 UW-Stout (11-2), 90-82
- vs #2 Wittenberg (11-1), 86-83
 
Amherst (8-1)
* Loss: @ Occidental (9-1), 68-73
* Wins vs D3's .500+:
- (n) Westfield St (8-5), 102-77
- (n) Pomona-Pitzer (5-4), 61-42

Albion (10-1)
* Loss: vs Michigan-Dearborn (NAIA 2, 4-8), 77-88
* Wins vs D3's .500+:
- (n) Juanita (6-6), 78-59
- (n) #12 Baldwin-Wallace (11-1), 75-72
- vs #16 Elmhurst (8-4), 74-66
- @ Adrian (6-6), 75-58

Hope (12-0)
* Loss: n/a
* Wins vs D3's .500+:
- vs #16 Elmhurst (8-4), 70-53
- vs Lakeland (9-4), 54-46
- vs John Carroll (8-4), 89-77

Lawrence (8-0)
* Loss: n/a
* Wins vs D3's .500+
- vs UW-Oshkosh (8-4), 82-75 (OT)
- @ Milwaukee Engineering (8-4), 74-53
 

[sac]

Nice work Q

Good luck voters, I don't envy your task.        

[Mr. Ypsi]

Q,

After seeing your summary, I'll stick with my earlier post (except perhaps NOT including Lawrence - I'd forgotten that their ONLY impressive win was over Oshkosh, which doesn't seem NEARLY as impressive now as it did then).

[Greek Tragedy]

I think most of us will agree that Oshkosh might have been a little overrated at the beginning of the season.  And, to tell you the truth, I was amazed that Lawrence was left out of the preseason Top 25, though the voters have made up for that since then...even though they really haven't beaten anyone!  So actually, the voters have over-compensated Lawrence!    They've beaten two LMC teams, two perennial bottom feeding MWC teams, winless Goucher, Vanguard (no clue on them), Carthage and Oshkosh. 

My point isn't Lawrence, it's Oshkosh!

Anyway, Oshkosh has played a pretty tough schedule.  They lost to Lawrence (in overtime) for the 3rd year running, this time in Appleton.  They lost to Point at Quandt, lost to ranked Stout on a long three-pointer at the buzzer, lost to ranked Wartburg and handed Carroll College their only loss of the season.  So, that's pretty decent.  Sure, if you're a great team, you should be winning those games, but they aren't losing to cupcakes!    The teams that they lost to have a combined 36-8 record now.  Point (9-4), Lawrence (8-0), Stout (11-2), Wartburg (8-2), with the latter two teams just losing their 2nd games of the year this week.

With four in-region losses already, it'll be hard for Oshkosh to get a Pool C bid, but if they get into the tourney, I think they'll do well.

[Coach C]

I wasn't necessarily limiting my analysis of the difficulty of voting the poll to the top 9.  I think it really is hard all the way down.  Q has done what I think most voters do with the information that Pat provides every week.  it just takes a ton of time to do that for 40 or so teams.

C

[Mr. Ypsi]

OS,

I wasn't intending to imply that Oshkosh was a weak team - just that they were clearly not the #2 team that Lawrence first got the attention for beating.

[ScotsFan]

Personally, if I were voting I think I would have to put Witt #1.  Especially after seeing how their schedule stacks up to the others in the mix.  If I had to wager a guess, it would be that Witt and IWU swap positions followed by Wooster, Albion and Hope.  I agree with sac in that there should be a "wait and see" on Hope and Albion until their meeting next week.  I also don't know if I would vault the winner of that game to #1.  Although, the voting will probably be so tight, it wouldn't take too much of a swing for that to happen. 

It's just when you go down the chain that Hoops Fan brought up, these teams seem just about as even as you could get!  I guess we can look forward to on heck of a Final 4,  umm, I mean sectional, wherever that might end up being??!!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Sectional?  With the depth in the Great Lakes, two of these teams may end up playing in the second round.  Wait, is the second round sectionals?  I get so confused with this new format.  Regionals determine the final four, right?  So sectionals pick the final 16, which would make the second round sectionals... which means my post is now totally obsolete.  Thank you and goodnight.

[John Gleich]

Regarding Oshkosh, I'm going to say the SAME thing I've said so many times before this year.  They started off the year highly over-rated.  Just because they returned everybody from last year's team and because the individual players, on paper, are talented, and because they were the last team last year to beat UWSP, doesn't mean they deserved, by any stretch of the imagination, the #2 ranking in the preseason poll.  Q has said it quite a few times before, but you've really got to look at Oshkosh's "full body of work" last year.  Did they beat UWSP?  Yes, they did, on their own home floor.  But they lost last year, at Eau Claire.  They lost at home to La Crosse.  It took overtime to dispense Eau Claire in the first round of the conference tournament, AT HOME.  Heck, it took overtime to dispense with Superior AT HOME in the second half of the season.

What this shows is that, while Oshkosh had the ability to get up for big games, they also had the undesirable ability to play down to their opponents when the opponents weren't top notch.  Oshkosh was an 8 loss team last year.  They had a history of playing poorly in games that didn't have a lot of hype.  There definately were, and I believe still are, questions about how well the team played AS a team, and definate questions about their team defense and how hard they played.