Top 25 talk

[BBGUY]

I would guess that there are many, more private schools in D3 competition than public schools. I would guess also that a large portion of these smaller private schools are in the East so given that situation, one would then have to look at the composition of the selection committee. Are there a lot more representatives from private schools who are making these decisions? Does anyone have information on who and where those people are from on the committee? Are the "best" teams in the sweet 16. Debatable.

[David Collinge]

Does anyone have information on who and where those people are from on the committee?

The current composition of the national committee is as follows:
Charlie Brock, chair (head coach, Springfield College)
Terry Small (commissioner, NJAC)
Russell Rogers (AD, Stevens Tech)
Mike DeWitt (head coach, Ohio Wesleyan University)
David Martin (AD, Misericordia University)
Mike Zapolski (AD, Augustana [IL] College)
Pat Cunningham (head coach, Trinity [TX] University)
Ken Schumann (AD, Pacific [OR] University)

[iwumichigander]

I guess if Midd was "wildly overranked," so were Wash U., WPU and St. Thomas, right ?  I mean, St. Thomas lost to the last team in in the first round, Wash U. barely survived the first round and lost to an unranked team in the second, both games at home, WPU lost to Albertus at home in round one.  How is that much different from Midd's performance?   And they are all ranked a lot higher than Midd (I'm not saying they shouldn't be now or at the end of the year, just that if Midd is wildly overranked, so are they).  Midd's loss is certainly a LOT more forgiveable than losing to a GNAC team in a first round game -- look what a so-so Desales team did to Albertus in round two. If you are going to use this tourney's results to "confirm" how final rankings look, I'd certainly put Midd above both WPU and St. Thomas at the end of the year.  St. Thomas didn't exactly lose to world-beaters in its last two games, both at home ...

I've seen Midd play several times.  They are a legit, at worst, top 20 team, and I'd argue that while their rating may have been a TINY bit inflated by a weak schedule, they belong in the at least the top 15 at season's end.  Yes, they had a bad loss in the second round of the tourney, but they ran into a hot team (RIC has won nine straight), Midd picked a bad day to be just incredibly off from 3 (2-22), and a slew of guys who rarely ever shoot 3 pointers from RIC were, out of nowhere, knocking them down -- not something you really game plan for.  Midd had very real problems all year which killed them in the tourney, spotty three point shooting (though much better than they showed last night), as well as poor foul shooting (also a problem last night).  But defensively, they can stop anyone, with two of the best defensive players in the country, and they are extraordinarily big, athletic, and always play very hard.  They are a young team and I am sure will be even better next year.  This is a year that doesn't have a dominant group of teams at the top.  Everyone (except Williams) has at least one head scratching loss (and many top tier teams have several), and lots of teams with gaudy records have played weak schedules.  Midd just fits in to a year with a lot of parity, as the tourney has bourne out already ...  

In my opinion, this is simply a year of incredible parity.  I don't have any idea who is overrated and who is underrated.

Last night I watched Illinois Wesleyan play Wash U for the second time.  Wash U won the first game 76-71 in November (at IWU) and IWU won the tournament game last night (at Wash U) 75-70.  Anyone at both games would probably tell you there isn't a bit of separation between the teams...and if there is, IWU is a slightly better team.  Yet Wash U came in #1 and IWU unranked (because IWU lost a few they shouldn't have on paper).

I feel like whoever the best 15 teams in the country are right now (and I do not think those are currently the top 15 from the D3hoops.com poll), the gap between #1 and #15 is as small as we've ever seen. 

And, IMHO, IWU should not have lost those games on the court either!

[fritzdis]

As we look at the brackets this morning, I wish that the Whitworth pod had been placed somewhere in the St Mary's (lower right) bracket.

It looks to me like the committee was trying to separate the ODAC teams somewhat.  There were also teams from the NE in every pod of the lower right bracket.  If one of them had won their pod, they'd have to be flown to Guilford.

[BJ - DSU SID]

Midd's loss is certainly a LOT more forgiveable than losing to a GNAC team in a first round game -- look what a so-so Desales team did to Albertus in round two.

I'd argue that a team (remained nameless) that makes the Elite 8 last year and is still alive in the Sweet 16 this year is just slightly better than a "so-so" comment.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

As we look at the brackets this morning, I wish that the Whitworth pod had been placed somewhere in the St Mary's (lower right) bracket.

I looked at options for the pod when the bracket came out.  In the end there were just too many NE teams to make any other placement work (at least without really altering the balance of the brackets).

[Titan Q]

I've watched a lot of D3 games this season (both in person and on video) and I'm confident the best 2 teams in the country faced each other today in the national championship game.  I got to see the Pointers last weekend in person...it was great to finally see this Williams team play.  The Ephs were loaded with talent and played great basketball.

Stevens Point and Williams were clearly #1 and #2 this year, as I see it at least.  I think Guilford was probably #3, and then after that you have a tier with a bunch of teams all extremely even -- teams like Randolph-Macon, Illinois Wesleyan, Carthage, Wash U, Eastern Mennonite, Texas-Dallas, Whitworth, UW-Whitewater, Wooster, and several others.

It was a year of a lot of parity, but there were clearly two teams that stood out from the pack.  


(Note, I think Massey Index had Stevens Point #1 almost all year long.)

[David Collinge]

Final polls published: http://www.d3hoops.com/top25/
Bob's top 3 is right on (they were each unanimous choices), and his "extremely even" group is arrayed in positions 4-16 (if by "several others," he meant F&M, St. Mary's, Brandeis, and St. Thomas), spanning 261 points (a bit over 10 "average-ballot" positions).  Where Bob saw one tightly clustered group, the voters discerned two: one spanning #4 EMU to #7 Whitworth (86 point spread), and another, tighter one from #9 Whitewater through #16 UST (82 point spread).  #8 Wooster bridges a fairly sizable gap between these two groups, roughly two "average-ballot" positions behind Whitworth and ahead of Whitewater.

[Ralph Turner]

Top 25 in clusters, as discussed by David Collinge

#     Team     W-L     Pts.     Last Week
1    UW-Stevens Point (25)    29-4    625    5

2    Williams    30-2    600    2

3    Guilford    30-3    575    3

#4 -- 550

4    Eastern Mennonite    25-5    533    10

#5 -- 525

5    Randolph-Macon    26-7    512    16

#6 -- 500
#7 -- 475

6    Washington U.    24-3    466    1
7    Whitworth    26-3    447    4

#8 -- "450"
#9 -- 425

8    Wooster    25-6    405    17

#10 --400
#11 --375

9    UW-Whitewater    23-6    354    8

#12 -- 350

10    Carthage    24-6    334    14

#13  -- 325

11    Franklin and Marshall    26-5    315    18
12    Illinois Wesleyan    23-8    312    —
13    St. Mary's (Md.)    26-4    310    13

#14 -- 300

14    Brandeis    22-7    282    —
15    Texas-Dallas    24-6    275    19
16    St. Thomas    23-4    272    6

#15 -- "275"
#16 -- 250
#17 -- 225

17    Virginia Wesleyan    23-6    223    11
18    William Paterson    25-3    206    7
19    Middlebury    25-4    205    9

#18 -- 200

20    St. Norbert    23-4    177    15
21    Chapman    24-3    175    12

#19 -- "175"
#20 -- 150
#21 -- 125
#22 -- 100

22    Anderson    23-6    99    24

#23 -- 75

23    John Carroll    21-7    74    —
24    DeSales    24-6    65    —
25    Central    23-5    55    22

#24 -- 50
#25 -- 25

[FanJacket]

Is it too early to start thinking about a 1-2 ODAC pre-season poll: EMU/RMC.

[frodotwo]

Is it too early to start thinking about a 1-2 ODAC pre-season poll: EMU/RMC.

YES

[nescac1]

Ummm, I think WSP might have something to say about that ... I do think those two teams are, however, locks for the preseason top five.  I'd say something like WSP / EMU / IWU / RMC / Carthage / Williams / F&M / Wooster / Middlebury / and dark horse SUNY-Plattsburgh would make sense as a pre pre-season top ten -- I'm sure I am a forgetting one or two, maybe St. Thomas, who might slide in ahead of Midd or SUNY -- of course news on incoming incoming players could change that.  Looking at numbers 6 through 19 in that poll, it seems like everyone except for Wooster, F&M, Carthage, IWU, Midd loses a MAJOR percentage of its production from this year and/or a big time star player, so I imagine there will be plenty of room for surprise teams to leap up the poll, outside of what will be a fairly obvious top eight. 

From New England, for example, Amherst, MIT, and Western Conn should all be MUCH improved next year, and could very quickly establish themselves as viable top-20 type teams. 

[David Collinge]

On behalf of preseason #2 John Carroll (21-7), #5 Richard Stockton (20-8), and #8 Mass-Dartmouth (18-9), I'd say yes, it's too early to be discussing this.  Of course those three teams had fine seasons, but none lived up to their lofty press releases, and probably could have done without the accompanying pressure of high expectations.

#14 Cal Lutheran (14-11), #17 UW-Platteville (14-12), #24 UW-Oshkosh (11-14), #25 Amherst (14-11) and especially #18 Puget Sound (9-16) all would prefer to discuss preseason football.

[nescac1]

Oh, come on David -- there is a proud tradition of immediate speculation about the next year's contenders following the conclusion of EVERY sport season, fans are always hungry to discuss what's coming next  ... plus, I seriously doubt that suggesting, a few months earlier than might otherwise be the case, that someone is a contender could possibly affect their performance six months down the line by providingn "extra" pressure.  UMD, for example, had a disappointing year due to tons of dissention between coach and star players that led several key players to quit mid-season, not to mention, an injury which limited its star player through much of the season.  Amherst started the year great, but fell apart down the stretch once its star point guard (who had no adequate backup) got injured and a few guys tried to overcompensate.   I'm sure the others have similar stories to tell, none of which involve random people speculating about how good them might be the previous March!  Now, of COURSE, some predictions made here are bound to be way off base, but such is the nature of prediction, generally! 

[Titan Q]

In an effort to get as much helpful information out there as possible before the preseason Top 25 ballot comes out in a few weeks, I'd love to get a little conversation going about potential Top 25 teams.  Feel free to just throw out one team, or all candidates from a given conference or region.  And please state each team's Top 25 case as best as possible.

Thanks!