Top 25 talk

[Titan Q]

In the CCIW, Carthage, Millikin, Wheaton, and North Park each have eight conference games vs teams that have been in the D3hoops.com Top 25 this year - 2 each vs Augustana, North Central, IWU, and Elmhurst.

That is brutal.

[dansand]

In the CCIW, Carthage, Millikin, Wheaton, and North Park each have eight conference games vs teams that have been in the D3hoops.com Top 25 this year - 2 each vs Augustana, North Central, IWU, and Elmhurst.

That is brutal.

And Millikin has already won two of those.

[wooscotsfan]

I think Albion's beatdown of Hope and Hope's subsequent drubbing of Calvin will get Albion over the 30-some vote gap between Albion and Woo from last week's poll.

What this perspective ignores is that Albion just barely squeezed by a very average Alma team yesterday.  A 3 point win against a very average Alma team doesn't convince me that Albion should suddenly jump over Wooster in the poll.

Alma got beat by Denison on a neutral court in the last 2 weeks and Denison is in the bottom half of the NCAC.  Albion beating Alma by 3 points is unimpressive to say the least.

Top 5 in my opinion:

#1 Wittenberg
#2 Wooster
#3 Albion
#4 Hope
#5 Lawrence  

[David Collinge]

One would hope Illiniois Wesleyan would not fall below Puget Sound in the poll.  IWU defeated Puget Sound on a neutral court in a game IWU led by 21 at halftime and 21 with 11:05 to play.  The Loggers made a run to get within 6 with 4:22 to play, but IWU won the game by 17 which is about the average margin IWU led by in the contest.

Anyone at that game in Santa Barbara, CA knows that IWU is just simply better than Puget Sound (a good team).

IWU was clearly the better team in December, even though we were surprised when UPS made a second-half run at the Titans.  Whether that means they still the better team, though, is the issue.  I would still take IWU on a neutral court; the differential is both size and talent is too great.  Therefore I, personally, would continue to rank IWU ahead of UPS.  (Of course, it helps matters that I probably wouldn't have UPS in the top 10.)

But IWU is subject to the "what have you done for me lately" clause in the rankings manual, the same clause WSF is trying to invoke against Albion.

I think Wooster stays marginally ahead of Albion partly because the Brits' showing against Alma doesn't help them (doesn't really hurt, either), but mostly because Wooster had a position-and-a-half lead (38 points) on Albion and thrashed a pretty good Wabash team on the road yesterday.  But either way, the top 3 positions should be pretty close.

[Gregory Sager]

Augustana is a possibility, but their pre-season schedule was rather suspect,

Grrrr ... non-conference, not preseason!  

And a final word on my alma mater: CMU won easily today at Christopher Newport

I'll say. CMU won by 13 points, and the Tartans were up by 27 in garbage time when Tony Wingen emptied his bench. Say what you will about the weakness of the USAC, but Christopher Newport was nevertheless playing at home, where they're always extremely tough to beat, and the Captains were 10-3 going into the game. I'm also very impressed by the fact that CMU hasn't played a home game since all the way back on December 6, and they've gone 6-1 in that stretch. They've beaten Rochester, NYU, and now Christopher Newport on the road this year, as well as D1 Princeton. If I'm a pollster, I start giving the Tartans some serious props right about now.

Mr. Ypsi I believe there is a confusion between "historical Bias" and "historical fact".  The human element in polls does not have to be biased.  History may play a part in judgement, but that history has to be based on facts not biases.  For example, the preseason CCIW poll has wheaton finishing ahead of millikin.

Rule #1 of following the CCIW is, "Don't take the preseason coaches poll seriously." For one, it tends to be an exercise in gamesmanship among the coaches more than anything else. And what is more biased than a bunch of coaches playing head games amongst their league peers? For another, it's almost always wildly inaccurate. I did a study of it a couple of years ago and found that at one point the coaches had picked the league champ wrong thirteen out of seventeen seasons. Plus, I can think of at least two occasions in the past decade in which the coaches picked a team to finish in the second division that subsequently went on to win the CCIW title. One was Elmhurst (picked #6) in 2001. The other was Illinois Wesleyan (picked #5) in 1997. All Wesleyan went on to do that season was win the national championship.

The CCIW coaches poll is a nice PR device, and it's a get way to get discussion going about the league every fall. But give it credence at your own peril.

they [Augustana] are surviving games rather than winning them. [snip]  So, by default, #6 may be IWU afterall!

True enough about Augie, but surviving games is better than losing them. The fact remains that the Doggies (14-1, 4-0) are all alone in first place in the CCIW, and the only remaining undefeated team in league play. Meanwhile, Illinois Wesleyan (12-2, 2-2) trails Augustana by two full games in the CCIW standings, and the Titans are a missed Drew Gensler FT with 33 seconds remaining in regulation and a missed Kyle Jeffery buzzer-beater from being 0-4 in the CCIW. If Augie is surviving games rather than winning them, then the Titans are both surviving and losing.

The CCIW's schedule for the upcoming week...

Wednesday:

Millikin @ Augustana
North Central @ Carthage
Elmhurst @ North Park
Wheaton @ Illinois Wesleyan

Saturday:

North Central @ Augustana
Illinois Wesleyan @ North Park
Wheaton @ Elmhurst
Carthage @ Millikin

After North Central stunned Illinois Wesleyan in Bloomington eleven days ago, I said that I was impressed by the Cardinals but still not quite convinced that they were Top Ten material. Well, this will be the week that proves what the Cardinals are made of.

[Briton Backer]

Woo Scots Fan,
Nobody is suggesting that Albions win at Alma is what should vault the Britons over Wooster, it is Albion's beating of Hope on Wednesday and also the fact that your exact same Wooster team couldn't beat Albion when they played 10 months ago.  I guess I would rather Albion learn how to react when the chips are down and win a few close regular season games, rather than blow out everybody in the league and then panic and lose to Albion in a close game in the tournament like your Scots.

The voters bias towards Wooster's name and history may indeed keep Wooster above Albion.  But if my memory serves me correct these voters kept Wooster above Albion in this poll all year long last year as well, but that didn't matter much when you had to travel to Albion to get beat in the tournament.  

Either way, my guess is that Albion could care less about the Top 25, when the real rankings come out (the Great Lakes regional rankings), given Albion's undefeated regional and D3 records and with wins over regional powers Hope and Baldwin-Wallace. given the objective criteria used in calculating the regional rankings, Albion is likely a shoe-in for #1.

[David Collinge]

Woo Scots Fan,
Nobody is suggesting that Albions win at Alma is what should vault the Britons over Wooster, it is Albion's beating of Hope on Wednesday and also the fact that your exact same Wooster team couldn't beat Albion when they played 10 months ago.  I guess I would rather Albion learn how to react when the chips are down and win a few close regular season games, rather than blow out everybody in the league and then panic and lose to Albion in a close game in the tournament like your Scots.

The voters bias towards Wooster's name and history may indeed keep Wooster above Albion.  But if my memory serves me correct these voters kept Wooster above Albion in this poll all year long last year as well, but that didn't matter much when you had to travel to Albion to get beat in the tournament. 

Either way, my guess is that Albion could care less about the Top 25, when the real rankings come out (the Great Lakes regional rankings), given Albion's undefeated regional and D3 records and with wins over regional powers Hope and Baldwin-Wallace. given the objective criteria used in calculating the regional rankings, Albion is likely a shoe-in for #1.

I can't tell if this is gloating over having won that game in March, or sour grapes over not getting some expected measure of respect for having done so.  Either way, what's past is prologue.  The results of Wooster vs. Albion last season (should) have no bearing on this season's poll. 

Furthermore, Wooster's team is far from the "exact same;" in fact it could hardly be more different.  The personnel is vastly different, as three of the four post players either graduated or otherwise left the team, leaving this year's Scots a tremendously undersized team (the center is 6'6", and three guards start).  Secondly, that led directly to a radical change in philosophy, with Wooster running and focusing on the perimeter game, and playing more aggressive defense.  Wooster is fourth in the nation in scoring, despite not being a "System" team. 

Albion is also a very different team than they were in March, at least on paper.  DePree and Thomas are gone, and the offense revolves around Brandon Crawford, a player for whom Wooster would probably have no answer.  If Wooster and Albion were to play today, the games plans would be so different from last year's game as to render the teams unrecognizable. 

So even if a game played in a different season could have any bearing on this season's rankings, that game at Kresge wouldn't be it.

[Titan Q]

"...the Titans are a missed Drew Gensler FT with 33 seconds remaining in regulation and a missed Kyle Jeffery buzzer-beater from being 0-4 in the CCIW."


Had Drew Gensler made that 2nd FT to put Millikin up 1 with :33 to play, was IWU not going to get the ball back, Greg?  I've seen IWU get jobbed down in Decatur a lot of times over the years, but surely they were going to let those final :33 play out, right?

You are correct though - IWU could be 0-4.

[Titan Q]

"The fact remains that the Doggies (14-1, 4-0) are all alone in first place in the CCIW, and the only remaining undefeated team in league play. Meanwhile, Illinois Wesleyan (12-2, 2-2) trails Augustana by two full games in the CCIW standings..."

Greg, I think it is somewhat misleading to use the conference standings at this early stage to make poll voting decisions.  Augustana, for example, has not played a road game vs one of the other top four teams.  IWU has...and lost at EC.  North Central has...and won at IWU.  Elmhurst has...and lost at Augustana.  I think you've gotta let more of those games play out before you use the standings to evaluate a league like the CCIW.

[Briton Backer]

Collinge,
I agree with last year's result.  I just was having some fun with the sensitive Scot fans.  But with respect to things that do matter for this year's poll:

At this point of the season, unless there is a head-to-head matchup, we can only go by similar opponents (which of course, is imperfect, but the best thing available until tournament time).  Because Albion is undefeated in D3 with a number of quality wins, it compares favorably in these comparisons.  For example, Wooster beat Witt, Baldwin-Wallace beat Wooster, and Albion beat Baldwin-Wallace.  Albion beat Elmhurst, Elmhurst beat IWU.  IWU beat Puget Sound. 

People try to discount Wooster's loss to BW because it came in a OT and was a close game.  In the same breath, people on this board are trying to discount Albion's win yesterday because the final score was closer than expected. I have read similar posts discounting Albion's win over BW because it was close.  In my mind, I am thrilled that Albion has won a number of close games.  The players seem to believe that in a close game, they will find a way to win. 

I agree that the top 5 teams are all very close and have very good resumes, but the fact remains a loss is a loss and a win is a win.  When the tournament comes, you have to be able to win the close games.  There is no arguing that Wooster and Witt are very good teams.  It is just puzzling that the assumption seems to be that Albion cannot climb above them.  What makes this even more baffling is that there were many who seemed poised to proclaim that Hope should move to number 1 if they had beaten Albion, despite the fact that they did not seem to have a more impressive resume at the time. 

I am not suggesting that Albion clearly deserves to be ranked above Witt and Woo, I am just curious as to why the idea is so quickly dismissed by posters on this board. 

[Titan Q]

"Albion beat Elmhurst, Elmhurst beat IWU..."


Brit, I've posted a few times on this topic lately, so I will spare everyone another long rant.  I will just say that what you are attempting to do via comparative scores is a little misleading in that where the games are played is so significant.  Albion beat Elmhurst at Albion in a game that was decided in the final couple minutes (65-64 with 2:24 to play).  Last night IWU lost to Elmhurst in a close game at Elmhurst.

If you want to try to compare two teams via a common opponent (like Albion vs IWU) I really believe it helps to compare similar location (home/road).  So in this case, let's wait until Elmhurst plays at IWU on Saturday Feb. 4 since Elmhurst was on the road for the Albion/EC game.

Head-to-head games on a neutral court are obviously the poll voter's best friend....like IWU vs Puget Sound.  It is hard to argue with those results.

[David Collinge]

I agree that the top 5 teams are all very close and have very good resumes, but the fact remains a loss is a loss and a win is a win.  When the tournament comes, you have to be able to win the close games.  There is no arguing that Wooster and Witt are very good teams.  It is just puzzling that the assumption seems to be that Albion cannot climb above them.  What makes this even more baffling is that there were many who seemed poised to proclaim that Hope should move to number 1 if they had beaten Albion, despite the fact that they did not seem to have a more impressive resume at the time. 

I am not suggesting that Albion clearly deserves to be ranked above Witt and Woo, I am just curious as to why the idea is so quickly dismissed by posters on this board. 

I think you may be reading too much into this.  It's not really a question of whether Albion deserves consideration as #1; I think most people would agree that they do.  But whether they will achieve #1 is as much a question of logistics as anything else.  Albion is 38 points behind Wooster (rightly or wrongly), and another 20 points further back of Wittenberg.  Can they overtake these teams on the strength of thrashing the then-#2 team, the holder of 9 votes for #1?  Certainly, it is possible.  I wouldn't be unhappy in the least if that happens.  But I don't think it will; it require too many voters to decide, based on that one game (and possibly the result of Hope/Calvin, and ignoring the Woo/Wabash and Witt/Earlham results), to change their opinions of Albion vis-a-vis the NCAC teams. 

Wooster lost at home in 2OT to a very good team, and that has hurt their ranking (i.e., without that loss, the Scots are #1 for sure.)  It is true that Albion beat this same team, by 3, almost two months ago, on a neutral court, when both teams were still trying to figure out how to compensate for the loss of departed All-American players (Thad Davis and Travis DePree.)  I'm sure that this win helped and continues to help Albion in the rankings.  But when you start playing the A beat B who beat C who beat D game, you start to lose me, especially when you are talking about games that were decided by one possession (a list which includes last year's Woo/Albion game, by the way). 

To my mind, what really distinguishes Albion's resume from Wooster's and Wittenberg's is the Britons' loss to UM-Dearborn.  There are extenuating circumstances (like the fact that it was Albion's first game but Dearborn's fifth or whatever), and it was a long time ago (longer ago that the BW game mentioned above), and in my mind shouldn't count for much of anything in the rankings.  But when you are deciding how to differentiate between three teams, each with some good quality wins and just one loss, and those losses are a) on a last second shot on the court of a consensus top 5 team, b) in double overtime against the presumptive #10 team, and c) by 11 points to an NAIA team that, from what I have heard, is pretty mediocre, I can see how you'd be able to rank these teams 1-2-3, if only by a hair's breadth.

[Coach C]

DC, Q, et al. -

Agreed that the head to head results are important, but as they age and things happen to each team, you also have to weight recent events in the calculus for voting.

I am not saying that today IWU is not as good as Puget Sound today, just saying that the head to head is not he be all and end all.

C

[David Collinge]

Oh, yes, there's one other thing I feel compelled to mention:

Either way, my guess is that Albion could care less about the Top 25, when the real rankings come out (the Great Lakes regional rankings), given Albion's undefeated regional and D3 records and with wins over regional powers Hope and Baldwin-Wallace. given the objective criteria used in calculating the regional rankings, Albion is likely a shoe-in for #1.

Don't forget about Carnegie Mellon.  The Tartans have a 9-0 regional record, which includes wins over 11-1 NYU, 7-3 Rochester, and 9-4 Bethany (as well as some ultra-low-QoWI wins over Oberlin and W&J).  By contrast, Albion is "just" 5-0, with wins over 7-1 Hope and 11-2 B-W.  I think if the regional rankings came out today, CMU would be the front-runner, followed by Albion, then Witt and Woo perhaps tied for 3rd, then Hope and the OAC teams.

Teams and fans that overlook Carnegie Mellon do so at their own peril.

[Gregory Sager]

Had Drew Gensler made that 2nd FT to put Millikin up 1 with :33 to play, was IWU not going to get the ball back, Greg?  I've seen IWU get jobbed down in Decatur a lot of times over the years, but surely they were going to let those final :33 play out, right?

There's quite a bit of difference, psychologically and tactically, from playing your last possession from behind and playing your last possession from a tie.

Neither game's result was cast in stone. Heck, Jeffery's shot could've gone in and yet Carthage could've had a dead-ball foul called on them in the process, giving Wesleyan one last chance with a second left. My observation was more along the lines of scoreboard-watching than of actual game flow.

Greg, I think it is somewhat misleading to use the conference standings at this early stage to make poll voting decisions.  Augustana, for example, has not played a road game vs one of the other top four teams.  IWU has...and lost at EC.  North Central has...and won at IWU.  Elmhurst has...and lost at Augustana.  I think you've gotta let more of those games play out before you use the standings to evaluate a league like the CCIW.

League standings will always be misleading to a degree until the regular season has been played out, because their incompleteness begs the question. That's a given. And I'm pretty sure that the pollsters will weigh that. Nevertheless, you can't just dismiss league standings out of hand ... and when a team already has a two-game lead in the standings over another team only four games deep into the conference season, it's almost unavoidable that the pollsters will take that into account as well.