Top 25 talk

[Mr. Ypsi]

Regarding the Calvin exhibition game error, we might be wise to listen to William James (the philosopher, not the baseball stats guy, though Bill James might agree): "A difference which makes no difference is no difference."*

While imperfect data IS a problem, the key question is whether or not it has any significance as a problem.  While incorrectly entered games WILL create errors, we need to ask "is being #398 instead of #395 something to worry about?"

IF the consistent skew towards the WIAC is real, that might be a more significant flaw in the basic methodology than data-entry errors (which will never be completely eliminated).

[*Good thing I wrote a stat book (never published, but used in my classes) - I couldn't recall the source of the advice, but there it was, in the chapter of 'testing statistical significance', in a note about not confusing statistical significance with 'real world' significance!]

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

#1 RMC on the brink against Hampden-Sydney...

RMC was down 15 in the second half... has rallied... but down four with 1:27 left in the game.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

RMC hits a three pointer with 4.9 seconds left to take the lead 69-68... HSC had led 68-64 with over a minute left. RMC actually hit a layup with 20 seconds left, but their coach had called timeout before the shot - so the basket was called off.

From the radio call... Voelker apparently hit Jessee at the end, but there was no call. RMC survives!

[Hugenerd]

Carthage beating Wheaton (IL) right now, lead stands at 19 with under 3 to go.

Final Carthage 75 - 62 Wheaton.  Djurickovic is pretty good, he had 29, 5, and 7.  McCrary had a similar stat line of 29, 7, and 4.

[John Gleich]

I'm not sure I want to be a top ranked team... Both Randolph-Macon and UW-Stevens Point survive scares from a couple of their biggest conference rivals.

[John Gleich]

Tonight's matchup with River Falls should tell us a lot about Stout... but RF is astronomically high too.

Stout is up 22 on River Falls... wow...

[Darryl Nester]

How They Fared -- Midweek report

Top 25

Rank	Pts	Team	W-L	Results
#1	597	Randolph-Macon	12-0	def. Bridgewater (Va.), 74-53; def. Hampden-Sydney, 69-68; 01/09 vs. Christopher Newport
#2	587	UW-Stevens Point	12-1	def. UW-Oshkosh, 73-67; 01/09 vs. T#22 UW-La Crosse
#3	577	Washington U.	10-1	def. Webster, 69-60; 01/09 vs. Chicago
#4	539	UW-Whitewater	12-1	01/09 vs. UW-River Falls
#5	518	St. Thomas	9-1	def. Bethel, 61-50; 01/09 at Carleton
#6	510	Guilford	11-1	def. Lynchburg, 89-82; 01/09 vs. Randolph
#7	488	Middlebury	10-0	def. T#42 Plattsburgh State, 81-75; 01/07 vs. Colby-Sawyer; 01/09 at Skidmore; 01/10 at Lyndon State
#8	361	Brandeis	8-1	def. Curry, 74-69; 01/09 at New York University
#9	356	Amherst	8-1	def. Wesleyan, 81-72; 01/09 at #11 Williams
#10	346	Mississippi College	10-0	def. Belhaven, 89-79; 01/07 at Concordia-Austin; 01/09 at Mary Hardin-Baylor
#11	333	Williams	11-1	def. Colby-Sawyer, 101-88; 01/09 vs. #9 Amherst
#12	309	Virginia Wesleyan	12-1	def. Salisbury, 79-69; def. Randolph, 62-48; 01/09 at Washington and Lee
T#13	259	Franklin and Marshall	9-2	def. Haverford, 58-44 53-48; 01/09 at Swarthmore
T#13	259	Wheaton (Ill.)	8-4	LOST at #35 Carthage, 62-75; 01/09 vs. North Central (Ill.)
#15	236	MIT	12-1	def. Tufts, 71-59; 01/09 at Babson
#16	228	St. Norbert	9-1	def. Beloit, 73-46; 01/09 at Ripon
#17	195	Chapman	12-2	def. Caltech, 60-42
#18	176	Anderson	12-1	def. Franklin, 72-59; 01/09 at Transylvania
#19	172	Wilmington	11-2	def. Ohio Northern, 73-62; 01/09 at Heidelberg
#20	158	St. Mary's (Md.)	10-2	01/09 at Wesley
#21	123	Medaille	12-0	01/09 at Frostburg State
T#22	103	Texas-Dallas	8-3	def. Hardin-Simmons, 86-64; 01/07 at Texas Lutheran; 01/09 at Schreiner
T#22	103	UW-La Crosse	12-2	def. UW-Superior, 61-57; 01/09 at #2 UW-Stevens Point
#24	102	Eastern Mennonite	10-1	def. Washington and Lee, 83-48; 01/09 vs. Roanoke
#25	91	Illinois Wesleyan	10-2	def. North Central (Ill.), 84-79; 01/09 vs. #35 Carthage

Others receiving votes

Rank	Pts	Team	W-L	Results
#26	59	Wooster	8-4	01/09 vs. Kenyon
#27	53	Worcester Polytech	10-2	LOST at Wheaton (Mass.), 79-91; 01/09 vs. Trinity (Conn.)
#28	48	Richard Stockton	9-3	def. Rutgers-Camden, 68-56; 01/09 vs. Montclair State
T#29	35	John Carroll	8-4	def. Otterbein, 88-64; 01/09 vs. Capital (n)
T#29	35	Western Connecticut	9-1	def. Regis (Mass.), 92-73; 01/09 at Plymouth State
#31	31	York (Pa.)	11-2	LOST at Marymount, 88-90 OT; 01/09 at Hood
#32	27	Augustana	8-4	def. North Park, 77-63; 01/09 at Elmhurst
#33	22	Hope	7-5	LOST at Calvin, 75-84; 01/09 vs. Alma
#34	21	Elms	6-4	LOST to (n) Montclair State, 63-65; LOST at Union, 68-74; 01/09 vs. Newbury
#35	18	Carthage	9-3	def. T#13 Wheaton (Ill.), 75-62; 01/09 at #25 Illinois Wesleyan
#36	14	Whitworth	9-2	01/08 vs. Pacific; 01/09 vs. George Fox
#37	9	DeSales	8-4	def. Widener, 92-87 2OT; 01/09 vs. Eastern
T#38	7	Defiance	11-3	LOST at Transylvania, 56-58; 01/09 at Mount St. Joseph
T#38	7	McMurry	7-3	01/07 vs. LeTourneau; 01/09 vs. East Texas Baptist
#40	5	William Paterson	12-1	def. Manhattanville, 58-46; 01/09 at Kean
#41	3	Rochester	7-2	LOST to Clarkson, 63-66 OT; 01/08 vs. Case Western Reserve; 01/10 vs. Carnegie Mellon
T#42	2	Plattsburgh State	7-2	LOST at #7 Middlebury, 75-81; 01/08 at Buffalo State; 01/09 at Fredonia State
T#42	2	UW-Platteville	9-4	def. UW-Eau Claire, 74-67; 01/09 at UW-Stout
#44	1	Cabrini	9-1	def. Keystone, 93-85; def. Lancaster Bible, 92-74

[Ralph Turner]

IMHO, if Mississippi College is truly a #10, then they beat UMHB in the second game of a road trip 500 miles away from home.  Belton TX is a hard place to play, and this is a game where UMHB can "pick up" a win over a conference foe.  Losing to Mississippi College would put UMHB down 2 games in the loss column to McMurry as the ASC teams finish "crossover" play.

(UMHB has two conference losses in the ASC-West, McMurry only has one.  The winner of the ASC-West hosts the conference tourney this year.  This is a must game for UMHB if they want to host the ASC tourney.)

[ScotsFan]

Will the love for Wheaton finally end with yet another loss?  I think it's time that the rest of the voters started listening to Bob...

[Hugenerd]

Will the love for Wheaton finally end with yet another loss?  I think it's time that the rest of the voters started listening to Bob...

A loss to Hamline dropped them 5 spots in the poll, what makes you think a loss to Carthage will drop them out (another 12 spots)? 

Carthage, on the other hand, has a real chance to make a statement. If they can win at IWU this weekend, they will have knocked off both ranked CCIW teams in a single week, which would probably vault them into the rankings (probably somewhere in the teens).  However, if IWU wins, they will likely pick up a lot of the votes that Wheaton (IL) will lose and cause their ranking to spike.   I would expect that the winner of the game between Carthage and IWU this saturday would be the highest ranked CCIW team in next week's poll, but sometimes common logic (at least my logic) does not seem to apply to CCIW rankings.

[D.B. Cooper]

The correct score of F&M-Haverford was 58-44. I am not sure if this initially incorrect score on the F&M website has been corrected anywhere. It may or may not be important to this topic, but accuracy should be a positive thing.

[KnightSlappy]

Knightslappy, do you have the ability to compile conference OWP/OOWP?  I realize that, because some teams have started conference play and other have not, they won't be perfect (in a perfect world, we'd be able to just look at the non-con schedules)... but that might shed more light on the results.

I averaged each conference members OWP and OOWP and then calculated a SOS number for each conference. I know the averaging method isn't exact, but I'm not set up to calculate an exact conference OWP and OOWP. I hope this gets us close enough for discussion purposes. Sorted by Strength of Schedule using the handbook's defined 2/3 and 1/3 rule:

CONF     OWP      OOWP     SOS
WIAC     0.5987   0.5432   0.5802
MACC     0.5875   0.5312   0.5688
UAA      0.5773   0.5248   0.5598
CCIW     0.5515   0.5317   0.5449
SUNYAC   0.5557   0.5151   0.5422
USAC     0.5717   0.4827   0.5420
MASCAC   0.5735   0.4687   0.5386
MIAC     0.5446   0.5222   0.5372
NWC      0.5438   0.5227   0.5367
E8       0.5376   0.5282   0.5344
NJAC     0.5319   0.5279   0.5306
OAC      0.5348   0.5178   0.5292
MIAA     0.5302   0.5117   0.5240
ODAC     0.5173   0.5266   0.5204
MWC      0.5223   0.5149   0.5198
CC       0.5184   0.5189   0.5185
NESCAC   0.5161   0.5207   0.5176
LAND     0.5208   0.5105   0.5173
LL       0.5152   0.5075   0.5126
MACF     0.5057   0.5249   0.5121
LEC      0.5080   0.5165   0.5109
CAC      0.5069   0.5172   0.5103
CUNYAC   0.5046   0.5091   0.5061
GNAC     0.5193   0.4791   0.5059
CCC      0.5108   0.4857   0.5024
NAC      0.4939   0.5087   0.4988
NATHC    0.4899   0.4993   0.4930
IIAC     0.4801   0.5040   0.4880
HCAC     0.4845   0.4909   0.4866
GSAC     0.4569   0.5402   0.4847
SCAC     0.4835   0.4821   0.4831
PrAC     0.4763   0.4953   0.4827
NCAC     0.4750   0.4929   0.4810
ASC      0.4654   0.4942   0.4750
NEWMAC   0.4428   0.5386   0.4747
NECC     0.4611   0.4966   0.4729
SKY      0.4614   0.4894   0.4707
AMCC     0.4531   0.5009   0.4690
CSAC     0.4551   0.4843   0.4648
SCIAC    0.4061   0.4994   0.4372
UMAC     0.4018   0.4638   0.4224
IND      0.3921   0.4285   0.4042
NEAC     0.3820   0.4467   0.4036
SLIAC    0.3635   0.4344   0.3871

[Darryl Nester]

The correct score of F&M-Haverford was 58-44. I am not sure if this initially incorrect score on the F&M website has been corrected anywhere. It may or may not be important to this topic, but accuracy should be a positive thing.

I corrected it in the report, but it was submitted as 53-48 to the d3sports scoreboard (and is still incorrect at this point): F&M team page at d3hoops.com

[Pat Coleman]

F&M uses the same scoreboard provider we do, so anything on their site is going to appear on ours.

[John Gleich]

Knightslappy, do you have the ability to compile conference OWP/OOWP?  I realize that, because some teams have started conference play and other have not, they won't be perfect (in a perfect world, we'd be able to just look at the non-con schedules)... but that might shed more light on the results.

I averaged each conference members OWP and OOWP and then calculated a SOS number for each conference. I know the averaging method isn't exact, but I'm not set up to calculate an exact conference OWP and OOWP. I hope this gets us close enough for discussion purposes. Sorted by Strength of Schedule using the handbook's defined 2/3 and 1/3 rule:

Thanks, +1, great work!  

Even if it isn't 100% exact, it is likely pretty close... and it should help to shed some light on how good the conferences really are.

Would you think that SOS*Winning percentage would be a good way to come up with a composite number?

Oh, and it doesn't matter either way (just interested to know), but are these OWP and OOWP for all opponents, just D-III or just in-region D-III?