Top 25 talk

[Pat Coleman]

We tried to get info from RIC but they did not respond to either inquiry.

[John Gleich]

Thanks for posting that Q... great research as usual!

How are you differentiating between your 2-5?  I know you've mentioned some of the IWU/Carthage and seeing as they split their 4 meetings last year and IWU returns all 5 starters versus Carthage's 5.

I'm kind of wondering, too, between Randy Mac and E. Menn.  It may be head to head or record, but Randolph Macon really showed me the type of team they were in the second half of that National Semi-final when it looked like SP was going to run away with it.

[Titan Q]

Thanks for posting that Q... great research as usual!

How are you differentiating between your 2-5?  I know you've mentioned some of the IWU/Carthage and seeing as they split their 4 meetings last year and IWU returns all 5 starters versus Carthage's 5.

I'm kind of wondering, too, between Randy Mac and E. Menn.  It may be head to head or record, but Randolph Macon really showed me the type of team they were in the second half of that National Semi-final when it looked like SP was going to run away with it.

Honestly, I could just pull these 4 out of a hat and be comfortable with whatever order comes out.  But my thinking was...

IWU vs Carthage considerations
* They split 4 head-to-head games
* Carthage went 12-2 in the CCIW vs IWU's 10-4 (advantage CC)
* IWU won the NCAA tournament neutral court game @ UW-Stevens Point (advantage IWU)
* IWU had another great NCAA win - @ then #1 Wash U in the tournament
* Carthage has the best player in NCAA Division III (advantage CC)
* IWU is much more balanced and much deeper (advantage IWU)
* IWU returns all 5 starters whereas Carthage loses an excellent perimeter defender in Cody Hilton, a guy CC would use on the other team's best perimeter player (advantage IWU)

Just very hard to differentiate at all, so I give the edge to the team with 5 starters back.  Also, I like IWU's balance and depth.


Eastern Mennonite vs Randolph-Macon considerations
* They split 2 head-to-head games
* EMU went 14-2 in the ODAC, RMC went 11-5 (advantage EMU)
* Both return all 5 starters
* In the NCAA tournament, EMU beat Centre and Wilmington at home, then beat Whitworth at Guilford, before having to face Guilford at their place in the Elite 8 (and lost)
* RMC had a much easier path in my opinion (vs Cabrini, vs Clark, vs DeSales, vs Franklin & Marshall)

I don't necessarily give RMC a nod for making it to Salem, because I thinking EMU would have made it to with RMC's road.  In the end, with really nothing more to use to differentiate, I just went with the ODAC records.

(RMC did make a nice comeback in the national semi-final vs UW-Stevens Point, but at the same time, they trailed by 19 at halftime, and by 24 with 15 minutes to play before cutting it to 8 with 3:00, and losing by 12.  That game is kind of a non-factor to me as far as EMU vs RMC goes.)

[cubs]

I received the official D3hoops.com preseason ballot e-mail today.  I'm guessing we'll have a poll by mid-week.  

So with a final decision to make by Tuesday, I'm very comfortable with 21 teams and have 9 teams I'm looking at for spots 22-25...

UW-Whitewater (23-6 overall, 13-3 WIAC/West) – Round of 32, lost to Wooster
Starters Returning: (2) G Phil Negri, 6-3 SR (8.4 ppg, 3.3 rpg), F Alex Edmunds, 6-4 JR (7.2 ppg, 4.7 rpg)

Starters Lost: (3) C Dustin Mitchell, 6-9 (18.0 ppg, 8.7 rpg), G Dupree Fletcher, 6-2 (14.0 ppg, 2.7 rpg), F Mike Bendall, 6-6 (10.2 ppg, 5.1 rpg)

Top Returning Reserve: G Nolan Free, 6-1 SO (6.4 ppg, 4.1 rpg) not returning

Potential Impact Transfer: F Chris Davis, 6-6, Madison Area Technical College (22 ppg, 6 rpg)...G Eric Bryson, 6-3, Winona State

You can add in two more possible impact transfers.....

G Rick Bowers-Germantown (WI) High School- In 2008 he was ranked #36 player in the state as a senior

F Josh Williams, a 6'9 transfer from Valdosta st.

Sorry, but I don't have much more for inforamtion than what I posted.

[nwhoops1903]

Whitworth tops NWC preseason poll.

http://www.nwcsports.com/sports/mbkb/2010-11/news/poll

Titan's oversight and insult of leaving WW and for that matter any West Coast team off his list is pathetic.  I hope other voters will do some better research.  I can argue WW has THE BEST potential impact newcomer in the country.

[John Gleich]

Whitworth tops NWC preseason poll.

http://www.nwcsports.com/sports/mbkb/2010-11/news/poll

Titan's oversight and insult of leaving WW and for that matter any West Coast team off his list is pathetic.  I hope other voters will do some better research.  I can argue WW has THE BEST potential impact newcomer in the country.

Titan Q's "snub" isn't intended to insult WW...  For that matter, 383 teams are not going to show up in the top 25.  Only 6% of the teams are in the top 25.

Look, I was almost as ardent a supporter of Whitworth last year as you were... but they lost 3 or their top 4 scorers.  Only ONE team in the top 21 listed (Williams, last year's runner up, who had a 10 point lead with 11 minutes to go in the Championship game) lost more than 1 starter.

D3hoops puts out the best ranking there is in D-III... but it's just a (well educated) guess.  It doesn't take into account potential injuries or difficulties in the locker room or anything else... but even if it could, the games still have to be played.  There isn't an expert out there save the Almighty Himself who knows what will happen this year... but this poll is a projection based on passed results and potential.

It is certainly possible that a team can lose a lot from a great team the year before and be as good or better.  A few pages back we discussed the 1997 Illinois Wesleyan team that followed up a Final Four bid in '96 with a National Championship the next year, returning just one starter.

But this is the exception rather than the norm.  And though the folks inside the Shirk believed, the prognosticators wouldn't have given the Titans much of a shot in '97 (I don't think there was a poll... was there?) and would they really have deserved one?

And so, though Whitworth looks like they may have reloaded from last year, should they get this "due" in the preseason with several newcomers and with lots of guys who will have to step into new rolls?

I'm confident that UWSP won't care about their #1 preseason ranking.  They only care about adding another WIAC banner to the wall of Quandt and putting another trophy in the trophy case.  It certainly won't be an easy task... but it isn't easy for anyone.  The number in front of the school is great for discussion, but in the end, it is just a number, and the only time that really matters is at the end of the year.

Each season, there are teams that are ranked in the top 25 that don't live up to expectations (See #2, Oshkosh, 2005-06).  All you can do, though, is win.  If you win, then you'll get ranked.

[Titan Q]

Whitworth tops NWC preseason poll.

http://www.nwcsports.com/sports/mbkb/2010-11/news/poll

Titan's oversight and insult of leaving WW and for that matter any West Coast team off his list is pathetic.  I hope other voters will do some better research.  I can argue WW has THE BEST potential impact newcomer in the country.

I waited for two weeks for someone to reply to this post on the NWC board...

Who will be the favorite in the NWC this year?  Is there an NWC team we should be looking at as a preseason Top 25 candidate?  Seems like Whitworth lost a lot from that great team last year...


#7 Whitworth (26-3 overall, 16-0 NWC) – West

Starters Returning: (2) F David Riley, 6-5 SR (13.4 ppg, 3.8 rpg), G Clay Gebbers, 6-1 SR (5.6 ppg, 3.2 rpg)

Starters Lost: (3) C Nate Montgomery, 6-8 (16.8 ppg, 8.3 rpg), G Eric Beal, 5-11 (14.3 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 5.7 apg), F Bo Gregg, 6-5 (11.5 ppg, 4.9 rpg)

Top Returning Reserve: F Jack Loofburrow, 6-6 JR (8.0 ppg, 2.7 rpg)

http://www.d3boards.com/index.php?topic=4097.5655


Are they expected to reload, or is someone else the favorite?

Crickets.

You'll also see that on September 17 I started a detailed discussion about 2010-11 preseason Top 25 candidates...

http://www.d3boards.com/index.php?topic=4097.5625

I posted early in that process (Sept 25) that it seemed like Whitworth lost too much to be considered (in the preseason poll), but asked for other thoughts.  No one made a case for Whitworth over the course of 5-6 weeks.

In the meantime I did my own research and just could not make a better preseason case for Whitworth than I did for the 25 teams I put in.  

Just like I've said about Wash U (the 2008 and 2009 national champions, and another team I did not vote for due to so much lost), I'll watch Whitworth closely in the early going and vote for them when they make a case.

I'm also curious which other "west coast" team is a legitimate preseason Top 25 candidate?  In addition to the NWC, I looked closely at the SCIAC, and at Chapman, and couldn't find a team with a better case than those I listed above.

[Titan Q]

I can argue WW has THE BEST potential impact newcomer in the country.

This is the Whitworth transfer nwhoops1903 is referring to, by the way:

http://www.missoulajournal.com/grizzlyjournal/2008/01/meet-mens-grizz.html

http://filemanager.montanagrizzlies.com/mtgriz3/schedules_and_stats/files/mbb/htm/2009-10/teamcume.htm

http://filemanager.montanagrizzlies.com/mtgriz3/schedules_and_stats/files/mbb/htm/2008-09/teamcume.htm


Last season Michael Taylor, a 6-4 G/F, played in 29 games for Montana, averaging 16 minutes per.  He scored 4.2 ppg and was 29-69 (.420) from 3.

Whitworth will be Taylor's third school.  He was the runner-up Big Sky Freshman of the Year in 2006-07 at Eastern Washington, sat out 2007-08 after transferring to Montana, and played in the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons for Montana, coming off the bench both years.

[Titan Q]

D3hoops.com preseason Top 25...

http://www.d3hoops.com/top25/

[nescac1]

Top ten looks pretty hard to argue with (quibble, yes, but they all basically belong in at least the top 15), D-3 hoops is VERY strong at the top this year with tons of deep, experienced, senior-dominated teams. 

Guilford looks to be the biggest stretch in the top 25, after losing their three big guns, two of whom were all-American caliber players, including the best center in the country.  Josh Pittman will be a superstar sooner rather than later, but at least two or three other returning guys will have to shift from role players to leading men. 

[Ralph Turner]

Top ten looks pretty hard to argue with (quibble, yes, but they all basically belong in at least the top 15), D-3 hoops is VERY strong at the top this year with tons of deep, experienced, senior-dominated teams. 

Guilford looks to be the biggest stretch in the top 25, after losing their three big guns, two of whom were all-American caliber players, including the best center in the country.  Josh Pittman will be a superstar sooner rather than later, but at least two or three other returning guys will have to shift from role players to leading men.  

McMurry at Guilford on Nov 19.

I like the schedule that new McMurry head coach Matt Garnett has put together.

[Gregory Sager]

Guilford looks to be the biggest stretch in the top 25

I thought the same thing, nescac1.

Titan's oversight and insult of leaving WW and for that matter any West Coast team off his list is pathetic.

Q and PS have already done a good job of addressing this complaint, but I'll add to it with this thought: What has the West Coast ever done to merit any respect? The only time a team on the far side of the Continental Divide made it to the Final Four was way back in 1982, when Stanislaus State finished fourth in the nation. Granted, D3 isn't very well represented on the West Coast, but it isn't as though the teams that are located there have ever made much noise in March. The SCIAC, much to the eternal consternation of its fans, is a one-and-done league most years, and it gets a team past the first weekend of the tourney about once every generation. The NWC is a relative newcomer that doesn't have a lot of D3 history, and I've been fairly impressed with the three NWC outfits I've seen firsthand (the L&C team that made the '01 sectionals in Chicago; the Puget Sound team that made the sectionals in Wheaton two years ago; and a Whitworth team that won Wheaton's Lee Pfund Tourney four years ago, a team that came within two points of Wash U on the Bears' home floor in a season in which the Bears won the national title). Nevertheless, it's still a league that has yet to break through in March.

I think that a solid case could be made for taking the NWC preseason favorite into strong consideration when putting together the preseason Top 25. However, the NWC poll came out today, the same day that the preseason Top 25 came out, so you can't indict Q and the other Top 25 pollsters for ignoring the NWC poll. And, as I said, he's already given sufficient reasons as to why he left Whitworth off his ballot.

[frodotwo]

Hey, don't sleep on Rust.  I hear they're pretty good   

No votes for Rust?? 

[Titan Q]

Top 25 matchups in November and December...


Nov 22
#20 Washington U @ #24 Augustana

Nov 24
#5 Carthage vs #16 Whitworth (in Honolulu)

Nov 27
#7 Franklin & Marshall @ #11 St. Mary's (Md)
#14 Anderson @ #24 Augustana

Dec 1
#2 Randolph-Macon vs #12 Virginia Wesleyan

Dec 3
#5 Carthage vs #17 Hope

Dec 4
#2 Randolph-Macon @ #3 Eastern Mennonite

Dec 8
#1 UW-Stevens Point vs #21 UW-Whitewater

Dec 11
#2 Randolph-Macon vs #19 Guilford

Dec 15
#21 UW-Whitewater @ #24 Augustana

Dec 18
#4 Illinois Wesleyan @ #20 Washington U.

Dec 20
#6 Wooster @ #14 Anderson

Dec 22
#1 UW-Stevens Point @ #13 St. Thomas

Dec 28
#6 Wooster vs #18 John Carroll

Dec 29
#19 Guilford @ #25 Manchester

Dec 30
#10 St. Norbert vs #24 Augustana (potential tournament matchup)


* 5 Top 25 teams do not face another Top 25 team in November and December -- Williams, Middlebury, MIT, Plattsburgh State, Texas-Dallas.

* Augustana will potentially play 4 games vs Top 25 teams in November and December...Randolph-Macon plays 3.

[Pat Coleman]

Guilford looks to be the biggest stretch in the top 25

I thought the same thing, nescac1.

Agreed.