Top 25 talk

[Darryl Nester]

How They Fared (Complete)

Top 25

Rank	Pts	Team	W-L	Results
#1	624	Middlebury	7-0	IDLE
#2	560	Virginia Wesleyan	7-1	def. Shenandoah, 86-56
#3	556	Augustana	8-1	def. Chicago, 93-52
#4	511	MIT	12-0	def. Wheelock, 71-47
#5	490	Emory	8-0	IDLE
#6	480	Amherst	9-1	def. Anna Maria, 76-57
#7	477	Williams	8-1	IDLE
#8	417	Whitworth	7-1	def. Northwestern (Minn.), 78-76
#9	396	Marietta	6-3	LOST at Ohio, 54-88; LOST to Ohio Northern, 57-59
#10	392	Franklin and Marshall	9-0	IDLE
#11	360	Cabrini	8-0	def. Scranton, 71-68
#12	305	Mary Hardin-Baylor	8-0	def. Mississippi College, 84-70; def. Louisiana College, 84-71
#13	279	UW-Whitewater	8-1	LOST at #25 UW-Stevens Point, 77-79
#14	235	St. Thomas	7-1	IDLE
#15	227	Puget Sound	9-0	def. New Hope Christian, 79-57
#16	214	Birmingham-Southern	8-1	LOST at Centre, 65-72; def. Sewanee, 86-65
#17	212	Wabash	8-0	IDLE
#18	189	Hope	8-1	IDLE
#19	188	Wooster	5-2	IDLE
#20	124	WPI	8-1	IDLE
#21	85	Buffalo State	8-1	def. Keuka, 108-78; def. Capital, 81-78
#22	84	Claremont-Mudd-Scripps	9-0	IDLE
#23	82	Rochester	8-2	IDLE
#24	75	Oswego State	9-1	def. Cazenovia, 83-55
#25	63	UW-Stevens Point	8-2	def. #13 UW-Whitewater, 79-77; def. T#26 Edgewood, 81-70

Others receiving votes

Rank	Pts	Team	W-L	Results
T#26	60	Edgewood	9-1	LOST to #25 UW-Stevens Point, 70-81
T#26	60	Washington U.	7-3	LOST at Illinois Wesleyan, 56-71
T#26	60	Wittenberg	4-2	IDLE
#29	53	Rhode Island College	9-1	IDLE
#30	52	Wheaton (Ill.)	7-2	IDLE
#31	35	William Paterson	9-1	def. Lehman, 76-68
T#32	27	Ohio Wesleyan	8-1	IDLE
T#32	27	Western Connecticut	10-1	def. Clark, 77-74
#34	22	Grinnell	8-0	IDLE
#35	21	Bethany	10-0	def. Frostburg State, 74-73; def. Olivet, 68-46
#36	18	St. Mary's (Md.)	8-2	def. Sacred Heart (P.R.), 76-50
#37	16	Hardin-Simmons	7-0	IDLE
#38	14	Transylvania	7-0	def. Bluffton, 76-68
#39	9	Texas-Dallas	7-1	def. University of the Ozarks, 73-62
#40	8	UW-River Falls	8-2	def. UW-Stout, 72-52; def. North Central (Minn.), 98-65
#41	7	Rose-Hulman	8-2	def. Eureka, 92-70; LOST at Hanover, 54-60
#42	5	Hobart	6-1	IDLE
#43	4	New Jersey City	9-1	def. Lehman, 65-52; def. Nazareth, 63-60
T#44	1	Hartwick	9-0	IDLE
T#44	1	Salem State	6-3	IDLE

[magicman]

#3 Augustana barely squeaks by Knox 55-53.

# 19 Wooster also in a close contest as they down St. Mary's (Md.) 63-61

[ScotsFan]

#3 Augustana barely squeaks by Knox 55-53.

# 19 Wooster also in a close contest as they down St. Mary's (Md.) 63-61

St. Mary's is a pretty good team.  They were in the Elite 8 last year and had only 2 losses heading into yesterday's game with Wooster.  Knox, on the other hand, only has 2 wins...

[John Gleich]

New Top 25 is out

[Titan Q]

#3 Augustana barely squeaks by Knox 55-53.

Augie played without their All-American candidate - 6-9 small forward Bryant Voiles (19.4 ppg, 7.1 rpg).  I would have thought they'd still crush Knox without him, but without Voiles they are just really offensively challenged.  (I have questions if they have enough scorers even with Voiles to truly be a Top 5 team.)

Without or without Voiles, this score was a head-scratcher.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

#3 Augustana barely squeaks by Knox 55-53.

# 19 Wooster also in a close contest as they down St. Mary's (Md.) 63-61

St. Mary's is a pretty good team.  They were in the Elite 8 last year and had only 2 losses heading into yesterday's game with Wooster.  Knox, on the other hand, only has 2 wins...

St. Mary's is good... but not as good as their Elite 8 appearence last year. They lost a lot from that team and have been dealing with a number of injuries including a season-ender to their top returning scorer at the beginning of the season. I am waiting to see if they can actually recover from other injuries and improve as the season progresses.

As for their two losses... one came to Johns Hopkins who shut them down defensively pretty easily... the other came against who I consider an over-rated F&M team. They have also had two-point wins to York (Pa.) and Hood... which doesn't build any confidence they are some one to watch out for right now.

The fact that SMC was up 20 points early in the 2nd half on Wooster is the most interesting part... I am impressed the Seahawks got out to that big a lead and disappointed a team in Wooster I expected a bit more from in this match-up let that happen. Now, Wooster rallied to win... but not sure that is impressive or raises more questions like why Wooster would struggle so much early in a game against a team I would say they should have had an easier time with. Of course... being in Puerto Rico might have been the distraction! :-)

[magicman]

Interesting to note that not a single team dropped out of the polls this week. This was no doubt, due to a limited number of games being played by teams in the Top 25, as 11 of the ranked teams were idle. Only 3 ranked teams suffered a loss and while those 3 tumbled a bit they were all fairly high in the standings at the time of their loss. They were #9 Marietta, who fell to #20, #13 UW-Whitewater who dropped to #16, and #16 Birmingham-Southern who slipped to #22. This was only the fourth time in the past six and a half years that no Top 25 team has dropped out of the poll. Only once since November of 2005 has the poll remained stable during the break that takes place at this time of year. That occured for the week ending December 21st, 2008. The other two instances were the weeks ending January 24, 2010 and February 6, 2011.     

[ScotsFan]

#3 Augustana barely squeaks by Knox 55-53.

# 19 Wooster also in a close contest as they down St. Mary's (Md.) 63-61

St. Mary's is a pretty good team.  They were in the Elite 8 last year and had only 2 losses heading into yesterday's game with Wooster.  Knox, on the other hand, only has 2 wins...

St. Mary's is good... but not as good as their Elite 8 appearence last year. They lost a lot from that team and have been dealing with a number of injuries including a season-ender to their top returning scorer at the beginning of the season. I am waiting to see if they can actually recover from other injuries and improve as the season progresses.

As for their two losses... one came to Johns Hopkins who shut them down defensively pretty easily... the other came against who I consider an over-rated F&M team. They have also had two-point wins to York (Pa.) and Hood... which doesn't build any confidence they are some one to watch out for right now.

The fact that SMC was up 20 points early in the 2nd half on Wooster is the most interesting part... I am impressed the Seahawks got out to that big a lead and disappointed a team in Wooster I expected a bit more from in this match-up let that happen. Now, Wooster rallied to win... but not sure that is impressive or raises more questions like why Wooster would struggle so much early in a game against a team I would say they should have had an easier time with. Of course... being in Puerto Rico might have been the distraction! :-)

Wooster is still struggling to find an identity on the offensive end of the floor.  They have a true freshman trying to fill the shoes of departed All American Ian Franks and while Xavier Brown has shown he is on his way to becoming a special player for Wooster, he is still a true freshman and still makes freshman mistakes.  As for the game the other day, SMC had the perfect storm of events come together in that first half to help them build their big lead over the Scots.  SMC shot the ball incredibly well (around 60%) to Wooster's poor shooting (under 30%) and Wooster had double digits in turnovers as well.  As I mentioned, Wooster is struggling to find their identity offensively and I think they started to figure out that they need to start to get the ball inside to open things up for their shooters.  Josh Claytor, one of Wooster's bigs, had 2 points in the first half when Wooster seemed to be in disarray on the offensive end and it resulted in Wooster finding themselves down 18 at the half.  In the second half, Wooster made a more concerted effort to get the ball inside and, as a result, Claytor scored sixteen 2nd half points and Wooster overcame a 20 point deficit as a result.

Personally, I'm not all that schocked to see the Scots struggling a bit out of the gates.  Prior to the start of the season, I felt like this season had a similar feel to be potentially like the '08-'09 season when Wooster was replacing James Cooper and Devin Fulk.  That team lost 3 of their first 4 games to start the season, but wound up winning both the conference regular season and tournament as well as a first round NCAA game.  Like that year, I had a feeling that there would be some growing pains this year and that was before I knew what an immediate impact Xavier Brown would have on this team.  I shudder to think where this team would be right now without Brown.  Both of Wooster's losses were to 2 good teams and also 2 senior laden teams.  Wooster is fairly young in comparrison to Witt and Wabash and having those games land so early in the season, it's not really that surprising that those teams were able to pull out wins over the Scots.   It is still very early in the season and I think Wooster will find their identity in time and I would look for them to be a dangerous team come tournament time.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Wooster always has more success when they get the ball inside. It has been true year after year... while they have threats outside, I don't remember them having terrific success unless they get the ball inside and have their offense run from the inside. Just my observations over the years.

[ScotsFan]

This is true to an extent.  Wooster has been more reliant on their guards and an up-tempo, push the ball up the court as quickly as possible and get off a quick shot over the past several years.  Last year, Wooster got back into more of a traditional half-court offense more than they have been really since Bryan Nelson graduated.  While the bigs of Wooster have always been a presence, even over the past several years, this program has been heavily guard oriented really up until last year. 

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

And compare how far they have gotten in the NCAA tournament as a result... last year: championship weekend. :-)

[ScotsFan]

And compare how far they have gotten in the NCAA tournament as a result... last year: championship weekend. :-)

Touche...

But, to be fair, Wooster has made 3 trips to Salem.  Two were more traditional half court Wooster offenses, but back in the '06-'07 season Wooster had the fast pace offense that averaged nearly 90 ppg and 4 of their 5 leading scorers were guards including 3 guards with 60+ made 3-pointers.  So, Wooster has had success running the run and gun style of offense as well... 

[kyballr]

Don Lane Classic @ Transylvania   7 pm
Wabash (9-0) vs host Transy (8-0)

live stats
http://www.sidearmstats.com/transy/mbball/index.htm

live video
http://tupioneers.nmtvsports.com/main.php?eventId=21802

[Titan Q]

Don Lane Classic @ Transylvania   7 pm
Wabash (9-0) vs host Transy (8-0)

live stats
http://www.sidearmstats.com/transy/mbball/index.htm

live video
http://tupioneers.nmtvsports.com/main.php?eventId=21802

The play-by-play broadcaster is pronouncing "Wabash" as if it rhymes with "lavosh"!  How the heck do you screw up "Wabash"??

[smedindy]

I've heard it too many times. They try to make both 'a' sounds equivalent for some reason.