Top 25 talk

[Pat Coleman]

This would be the perfect opportunity to give us your preseason Top 25!

[ECSUalum]

Or midseason additions, like Cabrini had last year. No way to account for that in October.

Your "stats" are half a slice of one year's poll. Compare that to other polls, while you're at it. You've done about 5% of the necessary work, just enough to satisfy your own point of view.

Then show everyone how well your predictions, (performance) have been over the last 5 years!!!!!

[smedindy]

Pat doesn't have to - he's just the poll taker. If you have a beef with it, do some math instead of a small cherry-picked sample. You need to get all Nate Silver with your premise otherwise it's just bloviating about something that's quite the inexact science. 

[ECSUalum]

Pat doesn't have to - he's just the poll taker. If you have a beef with it, do some math instead of a small cherry-picked sample. You need to get all Nate Silver with your premise otherwise it's just bloviating about something that's quite the inexact science.

If it's an in exact science, then why waste your time publishing a preseason poll!!  That's my whole point.    "smedinky", show me your math that its an accurate poll!!  The point is, do the polling when it makes sense and is meaningful.  Coleman's response is: 50% of the top 14 has a small deviation, well if that's so then flip a coin to produce the preseason poll, and save your research time/money/resources! 

If you want to do some research, why dont you do a survey here and see how many people think the pre season poll is useful/meaningful!!

I quess if you question the exec. editor of D3 hoops, and hurt his feelings, your a bloviator.  This thread is starting to remind me of the politics thread that Coleman got rid of

[smedindy]

I think the point has sailed high and wide here. It's not supposed to be the paragon of accuracy - it's a snapshot of thought at a point in time. Things happen - it's sports after all.

[Pat Coleman]

Pat doesn't have to - he's just the poll taker. If you have a beef with it, do some math instead of a small cherry-picked sample. You need to get all Nate Silver with your premise otherwise it's just bloviating about something that's quite the inexact science.

If it's an in exact science, then why waste your time publishing a preseason poll!!  That's my whole point.    "smedinky", show me your math that its an accurate poll!!  The point is, do the polling when it makes sense and is meaningful.  Coleman's response is: 50% of the top 14 has a small deviation, well if that's so then flip a coin to produce the preseason poll, and save your research time/money/resources! 

If you want to do some research, why dont you do a survey here and see how many people think the pre season poll is useful/meaningful!!

I quess if you question the exec. editor of D3 hoops, and hurt his feelings, your a bloviator.  This thread is starting to remind me of the politics thread that Coleman got rid of

My feelings aren't hurt. Shoot -- we've been doing a Top 25 for 14 years and we've had a message board for a year longer than that. I've had time to develop a pretty thick skin. I just don't think that you reached any standard of proof here. This is the perfect opportunity to prove you can do better, if you think it's possible. Go right ahead.

[ECSUalum]

Pat, With all due respect, IMHO, wouldn't it be better to wait for some NCAA stats,W/L records, rosters, etc etc to roll in before you publish an "early vs pre season"  hoops poll!!!!!!  Again IMO, Pre season polls "do not compute"
I know people like to see their teams ranked early in the season, but, what, in fact, benefit does D3Hoops get from a pre season poll?  If it is monetary, then maybe I can understand the rational, otherwise, I dont 

[Pat Coleman]

Benefits include the publicity which comes from having a poll published, traffic bump, jump-start to launch the new season, etc.

If we vacate that, we give more visibility to less-credible rankings, who still will publish their preseason rankings. Doesn't benefit anyone.

One thing we did several years ago was delay the first regular season poll by one week, so we no longer have a first regular-season poll after the first weekend of games. This means the first poll is based on four or five games instead of one or two.

[John Gleich]

Or midseason additions, like Cabrini had last year. No way to account for that in October.

Your "stats" are half a slice of one year's poll. Compare that to other polls, while you're at it. You've done about 5% of the necessary work, just enough to satisfy your own point of view.

Then show everyone how well your predictions, (performance) have been over the last 5 years!!!!!

With all due respect, Pat is a busy man who is running a number of websites and a message board that is by far the most popular in Division III athletics.

If you want to know how well the "predictions" are vs. the "performance," do it yourself like the rest of us have.

And, these aren't Pat's predictions. It's a poll constructed by 25 media, coaches, administrators, etc. One person could put out their own poll (and we actually DO run a poster's poll... you should check it out if you're interested).

The poll is for fun. If you're not having any fun with it, then you don't have to "participate" in it.


D3hoops.com (and the other sites in the D3sports.com family) don't do anything that isn't done by other media outlets, such as the AP or ESPN. Are you calling them out on their preseason polls?


Or, how about this? Why not, as people have suggested, put your own poll out? You'll realize how difficult it is to rank the top 6% of teams, period, let alone in order.

And if you don't want to do that, why don't you figure out how far the teams moved compared to the full 405 teams, not just the top 14? You just acknowledged that the poll identified 8 of the top 14 teams in the top 14. 5 of the other 6 received votes in the poll (i.e. were identified by pollsters as being in the top 6% or with the possibility of attaining that level).

That's one of the difficulties of a poll at any point during the year.

Do you select teams that are good right now? Do you select teams that have played well throughout the year (i.e. the full body of work)? Do you select teams that have the potential for greatness by the end of the year? How do you deal with injuries (See Wheaton, Kent Raymond several years ago or UW Stevens Point, Tyler Tillema last season for example).


You could pot shot the rankings... but look deeper. Preseason #2 Augustana had their starting center leave the team half-way through the year. They started off the year 11-1... They finished 8-6 after they lost a significant piece of their team.

We could go on... but what's the use? Each team has a narrative. These are often complex and the fact of the matter is that we're talking about humans and college-age humans at that. Things change throughout the year and teams don't always reach their potential or live up to their expectations.



The top-25 poll is no different than what pretty much every conference in the land does. They put out preseason polls for their conferences as well.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Just to add a note... waiting for the first collection of games (5, 10, whatever) also doesn't make the poll any better. Than pollsters may react to the games being played first and not the hours of research they consider in the preseason.

The preseason poll is actually HELPFUL for the pollsters, if I do say as one of them. I take the time to do the research, look at the teams that succeeded last year, teams that disappointed, teams that were rising, teams that will be falling... and take into account probably a dozen other factors (returning players, returning starters, injured players returning, players leaving, conference ups and downs, coaching changes, .... I could go on forever!). That information is needed and then helps weigh against what happens in the first few weeks to better gauge teams. If I only considered the beginning of the season some teams who have a couple of lucky wins or a team that got a lucky bounce or two early may be too highly touted when ignoring the preseason info.

As for transfers and freshmen... while I do the research, you just can't base a D3 poll on that kind of information in the preseason - it is even tough in the middle of the season (i.e. Pat's point about Cabrini and John's point about Augustana). Incoming freshmen may not be as good as they "appear" to be... they may change their mind about playing... they could suffer injuries in the weeks leading up as much as the upper classmen.

I end up spending good chunks of several days doing my Top 25... this year I had 60+ teams (I had a few more than Pat provided, as many voters may) to start... whittled down to about 41... and then tried to slot them into 25 spots. I could have gone several more days twisting teams around... taking teams out... putting them back in... adding teams... removing teams... etc.

Now... as other posters have said... you call the preseason poll(s) poor... but you provided a very small sample size (one year and just 14 of those teams) and you haven't provided an argument as to why exactly it is poor. Furthermore, you haven't provided how you would have voted on the poll.

And one last thing to consider... there were 50 teams who got votes in this season's Top 25... that means there probably wasn't one ballot that had the same 25 teams as any other ballot. You think the voters aren't doing their home work or taking this seriously?

[magicman]

Of the Top 25 teams in last year's preseason poll, 14 of them made the Top 25 in the final poll. Several other teams in the preseason Top 25 ended up at #26 and #28   I think that's a pretty good number and shows that the voters did a fairly good job with their selections at the beginning of the year.

I'd also be willing to bet that a majority of the regulars on D3hoops are quite happy that there is a preseason poll. In fact an awful lot of us can't wait for it to come out.

I can't help but wonder if ECSUalum would be so riled up about the preseason poll if his Eastern Connecticut Warriors had been ranked 15th or so instead of 33rd in the ORV category.    Last year they weren't ranked in the preseason poll at all but cracked the top 25 by week 7 and ended up at #14 in the final poll.  This year they are already 6 weeks ahead of where they were last year at this time.   I'd be happy with that if it were my team.     

[toooldtohoop]

I am grateful for the research and the time that all of you put into this forum.  I start getting ready for hoop season early, and the preseason poll is one of a number of things that I look forward to. 
Keep it coming!

[Roundball999]

Pat, With all due respect, IMHO, wouldn't it be better to wait for some NCAA stats,W/L records, rosters, etc etc to roll in before you publish an "early vs pre season"  hoops poll!!!!!!  Again IMO, Pre season polls "do not compute"
I know people like to see their teams ranked early in the season, but, what, in fact, benefit does D3Hoops get from a pre season poll?  If it is monetary, then maybe I can understand the rational, otherwise, I dont 

OK, we get it, you think it's a waste of time and inaccurate. 

Easy solution: don't read it.  Or a simple statement that you think the polls are questionable, if you want to express your opinion.  But while you're getting on the pollsters for being defensive, you're also demeaning their work in multiple posts.

Many of us are very appreciative of the time and effort it takes to put together these polls, yes even the preseason polls.  It stimulates interest and conversation, including detailed discussion about teams and players.  It's also interesting to see how the experts that are polled view things going into the season.  We fully understand the polls are inaccurate by their nature, but amazingly that doesn't keep us awake at night.

Keep up the good work, D3hoops!

[Pat Coleman]

Of the Top 25 teams in last year's preseason poll, 14 of them made the Top 25 in the final poll. Several other teams in the preseason Top 25 ended up at #26 and #28   I think that's a pretty good number and shows that the voters did a fairly good job with their selections at the beginning of the year.

I'd also be willing to bet that a majority of the regulars on D3hoops are quite happy that there is a preseason poll. In fact an awful lot of us can't wait for it to come out.

I can't help but wonder if ECSUalum would be so riled up about the preseason poll if his Eastern Connecticut Warriors had been ranked 15th or so instead of 33rd in the ORV category.    Last year they weren't ranked in the preseason poll at all but cracked the top 25 by week 7 and ended up at #14 in the final poll.  This year they are already 6 weeks ahead of where they were last year at this time.   I'd be happy with that if it were my team.     

And with Eastern Connecticut returning less than half of its points and just three people who played 15 or more minutes a game, it's a fair ranking. The X factor here isn't some freshman or transfer but the return of Mike Garrow.

[ECSUalum]

Benefits include the publicity which comes from having a poll published, traffic bump, jump-start to launch the new season, etc.

If we vacate that, we give more visibility to less-credible rankings, who still will publish their preseason rankings. Doesn't benefit anyone.

One thing we did several years ago was delay the first regular season poll by one week, so we no longer have a first regular-season poll after the first weekend of games. This means the first poll is based on four or five games instead of one or two.

Ok Pat, understood, thanks, BYW my issue is not about ECSU's ranking High or low!!!