Top 25 talk

[smedindy]

Ah, geez. So if Marietta's not #1 do we have another week of this? (Of course, I added to it, but I regret my choices now...)

For all we know right now, Eau Claire, or Whitman or Whitworth may be the best team. But it's way early to assert something with such vehemence.

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

That new building at Roanoke is very, very nice. It will be interesting to see if it has the kind of effect that the remodeled building at Marietta did (they're a little similar in style, but Roanoke has a few different finishing touches).

There's a LOT of talent in the southside. With the new building and Nunley in charge, can they get the borderline all state kid from Cave Spring or Martinsville? Can they get the role guy from a good GW Danville or EC Glass team that can be a star in D3 like Demarcus Morrison and David Apple at Averett in the 90s? 

Exciting times, looking forward to seeing how it works out.

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

Ah, geez. So if Marietta's not #1 do we have another week of this? (Of course, I added to it, but I regret my choices now...)

For all we know right now, Eau Claire, or Whitman or Whitworth may be the best team. But it's way early to assert something with such vehemence.

Massey might not be perfect, but he's not wrong by like a factor of 20%. Of course the best team may end up being someone else and Marietta plays teams coming up that are capable of a win against almost anyone, but the best choice for best team right now based on what we know is clear, because they've proven the most by a lot.

I'd like to hear someone say what else Marietta could do at this point. I've never seen an MC team play 15 better minutes than they did at Ursprung this weekend, considering the opponent, the site and the momentum of the game. It went from BW looking good and playing tough to on the ropes in like 5 minutes, then basically over in another 5.  BW is a good offensive team, but you wouldnt have known it from Saturday. Jake Fetherolf is a tough customer that gave Edwards a tough game, but MC just overwhelmed BW on the boards.

I do think the Whitman-Whitworth winner has a helluvan argument for #2. If it's Whitman, well they should be top 3 anyway, and if it's Whitworth winning away against a team as good as Whitman is certainly worthy of reward.

I would add North Park and Hope to your list based on what they've done so far.

But one team is head and shoulders above so far this season.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Spence, Geez, give it a rest!  You're TWO MONTHS too early to give a damn about the polling!

And even then, the d3hoops.com poll doesn't ultimately mean squat for the real goal.

TGHIJGSTO already!

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

If it doesn't matter then why do it?

But really it's all about what is earned. I can't imagine anyone saying Marietta hasn't done the most to justify a #1 ranking so far, or that they could have done more. Being ranked #1 would likely be a boost to the players and program, but more important is that it's nothing less than they've earned.

And I have no idea what that jumble of letters means, and I don't care.

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

For you people negging me for stating a case and enumerating facts, you know I don't care, right? I don't neg people for disagreeing with me because it's stupid and I generally don't care enough.

"If everybody likes you, you're doing it wrong."

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

If it doesn't matter then why do it?

But really it's all about what is earned. I can't imagine anyone saying Marietta hasn't done the most to justify a #1 ranking so far, or that they could have done more. Being ranked #1 would likely be a boost to the players and program, but more important is that it's nothing less than they've earned.

And I have no idea what that jumble of letters means, and I don't care.

But one team is head and shoulders above so far this season.

Well imagine it because I'll say it. Could they do more? No... they've beaten everyone they've faced so far... but so have other teams. Kentucky is head and shoulders above *insert D3 school here* Marietta is not. Certainly I'd peg them as among the top few right now (perhaps even #1), but would I say they're a clear #1 right now... absolutely not.

TGHIJGSTO is a reference to an NJAC supporter a few years ago who had some similarities to you (albeit with far worse spelling and a lot more destructive tendencies). I'd hate to see you go down the path he did.

And I don't think people are giving you negative votes because they disagree with you... it's all about your tone and attitude. People disagree around here all the time but rarely do those people get negative feedback. You make it seem like you know better than everyone and can't believe you have to spend your time trying to convince us that you're right.

[augie77]

Is this the Marietta team that lost to Augustana, 100-51, in 2015?  I was there.  They had pretty uniforms.

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

If it doesn't matter then why do it?

But really it's all about what is earned. I can't imagine anyone saying Marietta hasn't done the most to justify a #1 ranking so far, or that they could have done more. Being ranked #1 would likely be a boost to the players and program, but more important is that it's nothing less than they've earned.

And I have no idea what that jumble of letters means, and I don't care.

But one team is head and shoulders above so far this season.

Well imagine it because I'll say it. Could they do more? No... they've beaten everyone they've faced so far... but so have other teams. Kentucky is head and shoulders above *insert D3 school here* Marietta is not. Certainly I'd peg them as among the top few right now (perhaps even #1), but would I say they're a clear #1 right now... absolutely not.

TGHIJGSTO is a reference to an NJAC supporter a few years ago who had some similarities to you (albeit with far worse spelling and a lot more destructive tendencies). I'd hate to see you go down the path he did.

And I don't think people are giving you negative votes because they disagree with you... it's all about your tone and attitude. People disagree around here all the time but rarely do those people get negative feedback. You make it seem like you know better than everyone and can't believe you have to spend your time trying to convince us that you're right.

Well, MC isn't just beating everyone on their schedule, they're beating pretty much everyone on their schedule by 20+. And half of those teams were ranked, and only one was at home.

Kentucky is head, shoulders, knees and toes (knees and toes) above Marietta haha. I wouldn't mind seeing MC play West Liberty though. I think it would be a good game at least. And maybe if we beat them they'd stop taking recruits that could do well at MC and burying them on their bench. Got one of them back (Wallace) but didn't get the other -- transfers into Marietta are pretty uncommon, so it's a surprise that Wallace came in. Too many WV D2s are taking local kids and then not doing anything with them. Two from my high school alma mater in that boat right now. It's sad to see because there aren't really that many good ballplayers in the immediate area. I don't think Vander Wal has had a regular starter from southeast Ohio. Dillon Young is close but I would consider that central Ohio. OK derailed a bit there.

I don't necessarily think I know better than anyone, but I'm giving the most honest interpretation of the facts of anyone (except the person that voted them #1 last week). To me they're an even stronger #1 than last week because they went on the road to a ranked team that might be the #2 team in the conference and over 15 minutes just totally dismantled them. Babson's win over Tufts looks good but Tufts' ranking is a joke. They've proven next to nothing. Babson has played 9 games and hasn't played in any games as challenging as playing at BW.

It would be one thing if the top 3 teams were stacking their resumes as well, but they're not, really. Even teams ranked below MC have a better case to being top 3 than the teams that are there. Whitman, North Park, Hope, to name a few. Of course it's early but you go on what you have to go on, which at this point is more than preseason expectations.

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

Is this the Marietta team that lost to Augustana, 100-51, in 2015?  I was there.  They had pretty uniforms.

Yes, that was a soul cleansing. I think it has to do with the improvement on defense. And obviously, Edwards was nowhere near what he is now. I think this team has a very good chance to be better than that one, though, and that team made it farther than an MC team has ever been, I think.

[KnightSlappy]

If it doesn't matter then why do it?

"The point is to entertain people and make them forget that we are all dying right in front of each other, that this is just this horrible rotten slog to rigor mortis, that we are going to lose everybody we know, we are going to lose everything we have. And the only way to distract ourselves is by separating our day into distractions."
-Sam Miller

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

If it doesn't matter then why do it?

"The point is to entertain people and make them forget that we are all dying right in front of each other, that this is just this horrible rotten slog to rigor mortis, that we are going to lose everybody we know, we are going to lose everything we have. And the only way to distract ourselves is by separating our day into distractions."
-Sam Miller

Jeez. And people say I'm morose.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

For you people negging me for stating a case and enumerating facts, you know I don't care, right? I don't neg people for disagreeing with me because it's stupid and I generally don't care enough.

"If everybody likes you, you're doing it wrong."

I think people are questioning your "facts."  Quite honestly, I agree with your conclusions and disagree with nearly all of your supporting evidence.  I like Massey a lot, but it's virtually useless until February - and even he would tell you so.  The number need as full a season as possible to be truly trustworthy.  I like it as a tool to see what teams are getting numerical buzz - it's tough to follow all 418 - but you can't really trust those ratings early, not because it doesn't get most teams right - it does - but because it gets a few teams very, very wrong (until there's more data).  It's those early outlier that make it dubious in November and December.

I've got Marietta #1 on my ballot - shoot, I've got Whitman #3, both for two weeks in a row now.  I agree with you there, but people are rightly challenging the words you're using to back those ideas up.  It might be time to take a step back and a deep breath for a little while.

[smedindy]

If it doesn't matter then why do it?

"The point is to entertain people and make them forget that we are all dying right in front of each other, that this is just this horrible rotten slog to rigor mortis, that we are going to lose everybody we know, we are going to lose everything we have. And the only way to distract ourselves is by separating our day into distractions."
-Sam Miller

On a similar note, anyone going to see the Belko Experiment?

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

As far as being a fully robust rank suitable for things like seeding a tournament, maybe it's not great. But if this was football, you would say by this point in the season that the rankings are already pretty useful, and while the better team wins more frequently in football (especially in D3), the better team wins pretty frequently in basketball compared to sports like baseball or soccer -- frequently enough, IMO, that even 5 or 6 instances have value. Even in soccer, the first 5 results of a Premier League season for a club have been shown to have pretty surprising predictive power for the full season (38 games), especially when adjusted for schedule strength. So I'm not on board with saying 5ish games is worthless -- though I recognize not everyone has 5 games yet -- and this is especially true when you've already played several good opponents.

In fairness, your statement that it gets most teams right shows you basically understand this. But I don't see a reason to think MC is one of the teams it has wrong, though, given that people that don't use Massey at all are saying pretty much the same thing as far as the impressiveness of MC's wins. Whether through Massey or just intuitively, apparently you've done that and for what little it probably means, kudos to you for doing that.

Like I say, the difference between #1 and #2 right now on Massey is massive, large enough that the effect of small sample size is somewhat diminished as a factor in interpretation. To get statsy, the chance that the current ranking is an outlier to the true mean by enough to make Marietta actually not #1 in the rankings is probably pretty danged small. The difference between Marietta and the peloton in the D3 rankings is by far larger than the difference between #1 and #2 in D1 or D2.

I don't know what better way there is to back up than what I've done. I've looked at the results in the context of the national rankings, in the context of computer rankings, and in their own context (in terms of the consistently high margin of victory, regardless of opponent). I've voted in college and high school polls in the past and this is how I tend to do it. Strength of schedule matters a lot.

To be honest, the only reason not to support them for #1 is anchoring bias -- the notion that an initial value influences the setting of future values, as in a negotiation -- or, something like this where changing opinion is required. I had this argument on baseball with regard to anchoring bias for teams that start their season earlier (they tend to be stickier even when northern teams start their seasons), but it never really went anywhere even though it's a very well-researched and accepted cognitive bias.