Top 25 talk

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

Babson's schedule is #40 on massey, that's top 10% of D3.  That's not trash.

What are you talking about? Are we just making things up now? It's 112 and their league won't bring it up.

Endicott is borderline top 100, Tufts is top 50-70 (61 right now). And that's all they have. They lost to the best team they've played, which is not even top 20. the other teams being touted on their schedule would be 7th or 8th at best in most power conferences, and dead last in the WIAC. So would beating Heidelberg at home be a quality win for Marietta, or IWU beating Elmhurst? Babson's first game in a hostile environment was Amherst -- the 10th game of the year.

Putting Babson #1 based on what they have done this season is completely crazy. Amherst's schedule is even worse but at least they beat Babson. They're both being given vastly more credit than they have earned.

My mistake I mixed numbers with teams.   112 is still top 25% of D3 and not trash.  I could also get into why massey's SOS isn't actually SOS but frequently gets sited as so, including by me but I won't.

If you want another metric try knightslappy's regional ranking data link which uses the same criteria the NCAA uses for SOS and really the only SOS calculation that matters, even if it is flawed.    Babson is at .664  Marietta is at .602   still not trash.

Outside the top 100 is crap when you're talking about top 25 consideration. If you're not in the top 100 schedule wise it's because you don't care because it's not really that hard to get there because, well, most programs in D3 don't really care that much.

Again, Babson's next win over a top 50 team will be their first. Hopefully the NCAA will take that into consideration as well, but it probably won't matter because their league is also weak so they'll probably get an automatic. So just like last year they'll go in with an inflated record and get beat by the first good team they run into, and everyone will talk about how unlucky they are and what a great season they had.

They're a 1 man team and an overrated one at that.

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

If anything, after that game, I'd be more inclined to move Whitman DOWN a little - but that would require having someone to put above them, and those are few and far between.  We're just going to have to get used to just about every team being overrated this year.

This is the point in the season where teams real strengths and weaknesses are starting to be more apparent.  Marietta is a very good team, but they've now shown, over a couple games, that they struggle with aggressive bigs.  Whitman, St. Norbert, and CNU have similar issues.  You've also got a series of teams with strong post players who could give those teams problems, but might not be "better" overall.

Now you get into making choices - just because I think Team A could beat Team B head-to-head (largely because of matchup problems), do I rate Team B higher, even if I think they'd do worse against the rest of the Top 10 overall than Team A would?  I'm not even sure yet how I'll answer those questions.

No way in the world you can drop a team for beating a top 5 opponent. That's just madness.

Aggressive bigs? I thought you said you watched the Whitman game. They don't have any bigs. And Whitman won playing against one of hte best bigs in the country. So yeah, not following there at all.

I think it comes down to there being more quality non-conference games being played, so naturally the better teams have more of a chance to lose (especially if they're playing another of the better teams, someone has to lose).

As mentioned before, if you have a top 40 schedule, you have at least 1 and usually 2+ losses right now -- except Whitman.

Whitman has to be #1.

[sac]

    Babson is at .664  Marietta is at .602   still not trash.

Outside the top 100 is crap when you're talking about top 25 consideration. If you're not in the top 100 schedule wise it's because you don't care because it's not really that hard to get there because, well, most programs in D3 don't really care that much.

Again, Babson's next win over a top 50 team will be their first. Hopefully the NCAA will take that into consideration as well, but it probably won't matter because their league is also weak so they'll probably get an automatic. So just like last year they'll go in with an inflated record and get beat by the first good team they run into, and everyone will talk about how unlucky they are and what a great season they had.

They're a 1 man team and an overrated one at that.

Nice side step of facts that don't meet your narrative.

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

No idea what the hell those numbers are or where they came from or if they're accurate. Guy got his shizz wrong the first time.

If it takes out all the non D3 games it's useless, though. Does it account for playing almost all home games? Just numbers with no context is useless.

The only other rankings I've seen are the kenpom style ones which those numbers don't make sense for.

That's why I didn't address it. Why do you care? Am I required to address every single thing someone says to me? Do you really want that? Hell I thought you all were wanting me to post less, not respond to every troll on this thread.

Typical hypocrisy. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

[nescac1]

Wesleyan beat Marietta by 15 points.  I've watched a lot of northeast basketball over the past few years and I'm pretty confident that on a neutral floor, Babson and Amherst would both be favored over Wesleyan by at least 10 points.  And over Marietta by at least 15. 

Marietta has one really good win, Christopher Newport, just as Babson has one really good win, a road win over a top-ten Tufts team.   Marietta got totally and completely owned by Wesleyan on the inside.  Babson, trust me, is a better interior team than Wesleyan.  I'm willing to grant that Marietta is the best three-loss team in the country.  That should put them somewhere towards the bottom of the top 25, which is totally fair.  They would probably be something like the 6th or 7th best team in New England, after Babson, Amherst, Wesleyan, Tufts, Midd and maybe Williams.  Lots of folks overrated Marietta based on destorying Wooster but Wooster is clearly way, way down this year. 

The D3hoops rankings are in no way biased towards New England.  Many of the rankings you cite to, on the other hand, are consistently PROVEN to be biased against New England teams -- teams that may fare poorly in certainly statistical rankings, but, year after year, get to the Final Four and generally fare well once they get there.  Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, and Babson have all played in the Final Four in this decade.  As recently as 2013, Amherst won a title, and as recently as 2014, Williams came within one point of a title in the most loaded Final Four in recent memory.  Williams and Amherst have each played in seven final fours, combining for three titles and four second-place finishes.  How many Final Fours has Marietta played in, exactly? 

Amherst made the Final Four last year and graduated only one player.  Babson brought back its entire squad from a Sweet 16 team that likely would have done better but for an injury to a guy who is probably only the best player in the country.  The game they faced off in this year was absolutely spectacular. 

Tufts made the Elite 8 last year and has two legit star players.  All of these are proven successful programs that you are dismissing based on absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of the ACTUAL strength of their opponents, none of whom you have likely seen play.  When Marietta doesn't lose by double-digits, after getting absolutely DESTROYED in the paint, to what will likely end up as something like the 4th or 5th best team in the region, then you can start talking smack about New England.  But the results speak for themselves.  To you, every Marietta loss will just be a "fluke" and only their wins "count."  You ever consider that maybe some of your wins were against teams that were themselves having an off night???  That happens too, you know. 

Right now, Babson, Amherst, Wesleyan, and Middlebury have as many losses combined as Marietta has in total.  One of those teams isn't even ranked; if there was truly a Northeast bias, one-loss Midd and Williams teams would both be ranked ahead of Marietta (I'm not complaining, by the way, that they aren't, both have more to prove at this point).  And crucially, head-to-head vs. Marietta, they are 1-0.   Since that Rust dude was posting like crazy a few years back, I don't think I've ever seen a more unhinged, biased home-team poster on these boards.  Dude, you've got a good squad.  A good squad that now has three losses and will deservely drop in the rankings.  But there are lots of other really talented teams in D3 that you haven't seen play, and that, in your ignorance, you are unfairly dismissing.  If Marietta starts winning again, they will get plenty of respect.  But you have to win the games you play and Marietta lost both of them this week. 

[Darryl Nester]

    Babson is at .664  Marietta is at .602   still not trash.

Outside the top 100 is crap when you're talking about top 25 consideration. If you're not in the top 100 schedule wise it's because you don't care because it's not really that hard to get there because, well, most programs in D3 don't really care that much.

Again, Babson's next win over a top 50 team will be their first. Hopefully the NCAA will take that into consideration as well, but it probably won't matter because their league is also weak so they'll probably get an automatic. So just like last year they'll go in with an inflated record and get beat by the first good team they run into, and everyone will talk about how unlucky they are and what a great season they had.

They're a 1 man team and an overrated one at that.

Nice side step of facts that don't meet your narrative.

Let Spencer have his say. It is Festivus, after all.

(Still miffed that I wasn't the first one to post "Hello, Neumann.")

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

Wesleyan beat Marietta by 15 points.  I've watched a lot of northeast basketball over the past few years and I'm pretty confident that on a neutral floor, Babson and Amherst would both be favored over Wesleyan by at least 10 points.  And over Marietta by at least 15. 

Marietta has one really good win, Christopher Newport, just as Babson has one really good win, a road win over a top-ten Tufts team.   Marietta got totally and completely owned by Wesleyan on the inside.  Babson, trust me, is a better interior team than Wesleyan.  I'm willing to grant that Marietta is the best three-loss team in the country.  That should put them somewhere towards the bottom of the top 25, which is totally fair.  They would probably be something like the 6th or 7th best team in New England, after Babson, Amherst, Wesleyan, Tufts, Midd and maybe Williams.  Lots of folks overrated Marietta based on destorying Wooster but Wooster is clearly way, way down this year. 

The D3hoops rankings are in no way biased towards New England.  Many of the rankings you cite to, on the other hand, are consistently PROVEN to be biased against New England teams -- teams that may fare poorly in certainly statistical rankings, but, year after year, get to the Final Four and generally fare well once they get there.  Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, and Babson have all played in the Final Four in this decade.  As recently as 2013, Amherst won a title, and as recently as 2014, Williams came within one point of a title in the most loaded Final Four in recent memory.  Williams and Amherst have each played in seven final fours, combining for three titles and four second-place finishes.  How many Final Fours has Marietta played in, exactly? 

Amherst made the Final Four last year and graduated only one player.  Babson brought back its entire squad from a Sweet 16 team that likely would have done better but for an injury to a guy who is probably only the best player in the country.  The game they faced off in this year was absolutely spectacular. 

Tufts made the Elite 8 last year and has two legit star players.  All of these are proven successful programs that you are dismissing based on absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of the ACTUAL strength of their opponents, none of whom you have likely seen play.  When Marietta doesn't lose by double-digits, after getting absolutely DESTROYED in the paint, to what will likely end up as something like the 4th or 5th best team in the region, then you can start talking smack about New England.  But the results speak for themselves.  To you, every Marietta loss will just be a "fluke" and only their wins "count."  You ever consider that maybe some of your wins were against teams that were themselves having an off night???  That happens too, you know. 

Right now, Babson, Amherst, Wesleyan, and Middlebury have as many losses combined as Marietta has in total.  One of those teams isn't even ranked; if there was truly a Northeast bias, one-loss Midd and Williams teams would both be ranked ahead of Marietta (I'm not complaining, by the way, that they aren't, both have more to prove at this point).  And crucially, head-to-head vs. Marietta, they are 1-0.   Since that Rust dude was posting like crazy a few years back, I don't think I've ever seen a more unhinged, biased home-team poster on these boards.  Dude, you've got a good squad.  A good squad that now has three losses and will deservely drop in the rankings.  But there are lots of other really talented teams in D3 that you haven't seen play, and that, in your ignorance, you are unfairly dismissing.  If Marietta starts winning again, they will get plenty of respect.  But you have to win the games you play and Marietta lost both of them this week.

Gee, I wonder if missing a 6-7 senior big man would have had anything to do with being easier to breach inside?

LOL Tufts top 10. That's cute. Massey has them 61. CNU is a legitimately good team.

Schedules matter. If you play a bunch of oil cans and a couple of decent teams, you can split against those decent teams and still be like 9-1, 10-1 and people like you think it's a great team. But it's not.

I'm sorry you're just full of it if you think there are 7 NE teams better than Marietta. Completely and utterly full of it.

Btw, Amherst beat Babson with and without Flannery, and bottled him up pretty good in the 2nd half and OT -- he was basically dependent on free throws. From what I've seen I'd take Tim Howell of Whitman over him. Really tough to handle and an outstanding shooter. Marietta did an awesome job on him. I don't think Flannery could stay in front of Howell, but Howell could deal with Flannery. Flannery gets his points no matter what because Babson needs him to take shot after shot.

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

Whatever, this is all ridiculous. The poll is obviously representative of nothing except some biased opinions and has no basis in reality of how good teams are or aren't.

In the last 20 years, the only New England teams to win titles are Amherst and Williams. Stevens Point, Whitewater, Wash U, St. Thomas and Amherst have every title but 1 since 2004.

Not seeing how too many other folks have a lot of room to brag.

This season is definitely not looking like last season where there were a number of teams had 0-2 losses going into the tournament and had tested themselves. Might be that the only team that fits that description this year is Whitman. Partly because of the teams and partly because of the schedules.

[sac]

Whatever, this is all ridiculous.

Amen

[nescac1]

Based on how much trouble Marietta had dealing with New England players like Joseph Kuo, Jordan Sears, and Harry Rafferty, none of whom have ever won any individual accolades in their conference or region, I'd say Flannery could would put up 40 on y'all without breaking much of a sweat.  I note that Amherst has Johnny McCarthy, one of the best wing defenders in the country, and Flannery was still unstoppable in that game.  But hey, after he likely and (deservedly) wins every national player of the year award this year, I'm sure you will still be questioning his talent level. 

Tufts is a top 10 team on the D3hoops rankings.  Which typically proves to correlate better to NCAA D3 tournament results than any other ranking, year, after year, after year.  Massey as I noted consistently underrates New England teams when you compare those rankings to how they perform in NCAA play.  But I'm sure if Marietta loses in the second round and Babson makes it to the title game you'd still say that Marietta is better based on some sort of dumb statistical formula.  Whatever. 

Schedules do matter.  The point is, you have no basis whatsoever to conclude that Marietta beat better teams than Babson did.  None. You are claiming that a whole bunch of teams who you have almost certainly never seen play are weak opponents.  Bates' Delpeche brothers would have eaten Marietta's bigs for lunch inside.  Bowdoin's Jack Simonds could score 30 vs. Marietta.  Have you ever seen those dudes play? Until you do, your claim that these are "cans" is utterly worthless. 

Statistical formulas are silly to rely on without any sort of eye test to validate them, especiallly when there is very little play between regions.  Babson has not played any Midwest teams, so there is no way to compare them to a Midwest team based on any kind of reliable statistic.  Massey or any other formula is simply one data point, not a definitive ranking of quality.  And its a highly unreliable one at that.  Marietta DID play a New England team.  Look what happened when they did.  Res ipsa loquitor. 

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

Just looked at the Wesleyan box and no surprised this guy doesn't know what he's talking about as far as Wesleyan destroying Marietta in the paint.

Wesleyan did have a lot of points in the paint, but it's not like they were making every shot. They only shot 44% from the field and they don't take many 3s. They were 24-48 inside the 3 point line. That's pretty normal.

Marietta lost that game because they shot poorly from 3 (they shot pretty close to the same as Wesleyan from 3 -- 15-33). That's not going to happen very often in a venue suited for small school and small crowd basketball. And of course you had the same refs that can't call a game that led to MC committing more turnovers than it has in more than 3 years (and this is playing in the uptempo OAC against several pressing teams).

By the way, as far as Marietta getting dominated -- they led with 6 minutes to go. Was mostly foul shots that made up the margin, with some ridiculous officiating worked in there as the order of the tournament. Like I say, not sure where you get D3 refs in a state that doesn't have D3.

But by all means folks, continue to overreact and play "they are who we thought they were." I'd give a team more credit for playing good teams than for playing oil cans, but apparently the voters disagree. That tells you basically everything you need to know about the poll.

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

Based on how much trouble Marietta had dealing with New England players like Joseph Kuo, Jordan Sears, and Harry Rafferty, none of whom have ever won any individual accolades in their conference or region, I'd say Flannery could would put up 40 on y'all without breaking much of a sweat.  I note that Amherst has Johnny McCarthy, one of the best wing defenders in the country, and Flannery was still unstoppable in that game. 

Wrong.

Flannery was unstoppable for a half and then impotent in the second half. 3 for 13 shooting in the second half. Like I said, he still got 10 in the half because no one else really shoots the ball for them. Then he had 5 free throws before he made a field goal in overtime.

11-28 shooting is not an impressive performance. He pads stats with free throws and because he plays every minute (which might be part of why he sucked in the second half).

Flannery went 3 for 10 in his only NCAA tournament game last year. Last year against Amherst in a similar defensive optional multi OT game he went 8 for 26. Against Tufts he went 5 for 18. 7 for 20 against Bowdoin.

Seems like he throws a lot of bricks when Babson actually plays decent opponents, and fattens up on the weak ones and on volume. Either he's a ballhog, or Babson doesn't have anyone else that's that good.

LOL @ Massey being highly unreliable. I'd like to see you do better.

[Pat Coleman]

    Babson is at .664  Marietta is at .602   still not trash.

Outside the top 100 is crap when you're talking about top 25 consideration. If you're not in the top 100 schedule wise it's because you don't care because it's not really that hard to get there because, well, most programs in D3 don't really care that much.

Again, Babson's next win over a top 50 team will be their first. Hopefully the NCAA will take that into consideration as well, but it probably won't matter because their league is also weak so they'll probably get an automatic. So just like last year they'll go in with an inflated record and get beat by the first good team they run into, and everyone will talk about how unlucky they are and what a great season they had.

They're a 1 man team and an overrated one at that.

Nice side step of facts that don't meet your narrative.

Let Spencer have his say. It is Festivus, after all.

(Still miffed that I wasn't the first one to post "Hello, Neumann.")

Congratulations on picking up your second smite in more than a decade. You're on a roll!

[smedindy]

Meanwhile, back on this planet:

Have a great Holiday Season, no matter which permutation of Holiday you celebrate during this festive time of year.

Let us celebrate the games and sports we love, the athletes that play them, and the joy they bring us in competition. From Whitman to Franciscan and all in-between, let us give thanks and praise to all involved in D-3 athletics, and college athletics in general.

[smedindy]

And let us all give thanks to Pat, Gordon, Ryan and all who make this community fun (for the most part), and to all of the regular posters who are just as nerdly as me and care about things like Rust's schedule and UMPI and all the other stuff us lovers of minutiae dive into.