Top 25 talk

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Middlebury about to lose again. Maybe they'll fall out of the top 5.

One look at the poll vs. the Massey ratings and it seems to me that it is very clear that the poll is a complete joke this year.

Me thinks some folks are mailing it in this year.

Haven't heard that one before.

So what is it about Massey that is so much better than the voters? 1 loss St John's as #1 ahead of Whitman? Pfeiffer at #8? 7-5 Stevens Point at #32?

Me thinks some folks are mailing in their excuses this year.

[me]

This year seems like one of the toughest ever for folks doing these ballots.  Number one is a no-brainer (although even they have looked vulnerable), if Whitewater beats River Falls, they are probably a no-brainer for number two.  But with a sweep of the remaining games this week, I think you could put the next 15 teams in ANY order and it would be totally defensible.  That's crazy for this point of the season, but a lot of teams have head-scratchingly inconsistent results ... if Wesleyan sweeps Williams and Midd this weekend (a very tall order) to add to their prior wins at Williams and over Nichols, I'd go with them at number three, if not, I'd go with York, personally, because they are undefeated with two big-time wins.  Obviously some of this will be answered by results, but man, it sure does seem like a year where almost any result involving any two teams in the top 25 (and in many cases teams outside the top 25) would not be much of a surprise at all, and in many cases will just be match-up dependent.  As a result, I have a feeling the teams that end up in the Final Four may include some major surprises ...

I agree with a lot of this, nescac1! If yorkpa remains undfeated until next poll I think they should rise up the ranks. They have been so solid this year, can't ask them to do much more. Plus, they are the holder of The Belt^TM, so that should be a couple bonus points!

But mainly, March will be so great this year in D3 world. Will be fun to get some new blood to the final four... The MITs, St. John's, Yorks, OWU's...

St. John's is criminally underranked. They have easily the most impressive win of any D3 team this year.

[me]

Middlebury about to lose again. Maybe they'll fall out of the top 5.

One look at the poll vs. the Massey ratings and it seems to me that it is very clear that the poll is a complete joke this year.

Me thinks some folks are mailing it in this year.

Haven't heard that one before.

So what is it about Massey that is so much better than the voters? 1 loss St John's as #1 ahead of Whitman? Pfeiffer at #8? 7-5 Stevens Point at #32?

Me thinks some folks are mailing in their excuses this year.

Whitman has had a 2 game season. Their games against Whitworth are the only ones the rest of the year that really given any sort of useful data about them. And yet they're still ranked #2, which says more in favor of the computer rankings than against it that despite all the pretty pointless games Whitman has played, the computer has still been able to parse out that they're good.

St. John's lost a tough road game but also beat a legit D2 program. St. Cloud State is a good D2 basketball team, and St. John's beat them. They're ridiculously underranked.

And it's not hard at all to believe that Pfeiffer is good. Don't they still have players that were recruited with scholarships?

Pulling out #32 is obviously cherry-picking, but UWSP has played a tremendous schedule and won enough to get some lift out of it. Similar to Hope and St. Thomas, who are ranked around 50 with .500 records. This is correct, the schedule should be an important consideration.

Even these things you've pulled out as argument points still are more easily explained than the state of the poll, tbh.

[AndOne]

Fine, throw out the the combined records of the opponents both Midd and York beat.
By the time the most recent poll came out, York had BEAT Midd and had 4 more wins than Midd.
I think that's a fair argument supporting the assertion that Midd should not have been ranked higher than York.
By the end of the season, sure, Midd could easily end up being the better of the two. But as of 1/2/18 the facts showed otherwise.

Sure, it is reasonable for a voter to rank York above Middlebury.  It's also reasonable for a voter to come to the reverse conclusion since York's win came by three points in OT at home.

But that's not what you were arguing.  You were wailing about the unfairness of a team that had beaten seven teams being ranked over a bunch of teams that had beaten eleven.  Which is a really embarrassing argument to make if you think about if for more than four seconds.  You're essentially arguing that if Middlebury had scheduled and beaten four additional .500ish teams just prior to Christmas, it would have somehow proven something to you about their place in the top 25 pecking order, which entirely consists of teams a lot better than .500?  Unless we've somehow teleported back to the 1950s, when this passed for sound analytics, that is some pretty astonishing reasoning.

This is nonsensical jibberish. A poll is supposed to recognize how teams compare to each other on that date. If a team has 11 wins and another has only 7 against teams with comparable overall records, are you really going to say 7 wins carry more weight than 11? Remedial math teachers would like to have a talk with you. And, if you insist on making that mistake what about that in head to head competition, the team with 11 wins beat the team with only 7. Or are you now going to try to diminish York's head to head win because it was only by 3 points and game at home? 🤦‍♂️

[Pat Coleman]

This is nonsensical jibberish. A poll is supposed to recognize how teams compare to each other on that date. If a team has 11 wins and another has only 7 against teams with comparable overall records, are you really going to say 7 wins carry more weight than 11? Remedial math teachers would like to have a talk with you. And, if you insist on making that mistake what about that in head to head competition, the team with 11 wins beat the team with only 7. Or are you now going to try to diminish York's head to head win because it was only by 3 points and game at home? 🤦‍♂️

It's like you want these to be standings, where there would be a difference between 11 wins and 7.

They're not. They're rankings.

Frankly, the only jibberish is you continuing to belabor this point. You seem to be kind of alone on this.

[AndOne]

While I agree you can argue that York should be ahead of Middlebury, the fact that they had 4 more wins is not the reason. Similar SoS, with a H2H win, and 1 fewer loss is why. It's not like football when everyone has played roughly the same amount of games at any point during the season. How can a team that's played 8 games possibly have 11 wins?

Of course a team thats only played 7-8 games can't have 11 wins.
But why would you want to penalize a team because they have played (and won) more games as of a specified date?  🤔
Sounds like one of those famous D1 classes where extra credit is given for work not completed. 🤫

[Smitty Oom]

Can someone direct me to the link where you can simulate games and it gives proposed win percentages? Thanks.

I thought Massey Rankings had division 3 teams and simulations but I cant find it right now.

[AndOne]

This is nonsensical jibberish. A poll is supposed to recognize how teams compare to each other on that date. If a team has 11 wins and another has only 7 against teams with comparable overall records, are you really going to say 7 wins carry more weight than 11? Remedial math teachers would like to have a talk with you. And, if you insist on making that mistake what about that in head to head competition, the team with 11 wins beat the team with only 7. Or are you now going to try to diminish York's head to head win because it was only by 3 points and game at home? 🤦‍♂️

It's like you want these to be standings, where there would be a difference between 11 wins and 7.

They're not. They're rankings.

Frankly, the only jibberish is you continuing to belabor this point. You seem to be kind of alone on this.

I AM kind of alone on this, Pat.
But maybe that's because more people haven't read about the subject and considered the point. 

* And even if I am alone on this, am I not entitled to my opinion? I thought an open exchange of ideas about D3 was one of the primary reasons for these boards. Am I mistaken?

[Team First]

https://www.masseyratings.com/rate.php?s=cb2018&sub=11620

Or go to: https://www.masseyratings.com/ then Men NCAA DI basketball ratings, then drop down tab to NCAA DIII, then find team, click on team and you can view the remaining schedule and predicted score and win percentage. They update DIII info on Mondays.

[AndOne]

Team First nailed it for you Smitty.
As he said, you just have to remember to scroll down and click on NCAA D3!

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

While I agree you can argue that York should be ahead of Middlebury, the fact that they had 4 more wins is not the reason. Similar SoS, with a H2H win, and 1 fewer loss is why. It's not like football when everyone has played roughly the same amount of games at any point during the season. How can a team that's played 8 games possibly have 11 wins?

Of course a team thats only played 7-8 games can't have 11 wins.
But why would you want to penalize a team because they have played (and won) more games as of a specified date?  🤔
Sounds like one of those famous D1 classes where extra credit is given for work not completed. 🤫

That's the point we're trying to make... no one should be penalized because they've played a couple less or a couple more as of a specified date. The sheer number of games doesn't matter, the performance in those games do.
I'll say again, York could and probably should have been ranked ahead of Middlebury (9 spots behind seems inexcusable) but it's not because they had played more games.

Had Middlebury played and beaten (using examples of the next two teams that are on their schedule) 5-5 Morrisville St and 7-4 Bates (records before this week) before the poll and the Panthers were 9-1 would they somehow have been a better team than they were at 7-1?

[Smitty Oom]

Team First nailed it for you Smitty.
As he said, you just have to remember to scroll down and click on NCAA D3!

Hahaha, thanks. And thanks Team First!

So doing some simulations, according to Massey and records as of Monday, Middlebury has a 97% chance to beat Connecticut College (5-6), a 90% chance to beat Bates (7-4), a 95% chance to beat Morrisville St. (5-5). Morrisville St. and Bates are the next two teams for Middlebury, CT College was the first game for Middlebury this week. These teams have a 17-15 (.531%) record, better than both Middlebury and Yorkpa's opponent records.

The chance that Middlebury wins all three of those games is roughly 83%. So 5 out of 6 times Middlebury will sweep all three of those opponents. Its not a guarantee but I would take those odds.

So to bring back to the point at hand, Middlebury should not be penalized IMO for only playing 8 games while Yorkpa has played 11. Given an average schedule and extrapolating the 3 simulated game results from Monday, 82% of the time Middlebury would be 10-1. I think those odds are significant enough to overlook the total wins number and use other criteria while making rankings instead.

[smedindy]

I'm a data and metrics guy, but Massey is just a tool, much like the tools some of our posters have put together. But it offers an unbiased ranking.

[sac]

Team First nailed it for you Smitty.
As he said, you just have to remember to scroll down and click on NCAA D3!

Hahaha, thanks. And thanks Team First!

So doing some simulations, according to Massey and records as of Monday, Middlebury has a 97% chance to beat Connecticut College (5-6), a 90% chance to beat Bates (7-4), a 95% chance to beat Morrisville St. (5-5). Morrisville St. and Bates are the next two teams for Middlebury, CT College was the first game for Middlebury this week. These teams have a 17-15 (.531%) record, better than both Middlebury and Yorkpa's opponent records.

The chance that Middlebury wins all four of those games is roughly 83%. So 5 out of 6 times Middlebury will sweep all four of those opponents. Its not a guarantee but I would take those odds.

So to bring back to the point at hand, Middlebury should not be penalized IMO for only playing 8 games while Yorkpa has played 11. Given an average schedule and extrapolating the 3 simulated game results from Monday, 82% of the time Middlebury would be 10-1. I think those odds are significant enough to overlook the total wins number and use other criteria while making rankings instead.

+1 for using Yorkpa

[sac]

This is nonsensical jibberish. A poll is supposed to recognize how teams compare to each other on that date. If a team has 11 wins and another has only 7 against teams with comparable overall records, are you really going to say 7 wins carry more weight than 11? Remedial math teachers would like to have a talk with you. And, if you insist on making that mistake what about that in head to head competition, the team with 11 wins beat the team with only 7. Or are you now going to try to diminish York's head to head win because it was only by 3 points and game at home? 🤦‍♂️

It's like you want these to be standings, where there would be a difference between 11 wins and 7.

They're not. They're rankings.

Frankly, the only jibberish is you continuing to belabor this point. You seem to be kind of alone on this.

I AM kind of alone on this, Pat.
But maybe that's because more people haven't read about the subject and considered the point. 

* And even if I am alone on this, am I not entitled to my opinion? I thought an open exchange of ideas about D3 was one of the primary reasons for these boards. Am I mistaken?

Yes