Top 25 talk

[SpringSt7]

So we're really like a good 2-0 weekend from a sub .500 Tufts team being ranked? Doesn't that seem a little severe?

[Bucket]

Could W&L consider joining the eastern C2C teams and try to bring in a few more schools to make a conference? You'd have Washington & Lee, Mary Washington, Salisbury, and Chris Newport as 4 with the longest travel being W&L to Salisbury at just over 300 miles. Add a few more to the mix and you've got a conference

Highly doubt it. They would lose access to a football AQ for starters.

Considering the objections W&L has raised over multiple decades to private schools it considers beneath W&L academically, I can't imagine they would deign to join a conference made up of state schools.

Yes, W&L would not leave the ODAC for a conference featuring schools with even worse academic profiles.

[deiscanton]

So we're really like a good 2-0 weekend from a sub .500 Tufts team being ranked? Doesn't that seem a little severe?

What's weirder?  The fact that a 6-7 Tufts men's basketball team could be in the Top 25, or the fact that all 4 of Tufts's wins so far came on neutral courts?

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Schedules throughout Division III have become a moving target. We are all used to seeing some postponements or cancelations this time of year thanks to Mother Nature, but these mass changes are giving some PTSD to the 2020-21 "season."

Monday night on Hoopsville, we chat with teams who are still playing for now. Plus those who may deserve a little more attention thanks to tremendous starts to their seasons. And hear from those who are steadily flying slightly under the radar.

We also take a look at all the postponements and cancelations and discuss what may or may not happen as we move forward with the season.

Plus, we react to the latest D3hoops.com Top 25 polls released on Monday.

You can watch the show LIVE (or on demand) here: https://www.d3hoops.com/hoopsville/archives/2021-22/jan10

We are also simulcasting on our Facebook Live page (www.facebook.com/Hoopsville) AND tonight on our YouTube page (http://www.youtube.com/Hoopsville)

Guests include (order subject to change):
- Klay Knueppel, No. 25 Wisconsin Lutheran women's coach
- Trevor Lydic, Berry men's interim coach
- Tyler Simms, Clark men's coach
- Bob Quillman & Ryan Scott, Top 25 Double-Take

Hoopsville is hosted by Dave McHugh from the the NABC Studio. It is presented by D3hoops.com and thanks to our partner WBCA. All guests are featured on the BlueFrame Technology Hoopsville Hotline.

If you have questions, ideas, or want to interact with the show, feel free to send them to hoopsville@d3sports.com or use any of the social media options available.

If you enjoy the show via the podcasts, choose your favorite avenue to listen and/or subscribe via the the following four avenues (click on the images when necessary):
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We also have the podcast now on Tune-In and others coming. We will update them once we have better abilities to do so.

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[thebear]

Pardon my curiosity, but why is Rensselaer [RPI] ranked in the top 25 and Oswego not.  Oswego is 47 in Massey, RPI is 56.  Oswego has won their head to head matchup on a neutral court.  Matt Snyder has Oswego ranked 1st in Region III with a Ratings Percentage Index [RPI] of .643 and a national rank of 18. Rensselaer has an RPI of .632 and a national rank of 26.  Oswego also has a stronger SOS, and NC SOS. Snyder has then #1 in Region III, which includes Yeshiva who's RPI is .590 and Snyder rank of 72.  Lakers last three wins were over teams with a combined 22-7 record.  Just curious how thorough the voters are researching their rankings.

[deiscanton]

Pardon my curiosity, but why is Rensselaer [RPI] ranked in the top 25 and Oswego not.  Oswego is 47 in Massey, RPI is 56.  Oswego has won their head to head matchup on a neutral court.  Matt Snyder has Oswego ranked 1st in Region III with a Ratings Percentage Index [RPI] of .643 and a national rank of 18. Rensselaer has an RPI of .632 and a national rank of 26.  Oswego also has a stronger SOS, and NC SOS. Snyder has then #1 in Region III, which includes Yeshiva who's RPI is .590 and Snyder rank of 72.  Lakers last three wins were over teams with a combined 22-7 record.  Just curious how thorough the voters are researching their rankings.

I wouldn't worry too much about the difference between RPI and Oswego.   RPI has 41 points in the poll this week, while Oswego has 28 points.  Apparently, some voters do believe that both teams are Top 25 teams, but not enough voters think that Oswego is a top 25 team.  Many different methodologies between voters in ranking Top 25 teams.  Ryan has his methodology, Dave McHugh has his methodology, PoppersMacsLive has his methodology, and TitanQ has his methodology.  There are also other voters who prefer to remain private about their methodolgies in ranking the teams.  The important thing is that they watch a lot of DIII basketball being played across the country.   I have learned over many years not to pull my hair out over teams ranked in the bottom of the poll or those teams receiving votes, but not enough votes to be ranked.

The important thing is to play your best basketball in late February or March when it comes to crunch time in the conference tournaments (which most conferences have) or NCAA tournaments.

Apparently, thebear, you side with the voters who think that Oswego is a top 25 team, and that is fine.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Pardon my curiosity, but why is Rensselaer [RPI] ranked in the top 25 and Oswego not.  Oswego is 47 in Massey, RPI is 56.  Oswego has won their head to head matchup on a neutral court.  Matt Snyder has Oswego ranked 1st in Region III with a Ratings Percentage Index [RPI] of .643 and a national rank of 18. Rensselaer has an RPI of .632 and a national rank of 26.  Oswego also has a stronger SOS, and NC SOS. Snyder has then #1 in Region III, which includes Yeshiva who's RPI is .590 and Snyder rank of 72.  Lakers last three wins were over teams with a combined 22-7 record.  Just curious how thorough the voters are researching their rankings.

Very few voters ever look at Massey.  That's a relatively irrelevant piece of data.  Oswego beat RPI without Mahoney.  I've had Oswego ahead of RPI even before that game, so I've left them there - but I can very easily see people writing off the loss because of the lineup.

[stlawus]

Pardon my curiosity, but why is Rensselaer [RPI] ranked in the top 25 and Oswego not.  Oswego is 47 in Massey, RPI is 56.  Oswego has won their head to head matchup on a neutral court.  Matt Snyder has Oswego ranked 1st in Region III with a Ratings Percentage Index [RPI] of .643 and a national rank of 18. Rensselaer has an RPI of .632 and a national rank of 26.  Oswego also has a stronger SOS, and NC SOS. Snyder has then #1 in Region III, which includes Yeshiva who's RPI is .590 and Snyder rank of 72.  Lakers last three wins were over teams with a combined 22-7 record.  Just curious how thorough the voters are researching their rankings.

Very few voters ever look at Massey.  That's a relatively irrelevant piece of data.  Oswego beat RPI without Mahoney.  I've had Oswego ahead of RPI even before that game, so I've left them there - but I can very easily see people writing off the loss because of the lineup.

Oswego was without starting PG Ahkee Anderson and starting center Jordan Brown.  If voters are writing that loss off because of the lineup then they shouldn't be voters since it's really easy to see that Oswego had personnel losses as well.   There's always an excuse from the voters when it comes to east region teams. 

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

And the problem I have with voting for Oswego, as I've stated on Hoopsville several times now ... they beat RPI ... who beat Nazareth ... who beat Oswego ... and all three are having good seasons ... but I don't have the room to put all three on my ballot because I think highly of all those on my Top 25.

I have room for one or two, but right now I can't split Oswego, Nazareth, and RPI enough to warrant only putting one or two of them in.

If I did have to put one of the three, it likely would be Oswego, but I am not ready to do so. Let's see where SUNYAC play takes things.

[stlawus]

Those are good arguments against voting for Oswego.  I just think that it's a poor excuse to not rank Oswego simply due to them beating RPI without Mahoney when Oswego had players missing too.  There might not even be a voter who used this as an excuse and I could just be arguing with myself, but if there is then that is a poor methodology.

[AllStar]

In what universe does Tufts at 4-7 deserve Top 25 votes?

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

In what universe does Tufts at 4-7 deserve Top 25 votes?

They're 2-0 with Luke Rogers back in the lineup and his return seems to have helped the guards find their way, as well. They're the NESCAC team I have the most confidence in right now.

[nescac1]

I just feel like a Top 25 has to reflect actual performance and not just theoretical potential based on prior seasons, especially when the season is half over.  And if you are looking at performance, Tufts is WAY behind Wesleyan, Williams, Middlebury and Amherst.   And it might be one thing if Tufts had actually BEATEN any of those teams with Rogers.  But they've yet to play a really good team with him in the lineup other than UMD -- and with him, they lost the first half of that game by double-digits.  The last two games were against one mediocre (last place in its league but has played a very tough schedule) and one bad team.  I'm also not really sure what you mean about the Tufts guards playing better with him.  Against Simpson (again, not a good team), starting perimeter players Brennan Morris went 0-4, Will Brady went 2-7, and Tyler Aronson went 1-8. 

I was very high on Tufts to start the year.  But their defense is (per the usual) not terribly good and they have really struggled to shoot the ball.  25 mpg of Rogers isn't going to magically cure all of their shooting woes.  Their best shooter this year has been Jay Dieterle, but he's missed the last five games, so presumably has some sort of significant injury.  The guys who are struggling to hit 3's have struggled the entire year, with or without Rogers (Morris, 23 percent, Cohen, 22 percent, Brady, 24 percent, Aronson, 28 percent).  Now the upside for Tufts is for those guys to start hitting shots -- especially Morris, whose struggles are especially cryptic as he's been a knock-down shooter for his entire career and was expected to be at worst a borderline all-league guy.  But those guys -- all of whom are in their fourth or fifth year in the program -- have to SHOW it a few times against good teams, because as of now, it's all just theoretical.  If Tufts sweeps Hamilton and Amherst on the road this weekend and Morris rediscovers his shooting touch (and/or Dieterle returns and looks great), then I think there can at least start to be a conversation about them, because I could see them going on a pretty good roll given the schedule they face for the following few weeks after that.  But right now, they are a 4-7 team that plays the worst D in NESCAC and shoots sub-30 percent from 3 on the year. 

And to put them ahead of Williams, Amherst, Wesleyan, and Midd at this point?  I just don't see it.  Wesleyan and Williams each have only one loss and Wesleyan (which has been killing most teams) has big wins v. WPI and at Amherst, and Williams had a big win at Wesleyan.  They both defend MUCH better than Tufts and shoot it way better as well.  Midd has been playing better and better and Alex Sobel has been playing like a first-team all-American all year (at this point Rogers is certainly well behind him, individually, although Tufts does have a lot more depth than Midd).  Amherst has three losses (a lot better than 7), and just beat Williams on the road, took Wesleyan to triple OT with a fairly depleted lineup, and if you want to focus on injuries, Grant Robinson being out for Amherst (when Amherst lost two games and although he played v. Midd, it was his first game back and I imagine he was rusty) was just as big as Luke Rogers being out for Tufts. 

[WUPHF]

They're 2-0 with Luke Rogers back in the lineup and his return seems to have helped the guards find their way, as well. They're the NESCAC team I have the most confidence in right now.

This maybe your wildest take yet...and you have had some wild takes...

[Pat Coleman]

Tufts gained way too many points between the last two polls considering what they did on the floor (exactly zero).

We are not halfway through the season, however.