Top 25 talk

[Pat Coleman]

It's out.

http://www.d3hoops.com

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Wow, I knew Ohio Northern was underrated last year and they returned a lot, but are they really top 5 good?  Some give me a scouting report here.

[bouttime]

Ohio Northern returns six seniors from last year's team that was a couple of wins from making the NCAA tournament. The key returners include Greg Badenhop (15 ppg) and Bart Hostetler (11 ppg and 7 rpp). They have size returning to the middle with Mike Hunter and Jake Cannan. The OAC preseason poll was released today also and ONU was picked to finish second in the conference behind Baldwin Wallace. ONU however is one spot behind BW in the national preseason poll.  Either way it looks to be another very competitive season in the OAC and Ohio Northern will have a chance to prove its ranking with games vs. Wittenberg (Dec. 19th) and at Wooster on Dec. 29th.

Heres the ONU basketball website for more information.

http://www.onusports.com/MHoops/index.html

[David Collinge]

Mark your calendars now for the Mose Hole Classic, to be held at the College of Wooster Dec. 29 and 30.  The participating teams are #5 Ohio Northern, #8 Calvin, [#26] UW-La Crosse, and the host #2 Scots.  The opening round pairs Calvin and LaX, then ONU and Wooster, with the winners and losers squaring off the following day.  That's a pretty nice field for a holiday tournament!

[Mr. Ypsi]

Mark your calendars now for the Mose Hole Classic, to be held at the College of Wooster Dec. 29 and 30.  The participating teams are #5 Ohio Northern, #8 Calvin, [#26] UW-La Crosse, and the host #2 Scots.  The opening round pairs Calvin and LaX, then ONU and Wooster, with the winners and losers squaring off the following day.  That's a pretty nice field for a holiday tournament!

That's a mighty impressive looking tourney, at least NOW!  Better hope none of the teams pulls an Oshkosh!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Oshkosh was still formidable, even after they lost their ranking.

[David Collinge]

Top 25 News and Notes, Vol. VIII, Issue 109

One of the voters is quoted on the front page to the effect that this poll was very difficult to figure out.  Evidently there were other voters with the same quandry, as a whopping sixty-five schools received votes.  That's the most since the 2001 preseason poll (66) and the fifth-most in poll history.  By way of comparison, the previous 4 preseason polls had 56, 54, 59, and 55 teams receive votes (in chronological order).  Included in this season's 65 are four schools who had never received votes in any prior poll: Gordon College, Mary Hardin-Baylor University, University of Massachusetts-Boston, and Rhode Island College.  Congratulations to these debutantes!

High-Water Marks:
Aside from the four first-timers, #4 Wisconsin-Whitewater and #12 Tufts reached their all-time highest rankings in this poll.  Congratulations to the Warhawks and Jumbos!

Streakers:
Each of the three record ranking streaks are current, and each was extended another week in this poll:

• #2 Wooster is in the top 10 for a record 39th consecutive week, extending the record it had shared with Carthage;
• #3 Amherst is in the top 25 for a record 64th consecutive week, extending their own record; and
• Wooster extended their votes-received record to a perfect 109 consecutive weeks.

Congratulations to these outstanding programs!

Also of note in this category:

• North Central College is in the top 25 for the 10th straight poll.
• Wittenberg received votes for the 40th straight week; York (Pa.) for the 30th straight week; and Elmhurst for the 20th straight week.
• Albion received no poll votes, snapping a streak of 30 straight weeks as a vote-getter.

Milestones:

• #8 Calvin is a top 10 member for the 30th time;
• #23 Maryville (TN) is in the top 25 for the 30th time;
• #20 Occidental is in the top 25 for the 10th time;
• #10 Wittenberg received votes for the 100th time;
• #3 Amherst and #21 Hampden-Sydney received votes for the 90th time;
• Williams received a vote for the 80th time;
• Wheaton (Ill.) received votes for the 70th time;
• #6 Baldwin-Wallace and Elmhurst received votes for the 40th time;
• UW-La Crosse received votes for the 20th time; and
• #12 Tufts received votes for the 10th time;

Hoping I haven't forgotten anyone, congratulations to all of these schools!

Here's to another great season of D3 Hoops! 

[PrideSportBBallGuy]

Like I said I will give my 4 possible national champions. (In no order)

Mississippi College
Lawrence
Whittenberg
Va. (Wesleyan)

To make that call with 4 teams out of alot (I am not sure the actual number), I would consider that bold.  Hold those picks to me until the end of the year.

[Greek Tragedy]

Mark your calendars now for the Mose Hole Classic, to be held at the College of Wooster Dec. 29 and 30.  The participating teams are #5 Ohio Northern, #8 Calvin, [#26] UW-La Crosse, and the host #2 Scots.  The opening round pairs Calvin and LaX, then ONU and Wooster, with the winners and losers squaring off the following day.  That's a pretty nice field for a holiday tournament!

I might have to have those two opening round games of that tourney as two of the 10 weekly National Pick Em League games.***

*** self promotion

[sac]

Excellent job as always Dave, I look forward to your poll reports for the rest of the season.

I don't think those streaks by Wooster and Amherst are in any danger, any time soon.



I predict Albion from the MIAA will be receiving votes by Christmas, still a solid program with good talent.  They've got a player who the MIAA may get real tired of seeing if he turns out as good as I've been told.

[David Collinge]

Thanks, sac. 

Here's a quick recap of the poll records for the men and the women, backdated to the end of last season, for anyone who may be interested:

Most weeks receiving at least one vote:  Men--Wooster (108/108); Women--Washington U., Scranton, Hardin-Simmons (109/109)
Most consecutive weeks receiving at least one vote:  same as above (current)

Most weeks in the top 25:  Men--Wooster (100/108); Women--Washington U. (109/109)
Most consecutive weeks in the top 25:  Men--Amherst (63, current); Women--Washington U (109, current)

Most weeks in the top 10:  Men--Wooster (79/108); Women--Washington U. (101/109)
Most consecutive weeks in the top 10:  Men--Wooster (38, current) and Carthage (38); Women--Bowdoin (74, current)

Most weeks ranked #1:  Men--Carthage (22/108); Women--Washington U. (53/109)

The Washington U. women have never been ranked lower than #14.  In seven years, 109 polls.  Amazing.

Note: the women have had one more poll than the men entering this season.  There was a Week 15 poll for the women, but not the men, in 2003-04. 

[Gregory Sager]

Like I said I will give my 4 possible national champions. (In no order)

Mississippi College
Lawrence
Whittenberg
Va. (Wesleyan)

To make that call with 4 teams out of alot (I am not sure the actual number), I would consider that bold.  Hold those picks to me until the end of the year.

I hope that you're just picking four possible championship teams rather than putting together an actual Final Four, PSBBG. Why? Because if you were putting together what you think will be the 2007 Final Four, you should be aware that the D3 tourney bracket will not be designed in such a way that your Final Four would be possible.

Remember, geography (i.e., saving money on the travel costs that the NCAA has to foot for each team) is of paramount concern when the tournament field is constructed. Roughly half of D3's 395 men's basketball schools are located in the northeastern corner of the United States, as defined by everything northeast of Pennsylvania's borders with Ohio and West Virginia, and everything north of Virginia's borders with Maryland and Delaware (or, as I like to call it for simplicity's sake, the Allegheny/Potomac Line). Roughly speaking, the 200 or so schools north and east of the Allegheny/Potomac Line constitute the Northeast, East, Middle Atlantic, and Atlantic regions.

This is, by far, the most geographically compact half of D3. That means that the tournament teams within its four regions are not dispersed far and wide throughout the bracket. Each of the schools in those four regions gets to stay comparatively close to home. Therefore, they won't all be able to be picked off prior to the Final Four. I can guarantee to you that at least one, and possibly two, of the four sectionals will consist entirely of teams north and east of the Allegheny/Potomac Line.

None of that half of D3 is represented in your Final Four. And that's why your predicted Final Four -- if predicting an actual Final Four was indeed what you were doing -- can't possibly come to pass.

* Mississippi College is a South Region team that is much closer to the teams in Texas and Missouri than it is to the ODAC and USA South teams on the eastern side of the South Region; in fact, the Choctaws play in a conference, the ASC, that mostly consists of schools from the Lone Star State. Come tournament time, the Choctaws or their Texan brethren either end up playing against West Coast teams or (as is more often the case) Great Lakes Region teams at a site in Michigan or Ohio.

* Lawrence is a Midwest Region team located in northern Wisconsin, which means that (like Mississippi College) the LU campus is nowhere near close enough to the Allegheny/Potomac Line for the Larries to be bracketed into a sectional with Northeast, East, Middle Atlantic, and/or Atlantic region teams.

* Wittenberg is in western Ohio. It's within 500 miles of the Allegheny/Potomac Line, but the Tigers (who are a perennial tourney team) have never been assigned to the same section as northeastern teams. To assume that this will be the year that they get bracketed together with, say, St. John Fisher, Rochester, and Lycoming is taking a huge leap of faith. It's far more likely that one of the other top Ohio teams such as Wooster, John Carroll, or Baldwin-Wallace -- all of whom are in northeastern Ohio, much closer to the Allegheny/Potomac Line than is Wittenberg -- would be moved to an East Region or Middle Atlantic Region site for a sectional than would be the Tigers.

* Virginia Wesleyan is a South Region team, but it's close enough to the Allegheny/Potomac Line to be bracketed into a sectional with teams from southern Pennsylvania (Middle Atlantic Region) or New Jersey (Atlantic Region). In fact, more often than not that's the kind of sectional companions with which ODAC teams have tended to end up in recent tournaments.

Your basic mistake is that you neglected to include a team from the northeastern corner of the country. Geography favors them in terms of the Final Four, especially the Northeast and East regions. They're the two regions that represent the northeasternmost area of the United States (and D3); in other words, teams from the Northeast and East regions are the least likely to end up playing teams from Springfield, OH or Clinton, MS or Appleton, WI prior to reaching Salem. The only time under the current D3 tourney format that a team from New England has played a team from west of the Allegheny/Potomac Line was in 2001, when a clever bit of bracketological trickery put Mass-Dartmouth in the Ohio Northern sectional, where they were blown out in the sectional semis by a team from Wisconsin (Carthage). But that was a case of a Northeast Region team being moved into someone else's section; for your scenario to take place, Wittenberg or Virginia Wesleyan would have to be moved northeastwards into a sectional involving teams from the Northeast Region. The Northeast Region is the most populous region in D3, and it's too remote and too heavily populated with D3 schools for it to take in strays from the South or Great Lakes. In fact, the Northeast and East are typically paired together for sectional purposes for ease of travel.

Put another way, if you are actually putting together a Final Four, you can have three of the four teams you named make it to Salem, but you can't have all four make it there. Like it or not, at least one of the four regions in the northeastern U.S. (Northeast, East, Middle Atlantic, and Atlantic) will be represented in the Final Four. If I were you, I'd jettison one of your picks and look to include a team from New England, eastern New York State, or the NYC area such as Amherst, Tufts, William Paterson, Bates, WPI, Mass-Boston, Gordon, Hamilton, etc., as your fourth Final Four team.

Even if you were merely picking four possible champions, rather than making an actual preseason Final Four prediction (it's unclear which of those two things you were trying to do in your post), it's risky to omit good teams from the New England, eastern NYS, and metro NYC areas. One of them will be in Salem, which means that you forfeit 25% of your chance to be right even before the first jump ball on November 17.

[njlincolnlion]

I would have thought Lincoln would have been a bit higher in the rankings, but I'll take #16 in the pre-season poll.  Lincoln gave Va. Wesleyan all they wanted in their home and lost by one.  The Lions lost Kyle Myrick, however the entire team returns led by All American candidate Sami Wylie, and a excellent group of recruits.

The Orlando Classic game with North Central and season opener aganist Widener are going to be a good barometers for the respective teams. 

Games with Ramapo and NJCU are also going to be tough!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Lincoln hasn't ever really gotten much respect in the poll (or at least as much as I thought they deserved).  I didn't honeslty expect them to be as high as 16 after losing Myrick.  I think that says a lot for the program.

[Ralph Turner]

Gregory, if the ASC has gotten anywhere in the playoffs, the ASC has been sent way far away!

To 2000 Champion Calvin (Elite 8--McMurry),

lost to 2001 runner-up Wm Paterson at  Christopher Newport (Sweet 16--McMurry),

lost in 2002 at home in the 2nd round to Lewis & Clark after the bye (MissColl),

lost in 2003 at Maryville TN in the 1st round (Miss Coll),

lost in 2004 in OT to Lawrence at Puget Sound (Sul Ross St -- Sweet 16),

in 2005, lost at Trinity (first round --UT-Dallas) and lost to Calvin in Albion (MissColl--Sweet 16)

or 2006 lost to Transy at Wittenburg (Miss Coll -- Sweet 16).

I don't think we can get past the Ohio Valley--Great Lakes!

I would like to see us do that, but I am skeptical!