Top 25 talk

[Pat Coleman]

re: CCIW

Take a strong conference and lower the top teams down a notch and you're going to get pure madness, night in and night out. If there are six teams between No. 10 and No. 45 ... yikes.

[Ralph Turner]

re: CCIW

Take a strong conference and lower the top teams down a notch and you're going to get pure madness, night in and night out. If there are six teams between No. 10 and No. 45 ... yikes.

This season I wish I had something other than an ordinal ranking for these teams.  I look at the interregional play that has come thru the South, and there is so little distance between these teams.  It is as if #11 and #60 are no more than 2 possessions apart on a neutral floor.

I am waiting for Bates to tell me if I believe the Amherst at #2 or the Amherst that came off the break and only led Trinity TX by 2 possessions until 5 minutes left, a Trinity team that became Hendrix' premier win.

Johns Hopkins finally declared itself to be the team that my McMurry friends saw in Baltimore.  Is there any team deserving in the MidAtlantic?

Anyone in the OAC?  Bald-Wally loses to Otterbein and is now tied with ... Heidelburg at 5-2, conference.

I feel like a surveyor who is mapping the highest points in New Orleans. 

[David Collinge]

I feel like a surveyor who is mapping the highest points in New Orleans. 

As W. Mark Felt famously said, "follow the money." 

Anyway, as we have recently seen, knowing where the highest points in NOLA are may be difficult but is crucially important. 

[diehardfan]

re: CCIW

Take a strong conference and lower the top teams down a notch and you're going to get pure madness, night in and night out. If there are six teams between No. 10 and No. 45 ... yikes.

I'm thinking that Elmhurst might be a higher than #10... but yeah, point taken.

I feel like a surveyor who is mapping the highest points in New Orleans. 

This may be my favorite analogy ever! k+ to the man from Texas.

[Ralph Turner]

re: CCIW

Take a strong conference and lower the top teams down a notch and you're going to get pure madness, night in and night out. If there are six teams between No. 10 and No. 45 ... yikes.

I'm thinking that Elmhurst might be a higher than #10... but yeah, point taken.

Give me a 12-2 Elmhurst in this year's CCIW and they are in my Top 5.

[Gregory Sager]

There's off-topic, and then there's off-topic. 

This is just my opinion, of course, but I've always felt that this site has a perfectly good and well-researched top 25 poll (two, actually), and that a "poster's poll" adds nothing.  It may be a fun little diversion but in no way can it be compared to the real thing. 

Who's comparing it to the real thing? Sorry, David, but you and Pat are overreacting.

[diehardfan]

re: CCIW

Take a strong conference and lower the top teams down a notch and you're going to get pure madness, night in and night out. If there are six teams between No. 10 and No. 45 ... yikes.

I'm thinking that Elmhurst might be a higher than #10... but yeah, point taken.

Give me a 12-2 Elmhurst in this year's CCIW and they are in my Top 5.

I doubt that any team in the nation has more weapons than Elmhurst... teams that can beat you with 5 different players.... it reminds me of Point in that way.... if one or two players have an off night, there are plenty of people to pick up the slack.

For example, tonight, Elmhurst had four players that scored from 12-15 pts... and two of their bench players posted 7 apiece. On the season, they've had five different people post the high score, all more than once, and five different players posting highs on rebounds. They have five players averaging 10ppg or more. They've beaten Whitewater, Oshkosh, Augustana, and Carthage...

[diehardfan]

And in terms of the poster poll...

1) I don't think it's any where near as legitimate. Pat's poll is obviously better... that goes without saying. It doesn't have as many people, it doesn't have as good national coverage, and the pollsters don't get the good packet of information that Pat makes when making their selections.
2) Having a poster poll doesn't detract from the real one any more than the fact that we discus games on this board despite the fact that there are professional broadcasters and newspaperwriters and SIDs that talk about game results.
2) Greg is probably more knowledgeable about the national basketball scene than several pollsters... the fact that he mentioned that he got one of the picks better than the pollsters as a whole should hardly be surprising... Greg is a HOFer for a reason.
3) They do relate, and it's at least as appropriate to talk about it here as garbage plates.
4) If discussing the poster poll, it should be VERY clearly stated as such. Since there are obviously posters that are voters in the real poll, there needs to be pretty firm differentiation.
5) HoopsFan's option is not a bad idea.

When we're posting on other boards, a simple "I'd put them at 20 or I don't think they are worthy of a ranking" is probably sufficient to make our point.

I did that in my comments about what I felt was an exaggerated placement of NCC and Wheaton, and I am not a Poster Poll voter.... the point was still made quite adequately.

I really hope the bickering between you guys doesn't get ugly. 

[Gregory Sager]

re: CCIW

Take a strong conference and lower the top teams down a notch and you're going to get pure madness, night in and night out. If there are six teams between No. 10 and No. 45 ... yikes.

It's more than that. This year the formula is: Take a strong conference and lower the top teams down a notch, and raise the bottom teams up a notch ... or two. Augie, North Central, and Illinois Wesleyan are definitely down a bit this year from last (although Elmhurst seems to be making a bid to buck that trend in spite of losing Chris Martin). But the league's 6-thru-8 teams from last year -- Carthage, North Park, and Millikin -- are all vastly improved. That definitely plays into the equation as well.

People are already talking about 10-4 champs or whatnot, which may be a both premature and presumptuous. One or two teams almost always manage to rise above the rest somewhere along the line in the CCIW season. But this is shaping up to be an unusually parity-oriented year for the CCIW. I'm biased, of course, but I think it's great for the league as a whole. Keeps the interest level up across the league, especially since it could result in a real dogfight for those four CCIW tourney berths.

I really hope the bickering between you guys doesn't get ugly. 

It won't. It's not a big deal. We simply have a difference of opinion, and it's not the first time that Pat and I have disagreed about something. Interestingly, the most heated debate we ever had before was over the Top 25 as well. I guess that we have to air these things out every six or seven years or so.

[Pat Coleman]

Who's comparing it to the real thing? Sorry, David, but you and Pat are overreacting.

All I'm saying is that I have to read the same few people discussing it all over the board. Maybe on this topic we could steer clear of it.

That was all I asked.

[Gregory Sager]

Who's comparing it to the real thing? Sorry, David, but you and Pat are overreacting.

All I'm saying is that I have to read the same few people discussing it all over the board. Maybe on this topic we could steer clear of it.

That was all I asked.

I just don't see that at all. What "discussion" of the PP I did see in other rooms consisted almost entirely of Chuck's recruiting efforts to drum up some new pollsters, which I don't consider to be the same thing as actually discussing the PP.

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure that I've never mentioned the PP anywhere but in the PP room until my post in here about Johns Hopkins last night, and that was only in response to Chuck's bringing it up. The PP is just not a subject that's very high on my radar. I participate in it for the fun of it, but, quite honestly, I'd completely forgotten that it even existed until Chuck revived it over the past few days. It's just not that big of a deal to me -- certainly not to the point of "discussing it all over the board."

[gordonmann]

"Johns Hopkins finally declared itself to be the team that my McMurry friends saw in Baltimore.  Is there any team deserving in the MidAtlantic?"

A good question and I'm not sure the answer isn't "no" if you're talking about deserving Top 25 votes.

Lincoln is on my ballot because I believe they have the capacity to be a better team than last year and the talent Yuille has assembled is impressive.  The loss to Penn State-Altoona is befuddling.

DeSales was on my list of teams to watch until they got embarrassed at FDU-Florham last night.  The MACC conference leaders (Widener and Messiah) didn't play overwhelmingly well out of conference.  The Centennial has a lot of parity and it's been a while since a PnAC team has made noise at the national level (Gwynedd-Mercy a few seasons ago).

Maybe I'll blog on that later tonight.

[Ralph Turner]

"Johns Hopkins finally declared itself to be the team that my McMurry friends saw in Baltimore.  Is there any team deserving in the MidAtlantic?"

A good question and I'm not sure the answer isn't "no" if you're talking about deserving Top 25 votes.

Lincoln is on my ballot because I believe they have the capacity to be a better team than last year and the talent Yuille has assembled is impressive.  The loss to Penn State-Altoona is befuddling.

DeSales was on my list of teams to watch until they got embarrassed at FDU-Florham last night.  The MACC conference leaders (Widener and Messiah) didn't play overwhelmingly well out of conference.  The Centennial has a lot of parity and it's been a while since a PnAC team has made noise at the national level (Gwynedd-Mercy a few seasons ago).

Maybe I'll blog on that later tonight.

Gordon, thanks for the response.  I will consider your impressions next week on the Posters' Poll.

I will update the Bumblin' B's after games of Jan 20th, unless we have a real string of upsets.  Lincoln may have crawled back into the Top 25, but may have has* sustained too many early season losses to earn a bid.

*Re-wording--12:40 pm CST Jan 11, 2007  (Sorry.)

[notamensa]

pat,

just an observation; there is no link to the week 5 top-25. i see this week (week 6), and a link to weeks 4 and prior, but no week 5.

[Coach C]

The poster poll is quite interesting to watch, but then again so is Baywatch.  I don't compare Baywatch to actual lifeguarding.  I exercise the same caution with the PP.

C