Top 25 talk

[Pat Coleman]

Not Averett. Averett never did anything in D-III before this year. And hey, if Macon and Sydney went 11-1 with their only loss to VWC, well, that would've meant they'd beaten Guilford, giving them a quality win.

If your theory of those two teams (Averett excluded because that's such a misinformed assumption that it's not even funny) were accurate, then wouldn't Guilford be in the Top 25 for beating such august teams?

Fact is, the Top 25 is based on the current season only, especially halfway through the season. Once we get about five games into the season, there's no real reason to look at previous years.

I can tell you're obviously a Guilford fan, but step back and look at this from the perspective of history. Your region has one national champion every 30 years.

[diehardfan]

As far as the CCIW is concerned... I like the idea of Elmhurst being in the Top 10... between Ruch, Michael, Burks, Lee and Bacon... this is one seriously talent loaded team... there's no way any team can stop all their weapons.

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...

Hey Scott, Carthage lost at home tonight to Elmhurst... want to jump on the Elmhurst bandwagon with me?

A post I made on the CCIW board last night...

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Before this week I thought the CCIW had 6 pretty even teams and 2 (Millikin and North Park) good and very dangerous teams a notch below the other 6.   After this week's games and after seeing Elmhurst tonight, I am beginning to think that the Bluejays are clearly the best team in the CCIW and after that we have 7 fairly even teams.  In that pack of 7, there is certainly separation, but maybe the gap between 2 and 8 is smaller than the gap between 1 and 2.  In other words, we could see final standings like...

Elmhurst:  12-2
Team 2:  8-6
Team 3:  7-7
Team 4:  7-7
Team 5:  7-7
Team 6:  5-9
Team 7:  5-9
Team 8:  5-9

Elmhurst's size is just simply amazing for a Division III team, and senior point-guard Brian Lee has become a very good player.  Lee has become that take charge floor general type that every great team has.  Ryan Burks gives them a a nice perimeter threat and should keep getting better.

Elmhurst has pounded Augustana and Illinois Wesleyan at home and won convincingly at Carthage.  I may be wrong, but the team I saw tonight looked like one that could get to the Final Four.  I don't how how anyone is going to deal with Elmhurst's size and balance.
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I could be wrong about the size of that gap between 1 and 2, but I'm confident that Elmhurst is the best team in the CCIW by a good margin.  After seeing them last night, I will be moving them way up on my Top 25 ballot.  I think they're good enough to get to Salem.

After losing their opener to Simpson, Elmhurst has won 13 a row, including victories over UW-Oshkosh, UW-Whitewater, Augustana in a blowout, @ Carthage comfortably, and Illinois Wesleyan by a bunch.

Thanks for joining the bandwagon. Better late then never, I guess. At least on the plus side...

1) we won't have to hear you say that there are no CCIW teams in the Top 15, a statement which has been driving me absolutely batty all season. Given how the MIAA, Witt, and many others are decidedly down, this assertion always seemed ridiculous to me. Who exactly belongs in the Top 25 if at least one team from a conference that went .750ish in the non-conference season doesn't?
2) Most importantly, Elmhurst will finally get the credit they deserve. It made me genuinely happy to see you make the same basic post (albiet longer) that I made over a week ago, because people listen to you.

[Pat Coleman]

I already responded privately to your request. I feel it's ridiculous and will say no more on the matter.

[Greek Tragedy]

I'm honestly sick of my opinion meaning so little. Obviously everyone has the right to their opinion, but some people can say things, and their word is taken as gold, whether or not they are always right. I'm not anywhere near that point.

Some can say that about our President, but he's still the President whether we like it or not.  He earned the Presidency and you earned your HOF status, IMO

[Gregory Sager]

On a somewhat related note, but posted seperately because I have no desire to detract from the acolades that Elmhurst deserves, I'm honestly sick of my opinion meaning so little. Obviously everyone has the right to their opinion, but some people can say things, and their word is taken as gold, whether or not they are always right. I'm not anywhere near that point. Thus, I hereby formally request in public that Pat remove my title until I earn the respect that a HOFer deserves. Being that I am young, and female, I'm not entirely sure that will ever happen. But I would rather earn all of your respect someday long into the future than to have everyone have to pretend that they think well of me just because they like me.

I saw two very interesting and important games on Saturday, and I have had absolutely no desire to post about either of them because anything I say won't be heard. It still makes me sick that the best DIII player that I have ever seen, got a meager third team nod in the All American honors last year despite insanely good stats, and me talking about him constantly for 2-3 years straight. I'm not going to try to force people to believe me any more.  It's just not worth the effort.

C'mon, April. That's a slap in the collective face of us HOFers, because we're the ones who voted to have you join the club. We didn't do so in order to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside (although we figured that that would be a nice bonus, because we all like you so much ... also, there's probably a HOFer or two who is jonesing for a batch of your cookies ). We voted you in because we all thought (and think) you deserve it, strictly upon basketball merit.

I'd venture to say that for a two- or three-year period you saw more D3 games than any fan in the entire country, including people like Bob and Pat and Rhodes and I that are well-known for darkening the doors of dozens of D3 gyms every winter. Heck, your peripatetic tendency to hop in your car and drive four hours to a game in spite of the fact that you knew no one in the gym and had no contact whatsoever with either school, just because you were genuinely curious and wanted to see some good D3 basketball, is the stuff of Posting Up legend. Beyond that, you do provide good basketball insight ... and we respect that. We wouldn't have had you join the club otherwise.

People take your opinions more seriously than you think. Heck, OxyBob threw you a big compliment with regard to your D3 hoops savvy in the SCIAC room this weekend ... and he throws around compliments like manhole covers.  And, remember, I was right there beside you in the Chris Martin Fan Club, and I, too, thought that he was underappreciated in terms of postseason honors. If people were ignoring your opinion with regard to the Elmhurst star -- and I really don't think that they were -- then they were ignoring mine as well.

The problem with your comments re: this year's Elmhurst squad isn't because your word is discounted out of hand; it's probably because there are people out there who are unaware that you've seen the Bluejays play this year. Everyone on CCIW Chat and in the national rooms knows that Bob and I (remember, like Bob I've also been saying early in the year that the CCIW doesn't seem to have a Final Four caliber team) see an awful lot of CCIW games over the course of the season. I'm sure that people figure that you're simply out of the loop with regard to CCIW teams now that you're based in SoCal.

I'd love to hear what you have to say about Oxy vs. CMS. That's a big game on the West Coast, and you're really the only one who can tie that game into a national perspective. As for Hope and Calvin, it may be less necessary for you to give your observations based upon the telecast, but that's only because every person in western Michigan with a Dutch surname has already analyzed that game to death in the MIAA room.

I wouldn't make a big thing out of it. Then again, I've already reached my personal quota of "making a big thing out of it" incidents already this weekend on Posting Up.

[gordonmann]

For what it's worth, I wasn't holding Elmhurst out of the Top 10 because DHF's opinion means so little.  I was holding Elmhurst out of the Top 10 because I wanted to see if the Jays would continue their run through the minefield that is CCIW play.

They did and now they are in the Top 10 on my ballot.

[PrideSportBBallGuy]

Mr. Ralph Turner-

This post is for you.  I took a combination of last year's regional rankings and the Week 13 poll.  This would have been my top 25 coming into the tournament.  St. John Fisher probably would have made it.  I couldn't get the statistics from last year for them.  I could have gone through every box score, and well I wasn't doing that.  This top 25 is based solely on statistics.  Again thats a problem because I ran several times where a team would have 10+ steals but the other team would have less than that in TO's.  So here you go. (My scores are listed with it.)

PrideSportBBallGuy Top 25 Poll (Leading into the NCAA Tournament)

Wooster                   14.77815
Hope                   14.43053
Mississppi College   14.26934
Amherst                   13.97922
Virginia Wesleyan   13.61874
Wittenberg   13.39632
Lincoln(Pa)   13.38123
York(Pa.)                   12.63350
Lawrence                   12.59352
Hamilton                   12.56408
Baruch                   12.00251
Courtland State   11.99211
Farmingdale   11.80102
Transylvania   11.73551
Gordon                   11.14998
Baldwin-Wallace   10.89713
Pudget Sound   10.82324
UW-Whitewater   10.82134
Carroll(Wis)   10.70550
Calvin                   10.67348
North Central (ILL)   10.40596
Bates                   10.38379
Ohio Northern   10.30282
Ursinus                     9.98555
Maryville(TN)     9.77903


What I mean by using the week 13 top 25, ie Ohio Northern wasn't a regional ranked team, yet made it in the d3hoops top 25, including them put them into my poll.

[PrideSportBBallGuy]

Pat-

Something you could have said about Greensboro and Averett, and how you pointed out that Greensboro didn't play them at full strength.  Well Greensboro does lead the lifetime series against AU.

[Pat Coleman]

Mr. Ralph Turner-

This post is for you.  I took a combination of last year's regional rankings and the Week 13 poll.  This would have been my top 25 coming into the tournament.  St. John Fisher probably would have made it.  I couldn't get the statistics from last year for them.  I could have gone through every box score, and well I wasn't doing that.  This top 25 is based solely on statistics.  Again thats a problem because I ran several times where a team would have 10+ steals but the other team would have less than that in TO's.  So here you go. (My scores are listed with it.)

PrideSportBBallGuy Top 25 Poll (Leading into the NCAA Tournament)

Wooster                   14.77815
Hope                   14.43053
Mississppi College   14.26934
Amherst                   13.97922
Virginia Wesleyan   13.61874
Wittenberg   13.39632
Lincoln(Pa)   13.38123
York(Pa.)                   12.63350
Lawrence                   12.59352
Hamilton                   12.56408
Baruch                   12.00251
Courtland State   11.99211
Farmingdale   11.80102
Transylvania   11.73551
Gordon                   11.14998
Baldwin-Wallace   10.89713
Pudget Sound   10.82324
UW-Whitewater   10.82134
Carroll(Wis)   10.70550
Calvin                   10.67348
North Central (ILL)   10.40596
Bates                   10.38379
Ohio Northern   10.30282
Ursinus                     9.98555
Maryville(TN)     9.77903


What I mean by using the week 13 top 25, ie Ohio Northern wasn't a regional ranked team, yet made it in the d3hoops top 25, including them put them into my poll.

OK, now, back to what we were saying about how the regional rankings are not translatable to a national poll ... tell us how Baruch and Hamilton and Cortland State, for example, did in the NCAA Tournament.

The coaches association used to do a Top 20 poll that was tied directly to teams' performance in the regional rankings. However, they stopped conducting a poll several years ago. Why? It's a joke to use the regional rankings to create a national poll.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I did note the total absense of the team that finished #3 nationally, though four of their tourney victims were included!

[PrideSportBBallGuy]

Baruch did not make the tournament, but Courtland St, and Hamilton both made it to the second round.  Courtland St loses to #4 Ameherst and Hamilton loses to Tufts who makes it play Amherst.  What's to say those two teams in a different region would fair better.  The BCS is a joke, so are Massey ratings, too I assume.  There is always going to be thoughts that a computer can't generate a poll.  If you have a problem with where teams are, blame some of the stat trackers at the schools.  I don't know how a team can steal the ball from another team 10 times and the other team have only 3 TO's.  That makes no sense to me at all.

Mr.  Ypsi
Illionis Wesleyan was just outside of the poll.  That's probably because their stats are more accuarate then other's 

I am sure some of you memebers in the top 25 didn't make the tournament.  At least most of my teams did.  They are supposed to be the best teams because they are in the tournament.

[Pat Coleman]

I am sure some of you memebers in the top 25 didn't make the tournament.  At least most of my teams did.  They are supposed to be the best teams because they are in the tournament.

That's pretty chicken and egg, there. Your teams made the tournament because you used the regional rankings, which is what determines what teams make the tournament. All we're trying to do is rank the BEST teams. The NCAA doesn't use the same criteria and never has.

And who's to say Cortland (note spelling) and Hamilton make it to the second round at all in another bracket? Each of them beat 18-10 teams who got automatic bids from weak leagues.

By the way, yes, a computer cannot generate a poll. A poll requires ballots and thus, voters. A computer, or one individual person, can generate a ranking, not a poll.

[sludge]

Grasshopper say, responses from Coleman pretty wise, not too surprising.

Grasshopper say, self second stringer for a reason.

[PrideSportBBallGuy]

Pat-

I have always been this way, I don't think a team should be ranked at all unless they are going to make the tournament.  I think you and I both know that CNU and AU both can't make the tournament.  Even at the point when they were both ranked because of the lack of strength in the USASouth.  I just don't see a point in a poll where not every team there will make the tournament.  I use them just like everybody else,  I think ya'll do a good job with the poll, but then some of those teams won't make it.  If they are among the 25 best then they should be the 25 that get in the tournament.  Thats how I have always seen it.

[Pat Coleman]

Pat-

I have always been this way, I don't think a team should be ranked at all unless they are going to make the tournament.  I think you and I both know that CNU and AU both can't make the tournament.  Even at the point when they were both ranked because of the lack of strength in the USASouth.  I just don't see a point in a poll where not every team there will make the tournament.  I use them just like everybody else,  I think ya'll do a good job with the poll, but then some of those teams won't make it.  If they are among the 25 best then they should be the 25 that get in the tournament.  Thats how I have always seen it.

I don't know why CNU and AU couldn't have both made the tournament if they'd continued at the pace that got them both ranked. There are plenty of Pool C bids to go around.

Just because the NCAA gets the selection criteria wrong, we should bend our poll to match?? Give me a break. That's ridiculous.