Top 25 talk

[David Collinge]

Brandeis wasn't the only Top 25 team forced into OT tonight; see below.

[scottiedawg]

Top Vote Getting Movers

+16 Cal Lutheran
+16 Milsaps
+15 Carnegie Mellon
+13 UW Platteville
+6 UW Oshkosh
+6 Rhode Island Coll
+6 Coast Guard
-5 Wilmington
-5 Stevens
-6 Lewis and Clark
-6 Plattsburgh St
-9 Trinity (Tx)
-11 UW Stevens Point
-28 Brockport State

This ignores teams that went from zero votes to some votes (DeSales and Geneseo State), and those that went from some votes to zero votes (Mississippi Coll, Shenandoah, Tufts, Carleton, Grinnell, and Rowan).

[LogShow]

Puget Sound moved up to 9th in the polls but has 2 tough games this week...hopefully they can keep it rolling!

[ILive4This]

I know this is the wrong place to post this, but so many people come threw this thread that I am sure someone will know the answer.

Just for fun I was browsing the open dates threads and the tournament openings. Many promise a Cash Guarantee, I was wondering if someone could explain this guarantee further...

[Cards7580]

We could, but then we would have to kill you 

[Titan Q]

I know this is the wrong place to post this, but so many people come threw this thread that I am sure someone will know the answer.

Just for fun I was browsing the open dates threads and the tournament openings. Many promise a Cash Guarantee, I was wondering if someone could explain this guarantee further...

When teams agree to play non-conference games, they enter into a contract.  Many times that contract involves the home team promising to pay a certain amount of money to the visiting team.  These "guarantees" are much more relevant in Division I, where, say, North Carolina might pay Kansas $50,000 to come play at the Dean Dome.  In essence, it is a cut of the gate (ticket sales revenue).  When Illinois Wesleyan played an exhibition vs U. of Illinois in 2005-06, IWU was paid $15,000 since the game was sold out as part of U of I's season ticket package...

http://www.iwuhoops.com/tip.jpg

In Division III, ticket sales are obviously not a huge factor.  What is average D3 attendance...maybe 500?  (And a large % of D3 fans don't have to pay to get in.)  So D3 guarantees are simply about helping the visiting team with travel/meal expenses, etc..  Typical D3 guarantees are probably about $250.  Schools like Hope, Calvin, Illinois Wesleyan, and Wooster (regular attendance leaders) probably guarantee more.

One final note, the money is guaranteed.  If the home team backs out of the game (it definitely happens), the other school still gets the money.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I know this is the wrong place to post this, but so many people come threw this thread that I am sure someone will know the answer.

Just for fun I was browsing the open dates threads and the tournament openings. Many promise a Cash Guarantee, I was wondering if someone could explain this guarantee further...

When teams agree to play non-conference games, they enter into a contract.  Many times that contract involves the home team promising to pay a certain amount of money to the visiting team.  These "guarantees" are much more relevant in Division I, where, say, North Carolina might pay Kansas $50,000 to come play at the Dean Dome.  In essence, it is a cut of the gate (ticket sales revenue).  When Illinois Wesleyan played an exhibition vs U. of Illinois in 2005-06, IWU was paid $15,000 since the game was sold out as part of U of I's season ticket package...

http://www.iwuhoops.com/tip.jpg

In Division III, ticket sales are obviously not a huge factor.  What is average D3 attendance...maybe 500?  (And a large % of D3 fans don't have to pay to get in.)  So D3 guarantees are simply about helping the visiting team with travel/meal expenses, etc..  Typical D3 guarantees are probably about $250.  Schools like Hope, Calvin, Illinois Wesleyan, and Wooster (regular attendance leaders) probably guarantee more.

One final note, the money is guaranteed.  If the home team backs out of the game (it definitely happens), the other school still gets the money.

Q, I was all set to play 'gotcha' (a couple year's ago I was chastised for being 'spoiled' by IWU's crowds when I was shocked at the low attendance reported at some other games), but you're actually not far off - the 'official' NCAA average for d3 men's bball in 2006-07 was 430.

Of course, this number is of highly dubious accuracy.  As you note, at many venues few if any people pay to get in, so a count is both unverifiable and of low priority.  Fairly often, no attendance figure is given in a box score, so (presumably) it is 'officially' zero.  On the flip side, a former SCIAC scorekeeper recently noted that he deliberately inflated the attendance for particularly pathetic crowds, in hopes of improving future attendance.  Bottom line, I suspect we will never know 'real' average attendance to better than +/- 50%.

[smedindy]

You obviously haven't heard to the patented Amidon / Harris / Fendley attendance generation algorithm that's in use at Wabash for basketball and football.

"Smed, how many?"
"Sparse crowd for Oberlin. Looks like our side is 2/3 full..."
"OK..."

[sac]

I always admired Adrian's remarkable ability to stop selling tickets at nice round numbers

2007 Adrian attendance figures

12-09-06       ROCHESTER                        225   
12-23-06       MANCHESTER                      100 
12-30-06       OBERLIN                             100 
01-06-07     * KAZOO-M                           150 
01-10-07     * CALVIN-M                          600 
01-17-07     * HOPE-M                             750 
01-20-07     * TSU-M                                250 
01-27-07     * ALBION-M                           200 
02-07-07     * OLIVET-M                           200 
02-17-06     * ALMA-M                              450 
2-21-07       ALBION-M                               500 

[TeeDub]

The west seems exceptionally well represented in the current poll.  It never hurts having the Wisconsin contingent represent the region, but it appears that the West is boasting other strong showings as well.  David C. seems to be a good historian on the poll.  David, is this the strongest showing the west has made in recent history?

[sac]

Maybe with the FAR western teams from Califonia and the Pacific Northwest, but the WIAC, MIAC and even the IIAC have frequently graced the poll with multiple teams.

It wasn't to long ago St. Thomas was in the top 5........or was it?

[David Collinge]

The west seems exceptionally well represented in the current poll.  It never hurts having the Wisconsin contingent represent the region, but it appears that the West is boasting other strong showings as well.  David C. seems to be a good historian on the poll.  David, is this the strongest showing the west has made in recent history?

There are 8 West Region teams ranked this week, led by Puget Sound at #9.  That ties a best-ever for the West, which also had 8 ranked teams in Weeks 3 & 4 of 2002-03 and in Week 11 of 2001-02.  This week there's a bit better balance than those weeks; the other times, 4 of the 8 West teams were from the WIAC, while this week there's just 3.  In each case there've been 4 conferences represented; this week's poll is the first time that three West Region conferences have had multiple ranked teams (WIAC-3, NWC-2, SCIAC-2.)  Relative to the other three weeks, this week's poll is a little bottom-heavy for the West, with four teams in the 21-24 slots.  But it was still a strong week for the West overall.

In terms of points, however, this week's total of 1768 is nowhere near the record West total of 2588, set last season in Week 8.  That week there were only 6 teams ranked, but four of them were in the top 10, all four of them higher than this week's highest team (#9 UPS).  In fact, the West's total vote this week was only the third-best for this season, eclipsed in Weeks 3 (1827) and 4 (1786).

It wasn't to long ago St. Thomas was in the top 5........or was it?

St. Thomas was in the Top 10 last season from wire to wire, and in the top 5 in 8 of those polls.

[ILive4This]

A number of teams do not sell tickets for their games, and therefore attendance figures are rough estimates done by some eyeballing by the SID.

[ILive4This]

So I am a little unsure about the Amherst/Williams show down coming up, as Amherst is only leading by 6 at the half against NESCAC bottom-dweller Wesleyan AT HOME.

[Ralph Turner]

Concordia-Austin (TX) defeated #8 NAIA-2 Hastings NE in Austin in late December. (Aquinas MI is #9 and Walsh OH is #3 in the same poll.)

CUA is a very good "unknown".