Top 25 talk

[John Gleich]

WOW  69-69, going to OT. 

re: the other game... I'm not a UAA historian, but I seem to remember reading that no visiting team has won both games of the Chicago-Wash U series... that doesn't seem likely to me, but maybe it is...  And it makes for a tough game Saturday in St. Louis!




Emory wins 81-76  #1 goes down too!

[David Collinge]

Wes Anderson is having a coronary because a Centre guy (Thomas Britt) just hit a big shot to tie the game with 0:00.3 left.  He's losing his voice, too.

OT in Danville, too.

[OC_SID]

Emory up four with 2:49 left in OT.

EDIT:

It's a final -- Emory 81, Rochester 76

[David Collinge]

It's all Centre in the OT, leading by 8 inside 2:00 left now.

[David Collinge]

I just hope that when they go final, they go final in LiveStats.  It can be frustrating waiting for ten minutes and then deciding that those last 8 seconds really ticked off long ago...

Exhibit A:  Wash U./NYU LiveStats died at 3:05 remaining, and I only just discovered that it ended (Wash U. 57-50.) 

[sac]

#1 Rochester loses
#2 Brandeis loses
#3 Amherst plays at its biggest rival Willams Saturday
#4 Washington plays at #2 Brandeis
#5 Hope plays at its biggest rival Calvin Saturday
#6 UW Whitewater has already lost this week
#7 UW Stevens Point plays at #20 UW Oshkosh, whose already lost this week

Wild stuff!

I didn't think Emory was going to hold on, they missed 8 FT's in the final 2 min of regulation and OT, including 5 in OT.

[atn alum]

OK, so if 1-7 all lose this week, perhaps Mass-Dartmouth makes the climb from 8 to 1.

David Collinge...get ready to do some research on that kind of jump to the top (in reg season)

Yikes!

[Ralph Turner]

And if by scheduling, UMHB had hosted Hardin-Simmons and McMurry instead of going on the road last week, UMHB might have been #1.   

Another first! 

[David Collinge]

OK, so if 1-7 all lose this week, perhaps Mass-Dartmouth makes the climb from 8 to 1.

David Collinge...get ready to do some research on that kind of jump to the top (in reg season)

Yikes!

Gimme something hard once in a while, wuddya...

2001-02, Week 7, Randolph-Macon goes from #11 to #1.

Technically, this is second to #14 Catholic's rise to #1 after winning the 2001 title, but that's kind of a special case...

[Marty Peretz]

As a follower of the UAA, I can not stress how stunning the Chicago and Rochester losses are. These are complete shockers. Chicago lost to Wash.U. by 26 and Wash.U. had its bench in for the last 7 plus minutes. Emory was losing to Wash.U. by 37 with just under ten minutes to play, before the Bears' starters were pulled. Emory ended up losing by 23, I believe. Chicago couldn't buy a bucket when they came to St. Louis. They are a streaky team which is capable of catching a better team on an off day and upsetting them. So even though I am stunned that they beat Deis AT Deis, their victory isn't utterly unfathomable. Deis, it seems, has been prone to taking nights off, if you will. Plus, this was a classic trap game for them, sandwiched between Rochester last weekend and Wash.U. sunday.

But Emory, with all due respect, is NOT a good basketball team. Not to mention, Emory probably has the weakest big men in the league, with Rochester clearly having the strongest. Wash.U. is without arguably its best player and was winning by nearly 40 with close to a quarter of that game still to be played. If Edwards wanted to, he could have beaten them by 45 or 50, no problem. The magnitude of Emory's upset of Rochester is on par with Chaminade over UVA, I kid you not. Unless Emory was without a few of its key players last weekend (someone please let us know if this was the case), I simply can not understand how they upset Rochester. Sure, they played at home, but Emory is known as one of the easier places to play in the UAA. This is an Emory team which lost to Chicago last weekend by 26. Obviously, I give them all the credit in the world on their win; I'm merely stunned as to how they could have pulled it off...

To put how strange this league is into perspective, consider the following scores.
-Wash.U. beat NYU at NYU by 7.
-Deis beat NYU at NYU by 10, I believe.
-Wash.U. beat Chicago by 26 at home.
-Deis lost to Chicago at home by 2.

It's 100 percent OK to lost on the road in the UAA, but my impression of the league this year was that it was very top-heavy. Perhaps I was wrong... or perhaps we just saw historic upsets tonight...

[kiltedbryan]

OK, so if 1-7 all lose this week, perhaps Mass-Dartmouth makes the climb from 8 to 1.

David Collinge...get ready to do some research on that kind of jump to the top (in reg season)

Yikes!

Gimme something hard once in a while, wuddya...

2001-02, Week 7, Randolph-Macon goes from #11 to #1.

Technically, this is second to #14 Catholic's rise to #1 after winning the 2001 title, but that's kind of a special case...

DC, so I clicked your link and looked at those polls and noticed that when RMC was #11, they had jumped there from #25 the week before, and then weren't even in the poll the week before that!

I researched on RMC's website, and it looks like the rapid ascension was due to twice beating previously unbeaten teams that were ranked #2 (Christopher-Newport and then Hampden-Sydney).

I'm guessing that in addition to the largest jump to #1, RMC that year set the mark for the fastest to ever go from unranked to #1 (only 3 polls).

One other thing, that week 7 poll had 6 teams (nearly 1/4 of the entire poll) all drawing between 500 and 600 voting points of support- with no one over 600.  It seems that poll voters were particularly ambivalent about who the best teams in the country were at that time...which may be exactly where poll voters find ourselves come Sunday!

[Marty Peretz]

Question of the weekend (follow carefully)

If Wash.U. wins at Deis on Sunday, Hope beats Calvin Saturday, Rochester beats Case Sunday, and Amherst beats Williams Saturday, who is your number one team in the nation come Monday?

Consider:

Of Wash.U's two losses this year, one is to Calvin. Amherst's lone loss to a D3 opponent was at Brandeis. Rochester was stunned by a weak Emory team on the road Friday night, giving the Yellow Jackets their first loss of the year. Rochester sits atop the rankings, with Deis 2nd, Amherst 3rd, Wash.U. 4th, and Hope fifth. The seemingly obvious choice if the above scenarios occurred would be to make Wash.U. your number one team. They would have gone half way across the country to beat the number two team, of course. But that would give Deis three straight losses and take away from their credibility, thereby perhaps making it less of a terrific win for Wash.U. If Amherst beat #10 Williams, they'd obviously jump Deis, but would voters give them the nod over Wash.U.? The two teams' most significant common opponent would be Deis and Wash.U. would have beaten them and Amherst still won't have.  I think that Rochester has to drop, even if Hope were to lose. Emory lost to Wash.U. by 25 a mere week ago.

If Hope beats Calvin, they might deserve #1, but Wash.U. has still played a toucher schedule and I would give the nod to the Bears. Needless to say the voting would be extremely tight.

If Wash.U wins, they should go back to number one. If Amherst wins, they should be a solid 2. If Hope wins, give them third. Put Rochester fourth and Deis fifth.  Or, maybe move UMD all the way to number one (hey, number 6 lost also).

In truth, I think Wash.U. will fall narrowly at Deis in which case I'd put Amherst back at number one. But Amherst could easily lose at Williams and anything could happen in Calvin/Hope. Imagine, if Amherst, Wash.U. and Hope all lose. Deis lost Friday, so they can't be number one. It's radical to say so, but I could justify UMD going from 8 to 1...

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Jeez Marty - you don't make it easy, do you?!

Going to have to really think that over before I could even possibly answer it, in my opinion!

[frank uible]

Wait until Tuesday; it will be a lot clearer.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Sure... as clear as mud!