Top 25 talk

[pbrooks3]

Hmm... maybe one loss for Centre would be the easy answer!

Agreed, but in one week neither team lost another game.  Augustana was ranked one spot ahead of Centre last week.  Was Centre rewarded for their road wins in Texas?

[Pat Coleman]

I do not get how Rochester stays put with a loss at home to an unranked opponent, and Brandeis which goes 2-0 on the week falls.

I do not get how people insist on looking at the poll in just one small slice instead of the big picture.

[David Collinge]

Hmm... maybe one loss for Centre would be the easy answer!

Agreed, but in one week neither team lost another game.  Augustana was ranked one spot ahead of Centre last week.  Was Centre rewarded for their road wins in Texas?

Augie also won twice on the road, once at a ranked team (Elmhurst) and the other at an historically tough venue (Ill. Wesleyan).  Centre gained 110 points to Augie's 81.  Kind of a head-scratcher to me.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Hmm... maybe one loss for Centre would be the easy answer!

Agreed, but in one week neither team lost another game.  Augustana was ranked one spot ahead of Centre last week.  Was Centre rewarded for their road wins in Texas?

Augie also won twice on the road, once at a ranked team (Elmhurst) and the other at an historically tough venue (Ill. Wesleyan).  Centre gained 110 points to Augie's 81.  Kind of a head-scratcher to me.

On a week-to-week thing, I does make little sense.  My hypothesis:

There was sufficient carnage in the top 25 that a number of voters, rather than adjusting their previous ballots, went back to square-one.  Considering the recent carnage (and the number of highly-ranked 3 and 4 loss teams), said voters may have decided that they had highly underranked any team who could manage but one loss, regardless of schedule.  Would Pat be willing to reveal whether or not there was a major jump by Centre on a few ballots?

[Pat Coleman]

Not as easy to do given the tools I have at my disposal but I think that now that there's a lack of not only unbeaten teams, but one-loss teams, the rise of the remaining ones of each isn't overly outlandish.

[pbrooks3]

Hmm... maybe one loss for Centre would be the easy answer!

Agreed, but in one week neither team lost another game.  Augustana was ranked one spot ahead of Centre last week.  Was Centre rewarded for their road wins in Texas?

This indeed makes some sense.  Thanks.
Augie also won twice on the road, once at a ranked team (Elmhurst) and the other at an historically tough venue (Ill. Wesleyan).  Centre gained 110 points to Augie's 81.  Kind of a head-scratcher to me.

On a week-to-week thing, I does make little sense.  My hypothesis:

There was sufficient carnage in the top 25 that a number of voters, rather than adjusting their previous ballots, went back to square-one.  Considering the recent carnage (and the number of highly-ranked 3 and 4 loss teams), said voters may have decided that they had highly underranked any team who could manage but one loss, regardless of schedule.  Would Pat be willing to reveal whether or not there was a major jump by Centre on a few ballots?

[sac]

Only 51 poll points separates #6 from #10.  If votes were distrubuted exactly evenly you would expect that difference to be 125 poll points.

[David Collinge]

My guess, and it is strictly a guess (for those who don't know and may suspect otherwise, I have nothing whatsoever to do with the compilation of this poll), is that Centre moved up because some of the down-ballot carnage.  Augie has an established reputation and has been highly ranked all year (in fact, 40 straight weeks in the Top 25).  Good road wins are more or less expected of this program, and as they were probably already in the top 10 of everyone's ballot, there's not a lot of room for upward mobility.  Centre, on the other hand, probably had a cadre of "believers" and a cadre of "skeptics" among the voters.  The "believers" are why they were #11 in the first place, while the "skeptics" were won over by the combination of two good road wins in Texas and losses by most of the teams near them on the average "skeptic's" ballot of a week ago.  So while the average voter may have nosed Augie up by 3-4 positions, the won-over Centre "skeptics" may have pushed the Colonels up 6-7 spots.

But that's just a guess, and I'm usually wrong about these things. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Only 51 poll points separates #6 from #10.  If votes were distrubuted exactly evenly you would expect that difference to be 125 poll points.

Actually, only 100 points (all 6s = 500; all 10s = 400), but good point.

[fcnews]

#1 Amhearst , #2 UM-D, #3 Augustana, #4 UW-Whitewater and #5 Rochester. 6-11, Brandies, Wash U, Centre, Hope, Puget and Capital (pick an order for these 5). UW-Stevens Point and V. Wesleyan (?)

Not way off?

[John Gleich]

Something important to note... Centre has won 18 games in a row.  Only undefeated UMD has a longer streak... and Centre lost by just one, in the first game of the year.  The same reason why UMD has risen, Centre has risen.

Just a thought...

[Mr. Ypsi]

Something important to note... Centre has won 18 games in a row.  Only undefeated UMD has a longer streak... and Centre lost by just one, in the first game of the year.  The same reason why UMD has risen, Centre has risen.

Just a thought...

Noted, and I agree (and do not disagree with their ranking).  I was just speculating as to why they suddenly jumped Augie this week, when the Vikings had probably the more impressive single week.

[Titan Q]

One thing to remember is that the voters reevaluate the complete resume of each team every Monday.  Sometimes, results from earlier in the season become "worth" more or less as time goes on. 

For example, Centre beat DePauw way back on December 1.  At the time, that win may not have meant all that much to the D3Hoops.com Top 25 voters.  Here in early February, however, DePauw is 16-4 and 8-2 in the SCAC.  You look at that as a real good win now.

Or take Augustana's loss at North Park on January 9 in Augie's CCIW opener.  At the time I sure didn't think the Vikings should be penalized too much for that one -- NPU was picked 4th in the preseason CCIW coaches poll.  Just a tough road game against a good team.  Well, now you look at it, and NPU has lost 3 home games in the CCIW -- to Elmhurst (by 27), to IWU, and to last place Millikin.  As a voter, you might look at the game a little differently now.

I think many assume the voters just look at the 1 or 2 games played since the last poll and adjust their ballot accordingly.  In reality, I think all 25 of us do our best to look at the whole picture every Monday morning, and sometimes the picture changes a little.

[scottiedawg]

UMD's massey mov SOS drops to 145
Centre's is 202
Mary Hardin Baylor's is 156

It's tough to assess these teams, because although their record speaks volumes, their schedules do not.  However, just because they have played lax schedules does not mean they are not worthy of a high ranking.  We just won't know till the tournament. 

[daoustian]

Augie has an established reputation and has been highly ranked all year (in fact, 40 straight weeks in the Top 25). 

David,

Sorry for the hijack, but since this is the top 25 poll thread and since you seem likely to know the answer off the top of your head without spending several hours clicking through archived poll results, I was curious as to which men's team has the longest active weekly streak of consecutive top 25 appearances?  I did a quick scan on the Amherst end and it's something like 80 straight weeks (plus or minus 2 weeks, number could be adjusted downward if you don't want to count preseason and final season polls) -- otherwise, in every week since Week 13 in the 2001-02 season.  Not bad.