Posters' Poll

[Gregory Sager]

Carthage makes Mr. Ypsi look like a guy with a crystal ball.

We don't know that for sure. He hasn't revealed which posters picked Wheaton as their #1 and which ones picked Wheaton lower. For all we know, he may have been one of the posters who put Wheaton in the top slot on their ballots. I won't ask him, of course, since I believe in the sanctity of the secret ballot.

[smedindy]

Hey, I'll admit for being a (new) homer!

[Mr. Ypsi]

I still had Wheaton at #1.  I strongly considered dropping them after Raymond went down, but it just didn't seem right until they lost (especially when they hammered Millikin in Decatur in their first post-Raymond game).

The first poll, I was the lone vote for Carthage, but dropped them after struggling IWU beat them in Kenosha.  I suspect I will restore them to my ballot this week (though NOT at #8!)  But kudos to Hoops Fan, who has already acknowledged being the Carthage vote.

[usee]

For the record Mr Ypsi did change his pick on the CCIW pickems after Raymond went down (he picked Millikin to beat them @millkin) but he also called Carthage's win over wheaton, albeit he only told us he had a "hunch" after the game last night.  8)

[Mr. Ypsi]

Yeah, I 'wimped out' on actually picking Carthage after what Wheaton did to Millikin, but the result didn't really surprise me.  What DID surprise me was that Carthage won with Steve D getting only 17 points!  I figured Carthage might win because, without Raymond on him, Djurickovic might go off for 40+.

[LogShow]

How long is Raymond supposed to be sidelined?

[Mr. Ypsi]

How long is Raymond supposed to be sidelined?

As of the last posting on the CCIW board, the swelling is still too much to fully evaluate.  I FEAR we'll not see the 'real' Kent Raymond again this year; I HOPE he'll be good as ever in 3-4 weeks.  High ankle sprains can be really nasty, prolonged injuries, but sometimes they're not as severe as they first seem.

Or, more briefly, no one yet knows.

[ephoops]

Carthage makes Mr. Ypsi look like a guy with a crystal ball.

We don't know that for sure. He hasn't revealed which posters picked Wheaton as their #1 and which ones picked Wheaton lower. For all we know, he may have been one of the posters who put Wheaton in the top slot on their ballots. I won't ask him, of course, since I believe in the sanctity of the secret ballot.

I wish that Democrats shared your belief in the sanctity of the secret balance when it comes to the issue of card check in union organizing.

[Ralph Turner]

Mine is in. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

And tallied!

We had 23 of the same 25 (only a handful significantly different location), and the two you had that I didn't were among the six that I wrestled with for the last three spots.

Would that qualify as "Great minds think alike" or "Diseased minds flow in the same gutter"?

EDIT: Got your modified ballot after I posted - your bottom two (and the deleted team) were my #26-28!

[Ralph Turner]

And tallied!

We had 23 of the same 25 (only a handful significantly different location), and the two you had that I didn't were among the six that I wrestled with for the last three spots.

Would that qualify as "Great minds think alike" or "Diseased minds flow in the same gutter"?

EDIT: Got your modified ballot after I posted - your bottom two (and the deleted team) were my #26-28!

Exactly the way that I felt.  As I was looking at my representation across the regions, I believed that I needed to add a team from one of my under-represented regions.

As we have discussed before, after the top 15-20, the next 50 are a huge morass.  I saw the UT-Dallas loss to UOzarks.  That was not a bad loss!  At the end of the season, the statistician might say that that was 43%-57% loss.  UOzarks' athleticism matches well against UTD half-court play.

I guess that I would love to see someone diagram the confidence intervals that we have in the statistical model rankings the way that I/we report confidence intervals in scientific reporting.  For example, I imagine a big huge sphere indicating the confidence interval involved in a UWP-UWSP game.  I'll bet that they would almost overlap!  The tighter the radius of the sphere, the more confident that we are of the team.  (The p value might not have to be .05; we might settle for a p=.20 or p=.32.)

Thanks for doing this.

[smedindy]

In...and the bottom half of my poll is all wicky wacky woop!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I've been out of the loop for the week, so it's nice to see that my crazy move paid off.  Although, you understand, this is only going to mess up my ballot even further.  I'll have it in later today.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Alright, I have reconsidered my list from top to bottom.  In retrospect, I apologize for putting Carthage so high.  I have moved them down slightly this week to a place I feel is more appropriate.  Incidentally, had I placed them there last week, they would have finished with the 26th most points in the poll rather than 25, which would have been a better spot.

I also reconsidered McMurry.  And while I recognize the critiques against the team, I could not find teams below them whose schedule and results allowed me to have more confidence in them at this point.

Aside from McMurry, John Carroll (#22) and Transylvania (#25) are the only schools on my list who did not receive votes last week; I don't think either pick will be too controversial.

[Ralph Turner]

...

I also reconsidered McMurry.  And while I recognize the critiques against the team, I could not find teams below them whose schedule and results allowed me to have more confidence in them at this point.

Aside from McMurry, John Carroll (#22) and Transylvania (#25) are the only schools on my list who did not receive votes last week; I don't think either pick will be too controversial.

I want to believe, but there are times that this team just doesn't focus!

The McMurry point guard, Robert Moreno, is as fine a pure point guard as there is in our part of the country.  He is real court leader!  He commands the respect of his teammates and takes control of the game.  Moreno sat out 2 games plus 38:42 of a third game.  A McMurry player was fouled intentionally on a fastbreak and suffered a bad concussion.  Moreno had sat out the game.  The lead had been cut to 5.  Moreno subs for the player.  Coming in cold, he hits 3 of 4 FT's and then causes the SRSU ballhandler to dribble the ball off his foot.

The game line is 1 minute 18 seconds, 3 points, causes one turnover.  The statistic not seen in the book was how he took control of the team and the game by his presence!  Moreno is a real winner...as a player, as a husband and father, and as a student-athlete!

I can see this team gelling and making it nicely into the playoffs or I can see this team laying an egg.  The North Central loss in Vegas was one of those games 66-69, as was the UT-Tyler loss, 62-66.  The HPU game, where we came from 24 down with 17:45  to play, was almost an egg!

The wins over UT-Dallas and Missisippi College were solid, as were the first 30 minutes of the Texas State (D-1, 8-10 on the season) game, where we trailed by 10 with 10 minutes left.