Posters' Poll

[Greek Tragedy]

Point also lost both of their games in overtime. They didn't play well in the tourney, but they were still 2-1.

[toad22]

Championship teams play their best basketball in March, not November. Is the poll not trying to measure the championship quality of the teams? A great team that doesn't win the big ones isn't really a great team, IMHO.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Championship teams play their best basketball in March, not November. Is the poll not trying to measure the championship quality of the teams? A great team that doesn't win the big ones isn't really a great team, IMHO.

My attempt is to rank the teams over the course of the season.  I do weight the end of the season a bit higher, since it gives teams a chance to gel and become fully formed entities (which is why I ranked Cabrini so low - they devolved over the course of the season).

I typically discount games that happen in November and those over the Christmas break as they tend to be unique scenarios for all involved.

I try to be objective in checking out who teams beat and to whom they lost. Usually the tournament champs get a big boost from all the good teams they beat in March - that was certainly the case with Whitewater for me.

Most years I end up ranking the champion #1 at the end, even if my "eye test" says someone else should be ahead of them.  I still believe Williams is better than Whitewater - in a seven game series, I'd take Williams in six - but Whitewater put up the better season overall (and obviously the championship game win is a big plus on their side.)

I think this the first year I've ranked someone else #1 over the champ.  It is not the first year I thought another team was better.  Stevens Point played an amazingly tough schedule and crushed it, losing only to the #2 team on the road in overtime, and one regrettable trap game in the tournament.  To me, that's a better season than any other team; the gap is significant enough to put them #1 at the end.

[gordonmann]

I had a similar conundrum in casting my final ballot for Thomas More in the women's Top 25. And since no one discusses the women's Top 25 on the message boards, I figured I'd raise it here to see what others think.

Say you have a Division III team who has a totally dominating regular season.  Undefeated. Beats almost everyone by 20+ points. Breaks scoring records. Crushes its first two NCAA tournament oppponents.

And a lot of the reason for the team's success is that it has an exceptionally talented player, an All-Star at the Division I level who transferred to that Division III school. Without that player, the Division III team has never made it past the Sweet 16.  With that player, they are a strong choice to win the national championship.  They are the No. 1 team in the country entering the tournament.

Then that player gets hurt in the early part of the Elite 8 game.  It's a serious enough injury where the player doesn't play any more in that game and would probably be out for a while, if the season kept going. The player's team gets beat handily and looks like a team that should be near the bottom of the Top 25.

Note: I don't know anything about the extent of Sydney Moss' injury. Maybe she's fine now. But just go with the hypothetical scenario where the player would be out for 2-3 months for argument's sake.

Where should that team be ranked in the Final Top 25 poll?

Should they finish in the Top eight because they were one of the last eight teams standing?  Higher because of the full season of results?  Lower because the team as constituted right now, with the injury, isn't nearly as good as it was for most of the season?

[Mr. Ypsi]

gordon, that is a toughie, and I really don't have an answer.  There was a similar situation a few years ago with top-5 Wheaton and Kent Raymond.  When he went down, they promptly dropped a couple of games they almost certainly would have won with him, then another in his first game back when he was clearly less than 100%.  They fell quite a bit, though probably less than they otherwise would have.  Once Raymond showed he was fully healthy again, I decided to all-but-ignore those three losses, and returned them pretty much to their previous ranking.  I'm just not sure what I would have done had he not returned, but probably dropped them way down or even out, since they were no longer that top-5 team from before.

[ronk]

Gordon,
  I'm of the opinion that the poll evaluation would reflect the current situation(didn't win because of injured player and capability of winning a next game correspondingly reduced); much like the Cabrini men's situation this year when Walton-Moss suffered an injury - move them back up when the injured player returns effectively. At season's end, it's just a tough blow, but then you're into wouldve/couldve situations, otherwise.

[madzillagd]

GM - I think that scenario is different than the men's scenario however.  The Whitman women also were crushing people throughout the year and had a deep run with only 1 more loss than TM.  Hard to dismiss their record and say they should drop below the #2 spot but I can completely understand why folks might put TM in the #3 spot on their ballot. The main difference however is UWSP had their full squad and played poorly for 3 straight games - they were not crushing people like TM was in the tournament.

On the men side I just think you can't have it both ways.  You can't say you are going to look at the entire year and that is your justification for putting UWSP in the top 2-3 and still place UWWW as your #1.  If you are going to put that much weight into the regular season (and pretty much ignore the tournament), then UWSP is your #1.  If you are going to factor in the tournament, then UWWW is your #1 and UWSP has to drop because of their weak showing.  You can't have it both ways.  But what it appears the voters did is they say their #1 is based on the tournament, but their #2 and below is based on the regular season - that makes no sense to me.  The difference between UWWW and Williams was 1 shot/1 second - you couldn't get a closer margin between two teams.  Both crushed their tournament opponents and both played many ranked teams to get there. Saying that UWSP is worse than team A but better than team B - when all that separates team A/B is 0.9 seconds and 2 points is ridiculous.   

Amherst got crushed by 29 points in the Final Four and didn't play any ranked teams before Williams in the tournament, so I don't have a problem if they drop below UWSP.  IWU I think is a little harder to justify because they did beat two ranked teams and recorded 2 more victories than UWSP.  Also the teams IWU beat in the regular season fared better in the tournament as well. But let's be realistic folks, UWSP squeezed past unranked Marian by 2 pts, barely beat unranked Central by 5, and then lost to an unranked Emory.  Those key regular season victories - St. Olaf got bounced in the first round by 13 to an unranked team, UST got bounced in the first round by  11 to an unranked team, Hope got beat in the first round by 4 to an unranked team, and Whitworth made it to the 2nd round before getting beat by a lower ranked team. 

We should look back at the entire year and when we do so for me it raises more questions than answers for UWSP.  They built up a great record and reputation in the regular season on beating these 'top' teams, but when we take a closer look at those 'top' teams all but one of them underperformed in the tournament just like UWSP did. If you point to the regular season as justifying putting UWSP 2 or 3, you aren't ignoring just their tournament run but you're ignoring the tournament run of 4 teams that underperformed.

Regular Season Comparison
UWWW
23-4    2 Losses to a Sweet 16 team, 2 losses to non-tournament teams
Williams
23-4    3 losses to a Final Four team, 1 loss to non-tournament team
UWSP
26-1    1 loss to Champion

Tournament Comparison
UWWW
6-0     3 wins against ranked teams
Williams
5-1     3 wins against ranked teams, 1 loss to Champion
UWSP
2-1      0 wins against ranked teams, 1 loss to unranked team

If UWSP is better than one of those teams they have to be better than both of them because the separation between the two is 2 pts/1 second. But with that being said, what separates these 3 teams is 3 regular season wins versus 3 tournament wins.  It just makes no sense to me at all that people would think that a regular season victory could ever be worth more than a tournament victory.  Has UWSP actually made it to the Elite 8 and lost to UWWW then I'd cut them more slack, but they lost to an unranked team that hadn't even received 1 point in the poll going into the tournament and didn't win 20 games on the year despite their Elite 8 appearance.  I think the D3Hoops voters got it right although I would not have had a problem seeing Amherst drop below UWSP.

[bopol]

My take is the final poll should be the reflection of the entire season.  I did one and based everything except for the #1 on the whole season. 

I ended up with UWSP (#2), Wash U (#5) and Wooster (#7) despite earlier than expected exits because they played so well all year.  I also would have had UWSP ahead of UWW if I did every pick this way as UWSP played better the entire year, but I gave the nod to UWW because they won the championship game.  I applaud sac for picking UWSP #1 as a good stand against looking at just March.

Of course, good play in the tournament (Dickinson, for example) can greatly enhance the whole season.  I don't think I would have had Dickinson in my Top 35 or 40 before the tournament, but winning three games against tough opponents really helps the whole season look much better.

On the women's side, I probably would have had Thomas More #2 if I followed the same logic I applied to the men's (all but #1 based on the entire season's work). 

[sac]

I ended up with UWSP (#2), Wash U (#5) and Wooster (#7) despite earlier than expected exits because they played so well all year.  I also would have had UWSP ahead of UWW if I did every pick this way as UWSP played better the entire year, but I gave the nod to UWW because they won the championship game. I applaud sac for picking UWSP #1 as a good stand against looking at just March.

I didn't rank UWSP #1 that was Hoops Fan.  I had WW #1

[Pat Coleman]

I voted for Thomas More No. 3 -- behind FDU-Florham, which was unbeaten, and behind Whitman, the national runner-up which defeated Thomas More in the round of eight.

Sydney Moss was healthy enough to play all but the last 28 minutes of the season, so I did not spend a lot of time pondering if TMC would have beaten Tufts or UWW without her.

[7express]

POSTERS' POLL, FINAL, 2014:

1.  UWW         224 (unan1mous, except for one 2)
t2. UWSP        204 (1,2,2,2,3,5,5,5)
t2. Williams     204 (2,2,2,3,3,3,4,5,6)
4.  IWU           201 (2,3,3,3,4,4,4,5,5)
5.  Amherst     199 (2,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,7)
6.  Wooster     164 (6,6,6,6,7,7,9,11,12)
7.  WashU       159 (5,5,6,6,7,7,10,11,18)
8.  M. Washington 149 (7,7,8,9,10,10,10,12,12)
9.  St. Norbert  136 (6,8,8,9,10,12,14,14,17)
10 Cabrini        128 (8,9,10,10,10,11,12,15,21)
11 A. Magnus   114 (6,9,9,12,13,14,17,17,23)
12 Calvin           99 (8,8,10,14,16,16,18,19,-)
13 Dickinson      93 (7,7,14,14,16,18,18,23,24)
14 Wesley          91 (8,11,11,14,16,17,19,23,24)
15 Brockport      90 (9,13,15,15,16,17,18,18,20)
16 R. Stockton   83 (11,11,11,13,16,19,19,25,-)
17 Wheaton       78 (9,9,12,13,18,20,23,-,-)
18 Plattsburgh    77 (8,13,15,15,17,20,20,21,-)
19 TX Dallas       76 (12,13,14,5,19,19,19,21,-)
20 Va. Wes         68 (8,11,13,18,21,23,23,23,-)
21 Purchase        48 (12,15,17,21,22,24,24,25,-)
22 Whitworth      34 (14,20,20,21,24,24,25,-,-)
23 Augustana      32 (13,16,17,-,-,-,-,-,-)
24 Emory            27 (15,21,22,22,23,-,-,-,-)
25 St. Thomas     24 (17,19,22,22,-,-,-,-,-)

t26 Morrisville      21 (16,21,23,24,25)
t26 Staten Island 21 (13,22,22)
28 St. Olaf           17 (16,20,25)
29 Randy Mac      15 (15,22)
30 Scranton         13 (19,21,25)
31 Centre            10 (18,24)
32 Hope               7 (20,25)
33 Hobart             6 (20)
34 PSU-Behrend    4 (22)
35 WPI                 3 (24,25)
36 Wittenberg       1

[bopol]

I ended up with UWSP (#2), Wash U (#5) and Wooster (#7) despite earlier than expected exits because they played so well all year.  I also would have had UWSP ahead of UWW if I did every pick this way as UWSP played better the entire year, but I gave the nod to UWW because they won the championship game. I applaud sac for picking UWSP #1 as a good stand against looking at just March.

I didn't rank UWSP #1 that was Hoops Fan.  I had WW #1

Oh, sorry.  Kudos to Hoops Fan for going against the grain.  I guess you and I are just sheep.

[frodotwo]

GM - I think that scenario is different than the men's scenario however.  The Whitman women also were crushing people throughout the year and had a deep run with only 1 more loss than TM.  Hard to dismiss their record and say they should drop below the #2 spot but I can completely understand why folks might put TM in the #3 spot on their ballot. The main difference however is UWSP had their full squad and played poorly for 3 straight games - they were not crushing people like TM was in the tournament.

On the men side I just think you can't have it both ways.  You can't say you are going to look at the entire year and that is your justification for putting UWSP in the top 2-3 and still place UWWW as your #1.  If you are going to put that much weight into the regular season (and pretty much ignore the tournament), then UWSP is your #1.  If you are going to factor in the tournament, then UWWW is your #1 and UWSP has to drop because of their weak showing.  You can't have it both ways.  But what it appears the voters did is they say their #1 is based on the tournament, but their #2 and below is based on the regular season - that makes no sense to me.  The difference between UWWW and Williams was 1 shot/1 second - you couldn't get a closer margin between two teams.  Both crushed their tournament opponents and both played many ranked teams to get there. Saying that UWSP is worse than team A but better than team B - when all that separates team A/B is 0.9 seconds and 2 points is ridiculous.   

Amherst got crushed by 29 points in the Final Four and didn't play any ranked teams before Williams in the tournament, so I don't have a problem if they drop below UWSP.  IWU I think is a little harder to justify because they did beat two ranked teams and recorded 2 more victories than UWSP.  Also the teams IWU beat in the regular season fared better in the tournament as well. But let's be realistic folks, UWSP squeezed past unranked Marian by 2 pts, barely beat unranked Central by 5, and then lost to an unranked Emory.  Those key regular season victories - St. Olaf got bounced in the first round by 13 to an unranked team, UST got bounced in the first round by  11 to an unranked team, Hope got beat in the first round by 4 to an unranked team, and Whitworth made it to the 2nd round before getting beat by a lower ranked team. 

We should look back at the entire year and when we do so for me it raises more questions than answers for UWSP.  They built up a great record and reputation in the regular season on beating these 'top' teams, but when we take a closer look at those 'top' teams all but one of them underperformed in the tournament just like UWSP did. If you point to the regular season as justifying putting UWSP 2 or 3, you aren't ignoring just their tournament run but you're ignoring the tournament run of 4 teams that underperformed.

Regular Season Comparison
UWWW
23-4    2 Losses to a Sweet 16 team, 2 losses to non-tournament teams
Williams
23-4    3 losses to a Final Four team, 1 loss to non-tournament team
UWSP
26-1    1 loss to Champion

Tournament Comparison
UWWW
6-0     3 wins against ranked teams
Williams
5-1     3 wins against ranked teams, 1 loss to Champion
UWSP
2-1      0 wins against ranked teams, 1 loss to unranked team

If UWSP is better than one of those teams they have to be better than both of them because the separation between the two is 2 pts/1 second. But with that being said, what separates these 3 teams is 3 regular season wins versus 3 tournament wins.  It just makes no sense to me at all that people would think that a regular season victory could ever be worth more than a tournament victory.  Has UWSP actually made it to the Elite 8 and lost to UWWW then I'd cut them more slack, but they lost to an unranked team that hadn't even received 1 point in the poll going into the tournament and didn't win 20 games on the year despite their Elite 8 appearance.  I think the D3Hoops voters got it right although I would not have had a problem seeing Amherst drop below UWSP.

You forgot UWSP's two key victories against the eventual national champs.

And D3 Hoops top 25 voters were so unimpressed with Emory's victory over UWSP that they merely gave them 290  points and the #14 ranking.

Without a doubt UWSP did not play well in the tourney and I did not have them ranked ahead of the final four teams in my poll:

1.    UW Whitewater
2.    Williams
3.    Amherst
4.    IWU
5.    UW SP
6.    Wash U
7.    Wooster
8.    Cabrini
9.    St Norbert
10.  Mary Washington

Calvin, Dickinson and Morrisville State were the only teams in my final top 25 that I did not rank in there at some time during the year. Calvin and Dickinson were on my radar and in the next 5 in  a few times, but Morrisville State was not until they added 3 wins in the tourney. Wins in the tourney garnered a few brownie points, but the entire body of work throughout the season is what I ranked the teams at the end. Here's what my poll was prior to the tourney:

1.    UWSP      
2.    Wash U      
3.    Wooster      
4.    Amherst      
5.    UWW      
6.    IWU         
7.    Cabrini      
8.    St. Norbert      
9.    Purchase      
10.  Brockport State   
11.  Williams

The Final 4 teams blew out their competition in the tourney up until Salem (With the exception of IWU's last second victory over Webster), and that along with their entire body of work throughout the year led me to rank them over UWSP.

      

[bopol]

GM - I think that scenario is different than the men's scenario however.  The Whitman women also were crushing people throughout the year and had a deep run with only 1 more loss than TM.  Hard to dismiss their record and say they should drop below the #2 spot but I can completely understand why folks might put TM in the #3 spot on their ballot. The main difference however is UWSP had their full squad and played poorly for 3 straight games - they were not crushing people like TM was in the tournament.

On the men side I just think you can't have it both ways.  You can't say you are going to look at the entire year and that is your justification for putting UWSP in the top 2-3 and still place UWWW as your #1.  If you are going to put that much weight into the regular season (and pretty much ignore the tournament), then UWSP is your #1.  If you are going to factor in the tournament, then UWWW is your #1 and UWSP has to drop because of their weak showing.  You can't have it both ways.  But what it appears the voters did is they say their #1 is based on the tournament, but their #2 and below is based on the regular season - that makes no sense to me.  The difference between UWWW and Williams was 1 shot/1 second - you couldn't get a closer margin between two teams.  Both crushed their tournament opponents and both played many ranked teams to get there. Saying that UWSP is worse than team A but better than team B - when all that separates team A/B is 0.9 seconds and 2 points is ridiculous.   

Amherst got crushed by 29 points in the Final Four and didn't play any ranked teams before Williams in the tournament, so I don't have a problem if they drop below UWSP.  IWU I think is a little harder to justify because they did beat two ranked teams and recorded 2 more victories than UWSP.  Also the teams IWU beat in the regular season fared better in the tournament as well. But let's be realistic folks, UWSP squeezed past unranked Marian by 2 pts, barely beat unranked Central by 5, and then lost to an unranked Emory.  Those key regular season victories - St. Olaf got bounced in the first round by 13 to an unranked team, UST got bounced in the first round by  11 to an unranked team, Hope got beat in the first round by 4 to an unranked team, and Whitworth made it to the 2nd round before getting beat by a lower ranked team. 

We should look back at the entire year and when we do so for me it raises more questions than answers for UWSP.  They built up a great record and reputation in the regular season on beating these 'top' teams, but when we take a closer look at those 'top' teams all but one of them underperformed in the tournament just like UWSP did. If you point to the regular season as justifying putting UWSP 2 or 3, you aren't ignoring just their tournament run but you're ignoring the tournament run of 4 teams that underperformed.

Regular Season Comparison
UWWW
23-4    2 Losses to a Sweet 16 team, 2 losses to non-tournament teams
Williams
23-4    3 losses to a Final Four team, 1 loss to non-tournament team
UWSP
26-1    1 loss to Champion

Tournament Comparison
UWWW
6-0     3 wins against ranked teams
Williams
5-1     3 wins against ranked teams, 1 loss to Champion
UWSP
2-1      0 wins against ranked teams, 1 loss to unranked team

If UWSP is better than one of those teams they have to be better than both of them because the separation between the two is 2 pts/1 second. But with that being said, what separates these 3 teams is 3 regular season wins versus 3 tournament wins.  It just makes no sense to me at all that people would think that a regular season victory could ever be worth more than a tournament victory.  Has UWSP actually made it to the Elite 8 and lost to UWWW then I'd cut them more slack, but they lost to an unranked team that hadn't even received 1 point in the poll going into the tournament and didn't win 20 games on the year despite their Elite 8 appearance.  I think the D3Hoops voters got it right although I would not have had a problem seeing Amherst drop below UWSP.

I think it is necessary to reduce the information to something that we can handle, but I worry about reducing the regular season just losses and not consider all the good wins that UWSP had.

For the season, I looked at the record against Top 50 for the entire season (using Massey)

UWW 9-3
UWSP 9-2
Amherst 6-1
Wash U 5-3
Williams 4-4
IWU 11-4
Wooster 7-2
Wesley 7-2

This and overall record was what I used to guide myself at least.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Just pored over the Bracket Challenge standings.  I had three of the FF teams (which kept me pretty high), but UWSP winning it all instead of UWW.  IF UWSP had not laid an egg, I suspect I would have won it all (at least top three).

Oh well, I'm not gonna complain about top 10%.

And I DID beat all the other PP voters!