Posters' Poll

[Mr. Ypsi]

PP has been corrected.  I HOPE it is now accurate!

[smedindy]

I'm shocked at the lack of love for Lincoln (I mean, they have losses, but their season is almost over!) and the divergent views on WPI!

I think this is going to be a fun year - lots of good to great teams, a few elite teams, and a lot of "fun" come selection time.

[Mr. Ypsi]

7. Albion, 216 (5-8)

I have an important question: how did you get this to display correctly?  Whenever I try to put in an '8' followed by a right parenthesis ')', I get this stupid "cool guy" smiley==> 8) How did you manage to override that? 

David, I have no clue!

I had noticed that glitch on others' posts, but it has never done it to me - I have no answer.  (I HAD wondered why ballots with parens rather than periods kept giving me this 'cool guy' on #8 and #18!)

[smedindy]

Perhaps when you string a lot of stuff together like (5-8) it doesn't take it as a smiley guy??

See? It worked.  8)

[David Collinge]

You two are too 8) for school.

Maybe I'll figure it out from trial and error.  It looks like (5-8) works, but the other day when I posted in NCAC about the average minutes of NCAC players, I had to show Tom Port as [28.8] because (28.8) looked stupid.  Maybe there's some magic in a hyphen that isn't in a period?  The logic escapes me; but considering that I'm studying for the bar exam, logic escaping me is pretty much an hourly event these days. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

I'm shocked at the lack of love for Lincoln (I mean, they have losses, but their season is almost over!) and the divergent views on WPI!

I think this is going to be a fun year - lots of good to great teams, a few elite teams, and a lot of "fun" come selection time.

I had Lincoln JUST outside my top 25 (maybe others did too?), but you certainly have MORE love for 'em than anyone else - over 80% of their points are yours!

WPI IS a mystery - the eight of us who voted for them all had them 15th or above (I put them 12th), but three left them off entirely - they would have to answer.  With their schedule, I certainly didn't think it was something to challenge the voter over, but, yeah, I think they probably belong fairly high

[smedindy]

When I ran my numbers I was shocked how well Lincoln really stacked up - I thought it was one team I may have had to downgrade with my power rankings, but they were decent enough, and with all of the other losses this week I kept them right there.

I was prepared to really shake things up buy my omissions didn't have that great a week so I was 'saved' I guess.

But with this much divergence in a small poll, one wonders about the actual Top 25. Heck, how about the spread on teams on the AP D-1 top 25!

[Greek Tragedy]

Here are some of my thoughts.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the WIAC well-represented in the Poster's Poll.  I thought I might get a like schtick from Ypsi since I'm a WIAC guy and I had Stout 19, La Crosse 23 and Oshkosh 25.  I almost wanted to keep Whitewater in there, but then I had to drop La Crosse or Oshkosh and neither lost last week.  Whitewater lost their only game last week.

Anyway, on the d3hoops poll, I was surprised to see Oshkosh jump all the way to 21.  What is interesting is that the Posters put La Crosse ahead of Oshkosh and only two no-votes.  But, d3hoops voters didn't even have La Crosse getting any votes at all!

I was one that left Carroll off my ballot.  I used the "Ill. Wes. close win vs. Carthage hurt them more than their loss to North Central" case study.  Carroll hung close to Lawrence and eventually lost.  But, they barely beat a 6-8 (2-5 in conference) Beloit team at home.  Since they were barely in the Poster's Poll last week and just 24 on my previous poll, I dropped them.  It was surprising that Carroll made it into the d3hoops poll (long overdue in my view anyway) even though both weeks they had the same amount of votes (40).

I honestly don't know anything about Widener or Lincoln for that matter, but Widener was just off the Poster's Poll last week and I just stuck them in based on ranking, I guess.

Oh regarding that (5-8) and (8) thing.  If it came up a face, I just put an extra space between the "8" and the ")" like (8 )

[smedindy]

I don't get the LaCrosse thing either - by my looks they're the best team in the WIAC.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I don't get the LaCrosse thing either - by my looks they're the best team in the WIAC.

Well, they ARE tied for fourth place!

But, yeah, I had them at 24th.

[Greek Tragedy]

I don't get the LaCrosse thing either - by my looks they're the best team in the WIAC.

Yeah, I wouldn't go that far.  Based on my observations and scores and posts and such, here are my WIAC rankings, basically how the stands are.

1. Whitewater (won at La Crosse, beat Point, lost at home to Oshkosh)
2. Oshkosh (win at Whitewater, lost at Point, lost at home to Stout)
3. Point (beat Oshkosh, won at La Crosse, beat Stout, lost at Whitewater, at home to Platteville)
4. La Crosse (lost at home to Point and Whitewater, won at Stout, won at Platteville).
5. Stout (lost at Point, lost at home to River Falls and La Crosse, won at Oshkosh).

tough to say who's the best here and, yeah, no one has separated themselves yet!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I solved the smiley thing by adding a space before and after the 8, like this ( 8 )  I'm not sure how it works with multiple numbers in there.

I wanted to get Lincoln on there, but I am going to wait and make sure they beat Richard Stockton again before I let them back in.  I'm a big fan of Lincoln, but they slowed down a little in the middle of their season (to be expected, but still).

What is really confusing me is that OAC.  They have like five teams with borderline resumes, but they all beat each other and most all of them have one really bad loss.  I think I left ONU in there at #25, but that was wacky.

[smedindy]

LaCrosse has the best profile amongst the WIAC in my power rating amalgamation.

[John Gleich]

I'll give my take on the WIAC when I get back from class @ 2:00.

[John Gleich]

I'm going to go through this team by team... and I consider the "contenders" to be Oshkosh, Point, La Crosse, Whitewater, and Stout

Oshkosh (7-2)  3-1 at home 4-1 on the road

Home vs. Point (tomorrow)
At River Falls
At La Crosse
At Stout
Home vs. EC
Home vs. Whitewater
Home vs. Platteville
(two home, two away vs. "contenders)

Point (7-2) 4-1 at home 3-1 on the road

At Oshkosh (tomorrow)
At Eau Claire
Home vs. La Crosse
Home vs. Whitewater
At Stout
At Platteville
Home vs. Superior
(two home, two away vs. "contenders")

Whitewater (6-2) 3-1 at home 3-1 on the road

Home vs. La Crosse
Home vs. Stout
Home vs. Platteville
At Superior
At Stevens Point
Home vs. River Falls
At Oshkosh
At Eau Claire
(two home, two away vs. "contenders")

La Crosse (6-3) 3-2 at home 3-1 on the road

At Whitewater
At Superior
Home vs. Oshkosh
At Point
Home vs. Platt
At RF
Home vs. Stout
(two home, two away vs. "contenders")

Stout (6-3) 2-2 at home 4-1 on the road

Home vs. EC
At Whitewater
At RF
Home vs. Oshkosh
Home vs. Superior
Home vs. Point
At LaX
(two home, two away vs. "contenders")

Platteville (4-5) 1-4 at home 3-1 on the road

at EC
at WW
Home vs. RF
at LaX
Home vs. Sup
Home vs. SP
at Oshy
(one home, three away vs. "contenders")

I think Oshkosh loses two of the next four games.  They beat Platte and EC, and the WW game is a "pick"
I think Point loses two of the next four games.  They beat Superior, but the Platte and Stout games are "picks"
I think WW loses one of the next three, with the other two being "gimme's", and they lose at least one of the last 5.  WW is at a "disadvantage" because they have their bye the first week of the second round, IMO.  They didn't play, but they lost ground.
I think La Crosse loses two of the next four games.  The rest of the "gimme's" they win, and the finale vs. Stout is a pick.
I think Stout loses one of the next four, and one of the last two.

Platteville is the wildcard.  They are 1-4 at home right now.  They play Point (who they beat) and Superior and RF, games they *should* win.  However, they are 3-1 on the road.  They go to EC tomorrow (*should* win), and to Oshkosh, La Crosse, and Whitewater.  They've played better on the road than at home, and they're playing these road games against contenders.  They have the potential to knock some teams off.