Posters' Poll

[smedindy]

When is the deadline. i am at a conference and may not get it done in time!

[Mr. Ypsi]

Since there is no urgency, I'll just wait until there are at least 9 or 10 voters.

I'd LIKE to get it out by tomorrow night, but if it is Tuesday or Wednesday, so be it (that should still leave plenty of discussion time before the next game! )

[Greek Tragedy]

I probably won't have my poll out until later tonight or tomorrow morning...sorry for any inconvenience.

[titanfan]

Ypsi, I'll try to get you mine tomorrow, though I don't want to make any promises.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Only 4 ballots in so far.

Trying not to tip the voting, the top 3 so far are unanimous, but NOT all in the same order.

One team seems particularly controversial: they are 12th and 13th on 2 ballots; entirely omitted on 2 others.

We have 33 teams named already - this season never did clarify a top 25!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

One team seems particularly controversial: they are 12th and 13th on 2 ballots; entirely omitted on 2 others.

My guess is its either Carroll or WPI.

[Greek Tragedy]

Na...WPI wasn't ranked that high to begin with.  #24, high of 16 in the last poster's poll.  I would guess York!  They were 9th, (4-18 variation) and they beat up on the other York before losing to "I forget"...maybe two of those guys that got their polls in were at the bottom end of that variation and felt a second round exit was good enough to boot!   Though Carroll would be a good guess...

It's speculation, but I'm guessing the top 3 are Virg. Wes., Witt and Ill. Wes. with the latter two switching spots with voters.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

You know, that's probably true.  My poll is in and I left York off of it.

[Pat Coleman]

D3hoops.com Top 25 posted.
http://www.d3hoops.com/top25/

[Mr. Ypsi]

York and Carroll are good guesses - but wrong.  OS, you're pretty much correct about the top 3, though one of them fell to 4th on one ballot.

OK, no more hints!  We're up to 6 voters at this point; hoping for at least 4 more before I release it.

[Ralph Turner]

I noticed the inherent love that Trinity TX has in Pat's D3hoops.com poll.  TU received 7 votes in the final poll.

Maryville TN, which very convincingly defeated Trinity on a neutral floor in the first round, received zero votes.

The Trinity that defeated VWC and ASC-West winner Howard Payne in November took a nose dive in February.

[David Collinge]

Trying not to tip the voting, the top 3 so far are unanimous, but NOT all in the same order.

It appears that four of the "mainline" top 25 voters put IWU in 2nd and Witt in 3rd, as Witt received 596 votes (4 votes shy of a perfect all-second-place poll) and IWU received 579 (4 points more than a perfect all-third-place poll.)

Amherst was not a unanimous #4, either, having received 539 votes (11 fewer than all-fourth-place).  I find that a little difficult to justify, since all 4 games in Salem went right down to the wire.  If I were a voter, I'd need a lot to convince me to not rank the top four the way the tournament came out (VWC, Witt, IWU, Amherst.)

[Titan Q]

You could argue a lot of different ways on that one, David.  IWU basically lost to Virginia Wesleyan in exactly the same fashion as Wittenberg did...in the final seconds.  And they both beat Amherst in tight games.  I didn't see anything in Salem that would indicate which should be #2 and which #3.   So then you look at the run IWU had leading up to Salem (the games since the last poll).  IWU won @ Whitewater and @ previous #1 Lawrence.  Wittenberg beat great teams, but did so at home.  One could easily make a case for IWU #2.

As far as who else could have been ranked #4 over Amherst, look at Lawrence for example -- LU lost a thriller to IWU in the Sectional semifinal in a game the Vikings led most of the way.  IWU controlled the game vs Amherst the entire way for the most part.  Lawrence has a great case for #4 I think.  (And as someone who has seen both, I think Lawrence is the better team.)

[sac]

I think its important to look at the full body of work, not just the tournament.  Makeing the Final Four doesn't erase earlier losses in the season.

Despite makeing the final and nearly winning the title, Wittenberg underwhelmed me in person.  If the Sectionals aren't in Springfield Witt doesn't make Salem.  Thats my opinion.

Amherst is a good team no doubt but they didn't match up in the tournament with Lawrence,  Whitewater, Augustana, Hope, Calvin, Wooster etc etc.  Amherst doesn't make Salem if they have to come out of the Midwest or Great Lakes.


There are top 10 teams that didn't make it past the Sweet 16 because of the non-national seeding in D3........happens every year.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I think both Lawrence and Hope (#1 and #2 entering the tourney, and both losing narrowly to final four teams) could very easily be justified as slipping in somewhere AMONG the final four teams.

I've gone on record that I don't feel an obligation to automatically vote the champion as #1 (e.g., Villanova and NCSt would NOT have been #1 on my ballot), though I DID vote VWC #1.  My gut hunch is that, in a ten-game series against either Witt or IWU, VaWes wins only 3 or 4, but they were a worthy team and DID win the only one that got played.  I perhaps bent over backwards TOO far to avoid my Green bias and put Witt 2 and IWU 3, but I agree with Q that a VERY plausible case can be made for the reverse order.  And based on total body-of-work, I put both Larry and Hope ahead of Amherst.

We've been stuck on just six voters for a long time now - Greg?  titanfan? PS? FDF? stalker? smed? (and, what the heck, it's the final PP - Q? David? April? anyone??).

I'll put the poll out about 9pm (EST) tomorrow, but I sure hope it will have a lot more than 6 voters!!