MBB: NESCAC

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Appreciate the attempt Dave.  I'm sure I will give you ample opportunity to get me as the season roils on.  To me, especially early rankings are less than an educated guess.  What I do take note of in looking at Middlebury's schedule is they seem to have made it more challenging pre-NESCAC than in past seasons.  I would be interested if others agree with my take on that.  Personally, I like it.  Challenge your guys.  See what you have.   

You may think it is less than an educated guess... but I, and other voters, put in too much work and hours looking over the information and doing whatever else to learn more (I make phone calls, text individuals, emails, etc.) to have it be less than educated.

A bit touchy for a guy who tried to make a joke at my expense.  That's OK, I don't mean to minimize your work, texts and emails, I will concede it is not less than an educated guess, it is indeed educated.  Out of curiosity, I'm curious, since you have been doing these opening season rankings, how many of the the top 5 ranked teams from the 1st poll went on to win a national championship?  I would certainly guess a repeat winner like Wash U. and others for sure.     

I do take exception when people think the voters don't take these seriously or think we just make things up. I make jokes about throwing darts, but they are just jokes. And it isn't to be confused with my humor about your homerism which is completely understandable and to some extent celebrated.

I don't have the data in front of me, but the Top 5 usually does pretty well into March for the most part. National champs certainly have a bit of randomness to it when looking at the entire season - teams like UMHB who nearly won the title when not even receiving points in the final regular season poll are rare, but also point towards the fact champs can come from pretty far back once in awhile.

I will see if I can dig through our archives for the Top 5 answer. If you want to know how many #1s have gone on to win championships, click here: http://www.d3hoops.com/top25/men/archive

[amh63]

'd-mac'......a little sensitive about DHoops pre- season's poll.
I consider them as starting the chatter for the new season...NOTHING more.  Rather than looking for data to support particular polls, etc....how about a listing of the members of this year's voters.  Any new members?  Do the voters change through the season? 
Why?...let's me judge if there are regional bias.

[grabtherim]

Appreciate the attempt Dave.  I'm sure I will give you ample opportunity to get me as the season roils on.  To me, especially early rankings are less than an educated guess.  What I do take note of in looking at Middlebury's schedule is they seem to have made it more challenging pre-NESCAC than in past seasons.  I would be interested if others agree with my take on that.  Personally, I like it.  Challenge your guys.  See what you have.   

You may think it is less than an educated guess... but I, and other voters, put in too much work and hours looking over the information and doing whatever else to learn more (I make phone calls, text individuals, emails, etc.) to have it be less than educated.

A bit touchy for a guy who tried to make a joke at my expense.  That's OK, I don't mean to minimize your work, texts and emails, I will concede it is not less than an educated guess, it is indeed educated.  Out of curiosity, I'm curious, since you have been doing these opening season rankings, how many of the the top 5 ranked teams from the 1st poll went on to win a national championship?  I would certainly guess a repeat winner like Wash U. and others for sure.     

I do take exception when people think the voters don't take these seriously or think we just make things up. I make jokes about throwing darts, but they are just jokes. And it isn't to be confused with my humor about your homerism which is completely understandable and to some extent celebrated.

I don't have the data in front of me, but the Top 5 usually does pretty well into March for the most part. National champs certainly have a bit of randomness to it when looking at the entire season - teams like UMHB who nearly won the title when not even receiving points in the final regular season poll are rare, but also point towards the fact champs can come from pretty far back once in awhile.

I will see if I can dig through our archives for the Top 5 answer. If you want to know how many #1s have gone on to win championships, click here: http://www.d3hoops.com/top25/men/archive

I look forward to hearing more about this, and I'll remember: take you seriously except when you make jokes about others, then I'm supposed to see the humor and laugh as it's understandable and celebrated.  You clearly operate on a higher plane than me.  I defer.  OK, now I've got the rules and will follow them accordingly. Tsk Tsk, get over yourself.  My supposed homerism is dwarfed by your paper thin skin. Let's get on to kids playing basketball, much more interesting than the musings of you and me.   

 

[Pat Coleman]

'd-mac'......a little sensitive about DHoops pre- season's poll.
I consider them as starting the chatter for the new season...NOTHING more.  Rather than looking for data to support particular polls, etc....how about a listing of the members of this year's voters.  Any new members?  Do the voters change through the season? 
Why?...let's me judge if there are regional bias.

We don't release the list of voters -- some of them are certainly public knowledge and voters can and do identify themselves, sometimes on the board, sometimes in their newspaper columns, sometimes in their coaching bios. But since I've been a voter on other polls and thusly been added to schools' mailing lists by way of lobbying, that's something we decided not to do from the jump.

There typically are a handful of changes every offseason to the voting panel. We value voters who vote in a timely manner, who have experience in more than one region of the country, people who have a certain amount of time in Division III. Sometimes there are in-season changes, if someone asks to drop or proves unreliable.

The panel has traditionally been made up of 25 people, three per region with (formerly me, now Dave) as the "national" perspective 25th voter. Because of the size of the Northeast and the relatively small size of the East Region, sometimes there are four NE voters and two from the E. However, this prescribed distribution nationwide is done exactly to attempt to flatten out any regional biases.

Hope that helps. I think we even have one person who has voted on every poll from the jump.

[magicman]

The panel has traditionally been made up of 25 people, three per region with (formerly me, now Dave) as the "national" perspective 25th voter. Because of the size of the Northeast and the relatively small size of the East Region, sometimes there are four NE voters and two from the E. However, this prescribed distribution nationwide is done exactly to attempt to flatten out any regional biases.

Hope that helps. I think we even have one person who has voted on every poll from the jump.

Pat,
Why is the East Region the one region that sometimes only has 2 voters? Doesn't that create less of a chance for an East Region team to be receiving votes? If you are going to borrow a voter to give to the Northeast Region I would think that the smallest region would be the one you took the voter from. The East has 47 teams, the West has 48 teams and the Atlantic has 49 teams. Not much of a difference between those regions. The Middle Atlantic Region only has 38 teams which is at least a full conference shy of all the other regions. I'm wondering why they always have 3 voters (and really 4, since Dave is located in that region as well). I know Dave is your "National perspective" 25th voter but he could also be the 3rd voter for that region when you give the Northeast 4 voters. I just think the East is getting shortchanged, and of course, you know I'm going to defend my region.    

[Ubuntu]

Wondering..

In D1 there are generally pre-season polls, does the NESCAC have such a thing?

I look at pre-season polls a little differently,

Accepting they are educated guesses, it's more of an impression of the state of  a program.    Teams can always play well in March, get hot, get lucky etc.  Teams can't luck or get hot there way into a ranking.  It's earned over a period of time, thus having more value than some might see.

If one were to rank the preseason NESCAC teams you would be looking at who's new, who graduated, and how strong is the program.  I would call it opinion more than guesswork.

Any takers on preseason NESCAC rankings?  I don't really know the NESCAC well enough to try yet (but I am enjoying the "rants and musings" of this blog!)

[middhoops]

Esteemed magicman, does all this really mean anything?  Or do we all wait for the post season to find out who rates where?
Now I await a long, comprehensive answer that will, no doubt, sail far over my head.

(and seeya next month when the local contingent plans to treat you well.)

[nescac1]

Regarding Nescac picks, hard to know until rosters are released — no one has done so yet I believe.  Need to see who has left programs, notable additions, etc.  I think roughly, my best guess is that  Williams, Midd, Tufts are rightly the early favorites, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Trinity and Wesleyan in the middle (with Trinity the weakest of that group in returning talent), Bates, Colby and Conn towards the rear, with Amherst a big mystery that could really be anywhere in the top eight. 

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The panel has traditionally been made up of 25 people, three per region with (formerly me, now Dave) as the "national" perspective 25th voter. Because of the size of the Northeast and the relatively small size of the East Region, sometimes there are four NE voters and two from the E. However, this prescribed distribution nationwide is done exactly to attempt to flatten out any regional biases.

Hope that helps. I think we even have one person who has voted on every poll from the jump.

Pat,
Why is the East Region the one region that sometimes only has 2 voters? Doesn't that create less of a chance for an East Region team to be receiving votes? If you are going to borrow a voter to give to the Northeast Region I would think that the smallest region would be the one you took the voter from. The East has 47 teams, the West has 48 teams and the Atlantic has 49 teams. Not much of a difference between those regions. The Middle Atlantic Region only has 38 teams which is at least a full conference shy of all the other regions. I'm wondering why they always have 3 voters (and really 4, since Dave is located in that region as well). I know Dave is your "National perspective" 25th voter but he could also be the 3rd voter for that region when you give the Northeast 4 voters. I just think the East is getting shortchanged, and of course, you know I'm going to defend my region.

I think Pat was referring to the entire history of the poll, not necessarily current make-up.  I'm not sure who all the voters are right now, but I do know before the realignment the East was smaller and I imagine it was during this period where, perhaps, the NE got an extra vote.

I'm one of the MA Region voters and, at least for me, knowing the local teams a little more intimately usually works against them on my ballot, rather than for them.  The more games you see, the more weaknesses you find.

[magicman]

Esteemed magicman, does all this really mean anything?  Or do we all wait for the post season to find out who rates where?
Now I await a long, comprehensive answer that will, no doubt, sail far over my head.

(and seeya next month when the local contingent plans to treat you well.)

middhoops,

All it means is the East Region gets less imput into the rankings if they just have 2 voters and all the other regions have 3. Does it matter?...Only if you'd like to see your program get some acknowledgement, when they are deserving. It seems to me that an inequity like this would result in a bias against the East Region since they have 1 less voter that may give a team in their region a vote, while a Northeast Region team has twice as many voters in their region than the East does, (4 to 2) to give a team in their region a boost up the ladder.  That may be the difference between being ranked or being an also ran. Granted, it all comes out in the wash at the end of the season, when the playoffs roll around, but it's nice to get recognition for your school in the 15 weeks leading up to that.

Plattsburgh State vs Middlebury comes early this year. I was within a few miles of you on Friday night as I drove over to Castleton State with one of the assistant coaches to take in a scrimmage between Plattsburgh and the Spartans.

Will you be traveling over to the Plattsburgh-Skidmore game in Saratoga on Monday 11-20? You can scout both teams once again. nescac1 thinks Skidmore and Keene State will be two of Middlebury's toughest non-conference games but I wouldn't overlook Plattsburgh State. The Cardinals return their top 9 scorers from last year and will open the season against Keene State on Nov.18th followed by the Skidmore game 2 days later. I think there's a good chance we win both of those games. We're 2-1 against Skidmore the past 3 years and 3-0 against Keene State in the past 5 years. We will be missing our best player for the first semester, so we may come up a bit short but I like the makeup of our team even without him.   

[Pat Coleman]

Magicman,

The East Region has grown (47 teams), but at one point it had fewer than 40 teams while the Northeast had 80. East teams had fewer opportunities to receive votes because there were fewer East teams than in any other region.

I am happily unaware of the current makeup of the Top 25 panel. It's a perk of the semi-retirement.

[magicman]

Magicman,

The East Region has grown (47 teams), but at one point it had fewer than 40 teams while the Northeast had 80. East teams had fewer opportunities to receive votes because there were fewer East teams than in any other region.

I am happily unaware of the current makeup of the Top 25 panel. It's a perk of the semi-retirement.

Thanks for the reply Pat. So, I think you're saying that the East now has 3 voters all the time? Oops you're unaware of the makeup of the panel. Dave or Gordon will need to answer that question I guess.

[Pat Coleman]

And it's their prerogative not to.

I know when I was compiling the panel it was hard to find a third, reliable, knowledgeable voter in that region. We have lots of schools there that don't participate in terms of providing scores or info. It made it hard for me to reward them with a Top 25 ballot when I couldn't even get the basic cooperation.

[magicman]

And it's their prerogative not to.

I know when I was compiling the panel it was hard to find a third, reliable, knowledgeable voter in that region. We have lots of schools there that don't participate in terms of providing scores or info. It made it hard for me to reward them with a Top 25 ballot when I couldn't even get the basic cooperation.

All you had to do was ask me! I'm reliable, knowledgeable and retired.   And I would have gotten those schools to participate more.

[amh63]

Magicman...Retired!!!....so young and alert too.