MBB: NESCAC

[The Historian]

I have no problem with Northeast teams in general getting any particular ranking they may earn. But the numbers in this particular instance speak volumes. This is not a referendum on a decade of Northeast basketball -- I'm pretty sure we're voting on the 2006-07 Division III basketball season through games of Dec. 31.

I agree that numbers speak volumes.  I just happen to value the numbers in the Wins and Losses columns more than any others.

[nescac hoops]

luckily, rankings in january don't matter. even more so, if the jeffs continue to win they will undoubtedly be the #1 ranked team in the eastern region, which is all that really matters as it concerns home court advantage in the NCAA's. once down in salem it is on a neutral court and national rankings only determine what jersey color you wear and whether your score is under the "home" or "visitor" side on the scoreboard in salem. thus, the ONU vs. UW steven's point is perhaps a more important arguement, as I believe they are in the same region and fighting to have home-court advantage in the NCAA's.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Historian, if you are true to your calling (as your posts have indicated), then you might want to do a little more research into d3 basketball history before you go making a statement like that last one.


I'm a New England d3 fan all the way, but our region just doesn't have the kind of competition that exists in the Midwest.  It's a fact.  Year after year the NE region teams paradoxically get ranked too high and at the same time get under-appreciated by the rest of the nation.

Amherst is a good team, but there is absolutely no good reason for anyone to think they are a shoe-in number one.  Wins and losses don't mean all that much when the competition is so different.

[walzy31]

* ONU (10-1) has wins over #6 Wittenberg and #1 Wooster.  Wooster is one of the toughest places in Division III to win a game.  ONU also defeated a good UW-La Crosse team.

*  UW-Stevens Point (10-1) has wins @ #14 Lawrence and vs #9 Augustana, in addition to wins over WIAC contenders UW-Oshkosh and UW-Whitewater.  Lawrence is one of the best teams in one of the best regions and their gym, like Wooster's, is an extremely hard place to win.

* Amherst (9-0) has a home win over "receiving votes" Brandeis, which I believe to be a good team from a good league.


So as I try to determine who is better than who, right now I feel the most comfortable with Ohio Northern, followed closely by UW-Stevens Point.  My ballot today has ONU #1, UW-SP #2, and Amherst #3.  My best guess - and it really is just a guess - is that in neutral court games, both Ohio Northern and Stevens Point would edge Amherst.

Mr. Quillman,

But your criteria for ranking teams while taking into account strength of victories (which i completely agree with), but does not take into account losses. Ohio Northern has two wins against teams ranked on D3hoops.com, but it also has a 17 point loss against Baldwin Wallace who is only receiving votes on the same poll.
UWSP has a loss to NAIA Northern Michigan.


WAR the offensive coordinator at Boise St.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Amherst doesn't play enough tough teams before conference for losses to factor in all that much.  NE Region competition just isn't that good.  Amherst can play the best eight non-conference teams and still not have as a tough a road as a bunch of contenders in the middle of the country.


We already get an easy path to the tournament and an easier time getting into the tournament, isn't it a bit greedy for the NE region to want higher rankings too?

[nescac hoops]

in fairness walzy, while ONU's loss came to a team that is "only receiving votes", amherst's ONLY impressive WIN came against a brandeis team that is "only receiving votes". that's not to say that amherst shouldn't get the #1 ranking but going undefeated in the midwest conference is tough especially against a traditionally tough in-state rival even if they are "only receiving votes".

[walzy31]

Nescac Hoops,

True point. Brandeis might be in the 20-25 slotting this poll but I hear your argument.


Tufts was preseason #12 which I thought they deserved. Once they lost, they fell off the map in the rankings. So you can't say that losses don't factor in that much.

I agree with them starting in 12th and then falling off the map. If Amherst lost to Brandeis they should drop many spots too. But they beat Brandeis, MIT and Trinity of Texas while in the #2 spot while teams ranked #1, #3, #4, #5 and #6 have all lost at least one game since the last rankings came out. People who don't put Amherst at #1  are saying that the 7th team, or a team that lost, should leap frog into the top spot? Doesn't make sense.

[David Collinge]

UWSP has a loss to NAIA Northern Michigan.

Northern Michigan is NCAA D2, not NAIA.  They beat Stevens Point by 9 at home.  They're 8-5, and lost in an exhibition to Michigan State by 11.  If there is such a thing as a "good loss," this was it for the Pointers.

[Pat Coleman]

Nescac Hoops,

True point. Brandeis might be in the 20-25 slotting this poll but I hear your argument.


Tufts was preseason #12 which I thought they deserved. Once they lost, they fell off the map in the rankings. So you can't say that losses don't factor in that much.

I agree with them starting in 12th and then falling off the map. If Amherst lost to Brandeis they should drop many spots too. But they beat Brandeis, MIT and Trinity of Texas while in the #2 spot while teams ranked #1, #3, #4, #5 and #6 have all lost at least one game since the last rankings came out. People who don't put Amherst at #1  are saying that the 7th team, or a team that lost, should leap frog into the top spot? Doesn't make sense.

Makes perfect sense if you realize that those teams have played at least three teams better than anyone on Amherst's schedule to date.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Walzy, you're criticizing the d3 poll for actually avoiding the pitfalls that the d1 football polls always fall into.  They look at the last poll and judge by results, which, I think we can all agree is a horrible way of voting.  Maybe one team is playing really well right now, or there were some other circumstances (quality of opponent, injuries, weather delays, who knows) that might come into play.

The d3 voters have always been willing to move teams around when necessary and haven't been locked to the numbers of the previous polls.  I, for one, am glad they don't simply go "the teams ahead of them lost, so let's move them up."  That method isn't good for anybody.

[The Historian]

Historian, if you are true to your calling (as your posts have indicated), then you might want to do a little more research into d3 basketball history before you go making a statement like that last one.

Well, I think I will stand by my statement.  Wins and Losses are the most important numbers in the game.  I think, in fact, that's why they play the games instead of letting us posting-dweebs decide the final outcomes.

Note, too, that I've never said that I didn't think other numbers weren't important.  I agree that strength of schedule matters.  And time and time again I've agreed that Amherst has had a less challenging schedule than other teams.  In fact, I stated quite clearly that while I think Amherst deserves to be number one, I can understand and respect the argument that they should not.

However, it seems that all the arguments against Amherst fall back to some variation of "the NE region simply doesn't offer enough decent competition to warrant a number one national ranking for its top team."  If this is the case, then what is the ceiling nationally for the best team in NE?  Hoops Fan, I'd really be interested to hear your thoughts.  Does it really take something like Williams' historic run to get that sort of respect?

[Ralph Turner]

For the sake of the Top 25 poll, the "non-in-region nature" of an Amherst vs Wheaton IL/IWU game or an Amherst vs. Wooster/ONU/WIAC game makes tremendous sense.  You get a very competitive opponent, from another part of the country, maybe another style of play, and in my most ambitious dreams, a real "D3 Game of the Week".  (I based my assessment of Amherst on my familiarity with Trinity TX in the "non-in-region" Amherst vs. Trinity TX game, and how they (Trinity) have played this year.)

I am not going to fight the regional nature of the playoffs.  (I cannot fight geographical proximity and what it does to Texas in every other sport!)  Amherst will probably sail thru the 3 rounds, to arrive at the Elite 8.  By then, we either have Cinderella or no worse than an assortment of survivors of the Top 10-15 teams in D3.

Amherst looks like the best of that part of the country.   We are just wondering if they are the best in the country!   

[mrmike88]

Stirring up trouble...

IF you go by the argument that wins and losses matter most, like The Historian...
AND IF you weigh strength of schedule like Titan Q and co. when investigating teams...

...then why should Amherst be #1?  Averett (#12 in the last poll) is undefeated, with a victory over defending champion and preseason #1 VA Wesleyan.  NYU (#23 in the last poll) is undefeated, with victories over tourney contenders Potsdam State and York (NY).

Heck, Texas-Dallas (unranked) is undefeated with a win over a D-1 school and Guilford (unranked, but playing Averett tonight) is undefeated with an exhibition win over a D-1 school.

Yes, Amherst is the highest-ranked undefeated team.  Yes, they're loaded.  No, they can't help who they've played.  But they're #2 largely based on last year's performance, reputation, and the fact that they haven't had a loss to give voters much of a justification to drop them down.  The 2006-2007 Lord Jeffs have beaten some bad teams (and one solid Brandeis squad) but I would argue that if the best undefeated team deserves the #1 ranking then there are a few other programs out there that have a case for #1.

EDIT: I should probably add that I'm just presenting an argument.  I am in no way advocating that we make Averett or NYU #1!

[David Collinge]

If Amherst lost to Brandeis they should drop many spots too. But they beat Brandeis, MIT and Trinity of Texas while in the #2 spot while teams ranked #1, #3, #4, #5 and #6 have all lost at least one game since the last rankings came out. People who don't put Amherst at #1  are saying that the 7th team, or a team that lost, should leap frog into the top spot? Doesn't make sense.

You can forget about the teams ranked #1, #3, #4 (although there were mitigating circumstances in their loss), and #6 and concentrate on #5 and #7.  The loss sustained by the #5 team was in a game that they had very little chance to win, against (and at) a reasonably good scholarship D2 team.  If you discount that loss, as I believe you should, they are otherwise unbeaten against a very tough schedule.  And while having the #7 team jump up over the #2 team in not normal by any means, what this particular #7 team has done over the holidays (wiping out #6, winning on #1's home court, and beating a good team than had just beaten #4) looks a lot better than #2's (reportedly) lackluster win over a mediocre Trinity (TX).

However, it seems that all the arguments against Amherst fall back to some variation of "the NE region simply doesn't offer enough decent competition to warrant a number one national ranking for its top team."  If this is the case, then what is the ceiling nationally for the best team in NE?  Hoops Fan, I'd really be interested to hear your thoughts.  Does it really take something like Williams' historic run to get that sort of respect?

I don't get that feeling.  There used to be a large amount of the "East/Northeast is so poor that they don't deserve high rankings" feeling in and around Posting Up, but Williams' Final Four runs pretty much killed that off.  The E/NE is still probably the weakest quadrant of the country, but Williams, Amherst, and to a lesser extent Rochester have proven that the top teams are capable of competing at the highest levels.  Everyone I talked to in Salem last year was duly impressed with the Lord Jeffs, regardless of how easy their road to Salem might have been. 

But this Amherst team is not that Amherst team.  Two key contributors have graduated, and to many it's an open question how good the '06-'07 Jeffs are without them.  That question hasn't really been answered by their performance so far, due to the relative weakness of their schedule.  Some voters are persuaded that Amherst is the #1 team, and others are not sold, but I don't believe that any of the voters are unwilling to rank Amherst #1 if they prove it on the court.  Every voter, however, has his own standard of proof.

[formerbant10]

But this Amherst team is not that Amherst team.  Two key contributors have graduated, and to many it's an open question how good the '06-'07 Jeffs are without them.  That question hasn't really been answered by their performance so far, due to the relative weakness of their schedule.  Some voters are persuaded that Amherst is the #1 team, and others are not sold, but I don't believe that any of the voters are unwilling to rank Amherst #1 if they prove it on the court.  Every voter, however, has his own standard of proof.

Agree that this Amherst team is not last year's Amherst team.  Nor was last year's team the same as the team 2 years before that.  Each year Amherst graduates one or two players that makes everybody question how good this year's team will be.  This year it's Bedford/Casnocha/Corrigan a couple years back it was Harper/Donovan/Jones.  But guess what, each year one or two players step up from their role in the previous year and help Amherst maintain its excellence. 
Those players who have been sitting on the bench, chomping at the bit, now have the opportunity to show how talented they are.  Just look at the last game with Bas(I don't want to mess up the spelling of his name) scoring over 20.  Maybe he'll take on some of the load left by graduation.
They've got plenty of weapons and have a great shot to get to Salem again. 
And I doubt Coach Hixon is really worried about whether or not the Jeffs are #1 in January.


PS.  Another big game from Russ Martin