MBB: Landmark Conference

[ronk]

standings after today's action
Catholic   5-1   11-6
Scranton   4-2   14-3
Juniata     3-3   12-5
Susquehanna   3-3   11-6
Drew   3-3   9-8
Moravian   3-4   8-9
Goucher   2-4   7-10
Merchant Marine   2-5   7-10

My projected final standings:

Catholic         10-4
Juniata           8-6
Scranton         8-6
Drew              7-7
Susque          7-7
MMA               6-8
Goucher         6-8
Moravian        4-10

[ronk]

 Tough loss for the Cards @ Scranton; they played well in jumping off to double digit lead in the 1st half; Limberiou was shooting well, and Boken had 2 fouls and sat on the bench. Ross Danzig took over with a monstrous game, missing only 1 shot, Boken made his impact in the 2nd half, and the Royals' FT shooting held off a very good 2nd half offensive performance by Fonville.
  Cards didn't let it get away as much as Royals buckled down and took it back. Royals have 3 tough road games left, although Juniata's Scholly only played opening 8 minutes today, indicating the possibility of an injury.   

[NEPAFAN]

Saratoga must be a top 25 voter, Scranton gets no respect with 6 total votes.

[saratoga]

NEPA:
Danzig still has to convince a national audience the Royals are for real.
Apparently, that has yet to happen...although, one might ask what more will it take?
However, as frustrating as it can be figuring out what goes through the heads of some voters, for the most part, these TOP 25 etc. polls are more for discussion than anything else.

Personally, I find these polls essentially worthless & often times driven by perception & past performance as opposed to objective data in real time.
Why, for instance, would a team Scranton defeated (Randolph Macon) have more votes when everything else is a wash?
Why the love for a 4 loss Virginia Wesleyan team that recently was crushed by that very same R-M squad?

The real poll that counts is the Regional Ranking & if you've taken care of business in all the right areas, your body of work should have the necessary ingredients for a favorable ranking that may pay off with some home games come tournament time.
However, until the Royal's can avoid those unexplained meltdowns which generally occur at home, the voters of both the Top 25 poll and the Regional Ranking may remain skeptical...hence the 6 votes.

Only a few weeks left to find out which Scranton team shows up.
Will it be the one that rode the blistering outside shooting to the Elite 8 two years ago or, the veteran team with that post season experience that couldn't get out of the Long Center in a first round Landmark game?

[ronk]

 The Royals are missing a good road victory in  their portfolio; Juniata on Saturday could supply that.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Not sure what Scranton has done in your mind to receive national attention. And some of your examples aren't apples to apples... you mention ODAC teams... in other words, teams who play in one of the top five conferences in the country and have out-of-conference schedules to match. Scranton has a win over RMC who is getting ten votes - ten. That is nothing. It was also the second game of the season.

Go through Scranton's schedule this year and show me a single win that deserves Top 25 attention.

[ronk]

Dave,
There are at least 7 teams in the top 25 w/o a single win over a top 25 opponent. Doesn't appear to be a requirement for inclusion.

[CCHoopster]

This is similar to the F&M fans wanting to see F&M get regional/national consideration last week (they scored 38 points at Gettysburg last night?).... You don't have to beat a top 25 team to be ranked or get votes. You need to win vs your schedule, have a strong strength of schedule and play (beat) teams non conference who a- have a strong strength of schedule and b- who's opponents do so as well. The Landmark does not offer SOS #'s like the ODAC or even MAC-Commonwealth do. Dickinson, had losses (Juniata, RMC) and I believe received no more than 16 votes where people certainly thought they were deserving of top 25 (see Stevenson before their loss at Etown and that's with a good SOS and beating multiple top 25 teams). Bottom line is Scranton has one good win vs RMC and hasn't beaten anyone else worth note for national attention in a top heavy conference who will only get 1 team in the tournament. 

[NEPAFAN]

Listen, my point is they beat Catholic on Saturday and went 2-0 for the week and gained 1 vote. I see Messiah is ranked....they play Scranton and that game is a toss up.


Saratoga is right, nothing matters but the Regional Rankings.

[CCHoopster]

Listen, my point is they beat Catholic on Saturday and went 2-0 for the week and gained 1 vote. I see Messiah is ranked....they play Scranton and that game is a toss up.


Saratoga is right, nothing matters but the Regional Rankings.

You could get that game....

[ronk]

standings after today's action at the halfway mark
Catholic    6-1   12-6
Scranton   5-2   15-3
Susque    4-3   12-6
Juniata     3-4   12-6
Drew        3-4   9-9
Moravian   3-5   8-10
MMA          3-5   8-10
Goucher   2-5   7-11


My projected final standings:

Catholic         10-4
Scranton         8-6
Susque           8-6
Drew              7-7
Juniata           7-7
MMA               6-8
Goucher         6-8
Moravian        4-10

[Pat Coleman]

Go through Scranton's schedule this year and show me a single win that deserves Top 25 attention.

There are at least 7 teams in the top 25 w/o a single win over a top 25 opponent. Doesn't appear to be a requirement for inclusion.

These are not the same thing. You don't have to have a win vs. a Top 25 team to have a win worthy of Top 25 attention.

As a voter, I generally like to see one win against a team receiving votes to balance out every bad loss. Scranton does have that, but it's a long, long time since that Randolph-Macon game.

Scranton has lost at home to Juniata and Merchant Marine. Neither of those teams have votes so Scranton having six votes seems pretty reasonable.

[NEPAFAN]

Go through Scranton's schedule this year and show me a single win that deserves Top 25 attention.

There are at least 7 teams in the top 25 w/o a single win over a top 25 opponent. Doesn't appear to be a requirement for inclusion.

These are not the same thing. You don't have to have a win vs. a Top 25 team to have a win worthy of Top 25 attention.

As a voter, I generally like to see one win against a team receiving votes to balance out every bad loss. Scranton does have that, but it's a long, long time since that Randolph-Macon game.

Scranton has lost at home to Juniata and Merchant Marine. Neither of those teams have votes so Scranton having six votes seems pretty reasonable.

The loss to Merchant Marines was a long long time ago, if we are going to start caveating wins and losses we go down a long windy road. I am not taking shots at the Poll, just expressing my surprise at the voting. No need to get defensive.

[Pat Coleman]

Just trying to explain what I look for as one of the 25 voters. In my mind that can be balanced out by avenging that loss -- home losses to unranked/unvoted-on teams, though, are puzzling.

I think you read defensiveness in there where there was none.

[ronk]

Go through Scranton's schedule this year and show me a single win that deserves Top 25 attention.

There are at least 7 teams in the top 25 w/o a single win over a top 25 opponent. Doesn't appear to be a requirement for inclusion.

These are not the same thing. You don't have to have a win vs. a Top 25 team to have a win worthy of Top 25 attention.

As a voter, I generally like to see one win against a team receiving votes to balance out every bad loss. Scranton does have that, but it's a long, long time since that Randolph-Macon game.

Scranton has lost at home to Juniata and Merchant Marine. Neither of those teams have votes so Scranton having six votes seems pretty reasonable.

We could consider 6 votes reasonable but, on the other hand, R-M was ranked 16th at the time of the victory and there are 2 wins over ORVs(at sometime this year-Catholic, Ithaca).