Great Lakes Region

[iwumichigander]

Dunno how an undefeated team in a league like the OAC wouldn't be top in the region. That's just ridiculous.

Massey ratings have the OAC the #8 conference in the country. GNAC right now is 41st. I know you're not talking about this year with Albertus Magnus, but still...huge difference in those conferences.

ET -  GNAC and Albertus M not in your Great Lakes Region - SAC used last season's lofty Albertus numbers as an example why Marietta might not be ranked #1 particularly I the final ranking

On the outside looking in - Marietta has the W's but not much else,  the SOS low, OWP below .500 and the OOWP of .530 suggests (without looking at their schedule) more opponents that had with losing records or were cupcakes

SAC is right (as usual) you want Mt. U and J Carroll to get ranked

[ettaexpress]

We'll see. You missed my point. What region the GNAC in is irrelevant at best, and argues against him at worst.

It's not Marietta's fault that no one would play them. Marietta beat Hanover handily, Wooster lost to them. Beat ECSU on a neutral court. Wesleyan lost to Denison, which Marietta has had no trouble beating even before John really got the program going.

I think last year the NCAC schools saw MC was getting too close to beating them and knew what was coming this year. I can't imagine it's a coincidence that it went from 2-4 NCAC schools on the Marietta schedule to 0 this year.

If MC is undefeated, and probably even if they have 1 loss, they'll be #1 in the region, regardless of what this board is hoping for. I could maybe see the point if someone in a better league had a comparable number of losses. But neither of those is true. The NCAC is down (rated 14th), Wittenberg is bad for the first time in the history of basketball, and Wesleyan and Wooster are struggling against the likes of Denison, Wabash, Kenyon, Hanover. Wesleyan has been a bad road team for two months (basically since beating Wooster on the road). L L L W L W, the last by a whopping 6 points over Hiram.

I'm sure with a road record they would love to not have to deal with 2,000 screaming Pioneers fans at one of the best homecourts in D-III, but right now the only people that anything to say about that is Marietta. They win, they're the top seed, case closed.

[sac]

We'll see. You missed my point. What region the GNAC in is irrelevant at best, and argues against him at worst.

It's not Marietta's fault that no one would play them. Marietta beat Hanover handily, Wooster lost to them. Beat ECSU on a neutral court. Wesleyan lost to Denison, which Marietta has had no trouble beating even before John really got the program going.

I think last year the NCAC schools saw MC was getting too close to beating them and knew what was coming this year. I can't imagine it's a coincidence that it went from 2-4 NCAC schools on the Marietta schedule to 0 this year.

Those things are irrelevant to the discussion of rankings.

If MC is undefeated, and probably even if they have 1 loss, they'll be #1 in the region, regardless of what this board is hoping for. I could maybe see the point if someone in a better league had a comparable number of losses. But neither of those is true. The NCAC is down (rated 14th), Wittenberg is bad for the first time in the history of basketball, and Wesleyan and Wooster are struggling against the likes of Denison, Wabash, Kenyon, Hanover. Wesleyan has been a bad road team for two months (basically since beating Wooster on the road). L L L W L W, the last by a whopping 6 points over Hiram.

I think you've misunderstood, no one is really hoping for Marietta to not be ranked #1.  A couple of us merely pointed out that while Marietta is unbeaten their criteria presented to the committee next week isn't that strong.

         Record/win pct/OWP/OOWP     
Marietta  20-0/1.000/.473/.530
Case W  12-3/.800/.569/.513
OWU       16-4/.800/.563/.533
 
Their opponents win pct is really, really low and the difference of .090 between themselves and Case/OWU is enormous.  Based on past experience with ranking dynamics I don't think its a slam dunk Marietta will be ranked #1, neither would I be surprised if they are ranked #1.

If you want to argue that it should be a slam dank regardless of criteria then you have a point and no argument from me, but that's not how the ranking system works anymore and hasn't for a long time now.

If MC is undefeated, and probably even if they have 1 loss, they'll be #1 in the region, regardless of what this board is hoping for. I could maybe see the point if someone in a better league had a comparable number of losses. But neither of those is true. The NCAC is down (rated 14th), Wittenberg is bad for the first time in the history of basketball, and Wesleyan and Wooster are struggling against the likes of Denison, Wabash, Kenyon, Hanover. Wesleyan has been a bad road team for two months (basically since beating Wooster on the road). L L L W L W, the last by a whopping 6 points over Hiram.

Being a bad road team is not a criteria.

Marietta had its own close calls to sub-par conference competition.
71-69 at Wilmington(9-10)
83-77 at Heidelberg(8-12)

[sac]

Another recent example of a team being ranked low with a great record/poor SOS was Calvin in 2013.

16-1 with OWP of .435 was ranked #6 by the regional committee in the first rankings of that season.  Super extreme example but an example.

[KnightSlappy]

If MC is undefeated, and probably even if they have 1 loss, they'll be #1 in the region, regardless of what this board is hoping for. I could maybe see the point if someone in a better league had a comparable number of losses. But neither of those is true. The NCAC is down (rated 14th), Wittenberg is bad for the first time in the history of basketball, and Wesleyan and Wooster are struggling against the likes of Denison, Wabash, Kenyon, Hanover. Wesleyan has been a bad road team for two months (basically since beating Wooster on the road). L L L W L W, the last by a whopping 6 points over Hiram.

I think you've misunderstood, no one is really hoping for Marietta to not be ranked #1.  A couple of us merely pointed out that while Marietta is unbeaten their criteria presented to the committee next week isn't that strong.

         Record/win pct/OWP/OOWP     
Marietta  20-0/1.000/.473/.530
Case W  12-3/.800/.569/.513
OWU       16-4/.800/.563/.533
 
Their opponents win pct is really, really low and the difference of .090 between themselves and Case/OWU is enormous.  Based on past experience with ranking dynamics I don't think its a slam dunk Marietta will be ranked #1, neither would I be surprised if they are ranked #1.

If you want to argue that it should be a slam dank regardless of criteria then you have a point and no argument from me, but that's not how the ranking system works anymore and hasn't for a long time now.

Exactly. They certainly look like the most likely team to be ranked #1 in the GL come next week. The point was simply that it's not as much of a no-brainer as the winning percentages make it look.

It's always hard to know how a committee will deal with a perfect record against a below average SOS (I have it as ~.488 after the Wilmington game). All I know is the discussion will be more than "well, they're undefeated so put them on top". The RAC will consider all the criteria, and that makes the race tighter than it might look on the surface.

I did initially fail to consider Marietta's win over Eastern Connecticut as being another quality RvRRO. They'll be something like 4-0 in that category which will look quite good (I was initially thinking more like 2-0). As it stands I think they will be #1. But we have a weekend of basketball in between then and now, and sometimes sports happen.

[sac]

I think their RRO's will make the difference for Marietta.  It will be interesting how they're treated vs PSU-Behrend who only have one RRO, a loss vs William Patterson.


Marietta should also get a decent bump in their OWP when they complete their road games with 15-5 Mt. Union and 14-5 John Carroll next week(after the first ranking).  We may be looking at Marietta's OWP at its low point right now.

Case is going to have probably 6 RRO's (all from UAA) for the first ranking and probably finish with 8.  Two wins for Case this weekend would make them 4-2 in RRO games, stronger OWP than Marietta......might be interesting.

[David Collinge]

If MC is undefeated, and probably even if they have 1 loss, they'll be #1 in the region, regardless of what this board is hoping for. I could maybe see the point if someone in a better league had a comparable number of losses. But neither of those is true. The NCAC is down (rated 14th), Wittenberg is bad for the first time in the history of basketball, and Wesleyan and Wooster are struggling against the likes of Denison, Wabash, Kenyon, Hanover.

Another criterion that is not considered by the RAC when ranking is relative strength of a team's conference, especially as evaluated by Massey. And if they did, it would perhaps not bode well for the OAC, which put up a less-than-enviable 1-9 record against the "down" NCAC this season. It was not that long ago when the NCAC collectively would have jumped for joy to have a .500 record against the OAC; this year, only Capital's mid-November thrashing of stumbling Wittenberg saved the OAC from the schneid.

I grant you, apart from Wooster's narrow victory over Mt. Union, most of these games were the dregs vs. the dregs (Otterbein and Muskingum accounted for 5 of the 9 losses), so it is hazardous to infer anything about relative conference strength from these results, and it therefore should be a relief to consider that they will not work against Marietta in the rankings.

[wally_wabash]

It's not Marietta's fault that no one would play them. Marietta beat Hanover handily, Wooster lost to them. Beat ECSU on a neutral court. Wesleyan lost to Denison, which Marietta has had no trouble beating even before John really got the program going.

I think last year the NCAC schools saw MC was getting too close to beating them and knew what was coming this year. I can't imagine it's a coincidence that it went from 2-4 NCAC schools on the Marietta schedule to 0 this year.

Whoa...really dangerous to play the comparative score game in basketball.  Just way too many games for somebody to not mix in a bad game somewhere along the line.  Marietta might well be better than Wooster (maybe we'll find out in a few weeks), but Hanover doesn't have anything to do with it. 

And I think the idea that teams are ducking Marietta is pretty far fetched.  This isn't football with a small sample size and next to zero tolerance for a single loss.  It's probably a lot more coincidence than you realize that Marietta didn't get NCAC teams on their schedule this year.  Last year the NCAC went from 16 league games to 18 league games which leaves two fewer opportunities to work a game against Marietta in.   Factor in one early season tournament plus a holiday tournament and all of a sudden several of the NCAC's teams only have three open opportunities for some kind of December midweek contest with Marietta...and with a jillion other schools in and around Ohio to play, it's easy to see how Marietta missed the NCAC this year. 

[smedindy]

Hanover's not in the NCAC, mind you. Some of the NCAC has really improved, too (Wabash, Allegheny, Oberlin even). Witt and DPU are thudding though.

As for the conspiracy theory regarding NCAC not playing Marietta...it's not like they had standing series with them each and every year. Some years they played Kenyon, Denison or OWU, some years not. They didn't play an NCAC in 2007-08, and played just Denison in 2009-10. As always it takes two to schedule and you have to find common dates. Going a full-round robin in the NCAC has taken two non-conference games away, too.

[Pat Coleman]

If Marietta wants games, they are welcome to come to the Hoopsville Classic in Baltimore in November or the D3hoops.com Classic in Las Vegas between Christmas and New Year's. The Hoopsville Classic is by invite-only, but Marietta more than meets the criteria that Dave McHugh and the tournament organizers set for participants, so I don't see it being a problem.

[ettaexpress]

Wow certainly livened *that* discussion up! Lot to catch up on...

Hey give them a call. Baltimore's not a long trip from Marietta, really -- closer than Calvin or Hope, I would think. I can't speak for John but from the Hoopville's perspective there's no harm in asking.

They might go back to the Miami tournament over Christmas, though. I have no inside info at all on this or really anything involving the program, but just with the Garcia connection it seems like something they might want to do, and it seemed like they got a pretty good group of fans that made the trip.

The NCAC adding games really just supports the idea that the NCAC schools consciously decided not to schedule Marietta. I think John has played them every year he's been the coach, and some years played both all of Wooster, Wesleyan and Wittenberg, I think. Or two of the three. Until this year. Doesn't seem likely that it was his choice, given that and considering it's not like he's gotten steamrolled by them.

I know Hanover's not in the NCAC, but it's a common opponent between MC and Wooster and a differentiator since they didn't both win . Denison actually went to Marietta but didn't play Marietta, but they certainly didn't look as good against St. Vincent as Marietta did.

Of course you're seeing MC's schedule at its low point because they haven't played at JCU or at Mount yet. Not sure how it took so long to figure that out. I thought you all were just talking about being ranked at the end of this week -- which even that isn't going to happen unless MC loses to Wilmington Saturday. I bet Case would vouch for Wilmington being a credible opponent despite their record.

As far as being a bad road team not being a criteria, I would certainly think that when there's one team that can't seem to win on the road even against mediocre teams vs. one team that doesn't lose anywhere against anyone, that who is better would be obvious.

So how do you separate Case and OWU? They're both 1-1 against common opponents. I think Case makes the better well, case, against Marietta but if they aren't judged to be better than OWU then they're not better than an undefeated Marietta.

I think even suggesting that an undefeated team wouldn't be the top ranked in this region shows a certain level of hope for that to end up being the case, because it's quite ridiculous and I'm glad some further reflection, research and discussion seems to have brought that out (like forgetting to figure in ECSU, which is pretty significant).

[ettaexpress]

LOL someone dinged my karma for this exchange?

Gotta be kidding me, grow a pair whoever you are.

[wally_wabash]

The NCAC adding games really just supports the idea that the NCAC schools consciously decided not to schedule Marietta.

Is this serious?  Yes or no: You think the NCAC went from 16 to 18 league games because that was the easiest way to duck Marietta?   

[ettaexpress]

The NCAC adding games really just supports the idea that the NCAC schools consciously decided not to schedule Marietta.

Is this serious?  Yes or no: You think the NCAC went from 16 to 18 league games because that was the easiest way to duck Marietta?

I would ask the same question about the way you took this: are you serious?

Obviously NCAC schools had to shuffle their non-conference scheduling from previous years. So they had to make some decisions. It was *them* making the decisions, to be clear. And apparently one of them was to not play Marietta. You can make whatever guesses you want as to why they did it, but they all made the same decision the same year.

Maybe I'm in the wrong place if people are going to get upset about someone criticizing flawed analyses (again, not counting ECSU = FAIL!) and then jump to completely terrible conclusions like this.

Y'all go on with your bad selves, think what you want. Sure, Marietta's gonna be the 3 seed with an undefeated record because decimals. Whatever. I'm out.

[wally_wabash]

I'll bet a dollar that Marietta had zero influence on the NCAC's decision to play a full double round robin.