D3 Top 25 Fan Poll

[Ron Boerger]

I have IWU 13th and Wheaton 14th. They're very closely matched, and their game was quite close. Over time, I think IWU wins 52 times out of 100. Maybe. But I can definitely see why some may think Wheaton is a tick better.

Massey has Wheaton at 21st with the 42nd toughest schedule. He ranks IWU 32nd with the 62nd toughest schedule. That takes into account home / road and margin of victory (with diminishing returns, of course). The two recent nail-biters by IWU (Millikin and Carthage) along with their eight-point win over a 2-7 Alma have dinged their power ranking, whilst Wheaton is boosted by defeating Albion by a good margin.

Then again, Massey has Amherst #1, Trinity CT #5, and Williams #13.   

[smedindy]

And then again, you can just ignore those and deal with the relational aspects of the calculations! 

(I still don't know why Massey throws the NESCAC in DIII when he isolated them in his overall rankings. But I've learned to stop worrying and deal with the data as it is...)

[SUADC]

I know the NCAA doesn't use the fan poll or the d3football.com poll as input, but looking at the top 8 and geography made me think that the following playoff placements would be nice:

East:  UMU and Wesley
North:  UWW and Wabash
West:  UST and NCC
Southwest (Airlines):  UMHB and Linfield

I see it as:

East:  DVC and Salisbury
North:  UMU, NCC and Wabash
West:  UWW, UST and Linfield
South:  UMHB and Wesley

[02 Warhawk]

I know the NCAA doesn't use the fan poll or the d3football.com poll as input, but looking at the top 8 and geography made me think that the following playoff placements would be nice:

East:  UMU and Wesley
North:  UWW and Wabash
West:  UST and NCC
Southwest (Airlines):  UMHB and Linfield

I see it as:

East:  DVC and Salisbury
North:  UMU, NCC and Wabash
West:  UWW, UST and Linfield
South:  UMHB and Wesley

I would be extremely happy if that's how it ends up.

[jknezek]

Just don't see it happening. Personally I think the East imports UMU and JHU into the 1 and 4 spots, with Del Val as 2 and Salisbury as 3. Just my thought, but that would give the East a more balanced bracket. South shapes up as UMHB, Wesley, and Trinity as 1-3, North gets UWW, NCC, and Franklin, while the West gets STT, Linfield and CLU.

The above provides at least 2 undefeated teams to each region, while providing many ways to stay within travel constraints, especially by setting up North and South sub-brackets in the South (UMHB versus 8 seed fly in, Trinity home to McM, second round bus in most likely at UMHB). You could argue that you would get more travel flexibility with Wesley in place of JHU (3 seed instead of 4 in my eyes), but its marginal enough and the bracket is more balanced with Wesley in the south. It also follows what the committee has done recently setting up the top 4 in their own brackets, UWW, STT, UMU, and UMHB.

The other wrinkle I could see is the East importing UMU as 1 and TMC as 8, especially if Centre doesn't make the field isolating TMC from the South Region. That would give Del Val and Salisbury and probably the NJAC winner home games. Of course, setting up TMC as an 8 in the South would send them as the fly-in to UMHB, most likely accomplishing the same result. Personally, I think TMC had better hope that Centre gets a Pool C or they get moved to the North...

[02 Warhawk]

Just don't see it happening. Personally I think the East imports UMU and JHU into the 1 and 4 spots, with Del Val as 2 and Salisbury as 3. Just my thought, but that would give the East a more balanced bracket. South shapes up as UMHB, Wesley, and Trinity as 1-3, North gets NCC, Franklin, and Wabash, while the West gets UWW, STT and Linfield.

That's close to what I think it'll be:

East: Mount, JHU, Del Val, Salisubry
South: MHB, Wesley, Trinity
North: UWW, NCC, Wabash, Franklin
West: UST, Linfield, Cal Lutheran, Redlands (Pool C bid will get REAL interesting in L&W upset Linfield)

[ExTartanPlayer]

jknezek, I see it a little differently.  I think that Del Val might well get a #1 seed with a win over Widener (they'll look good on paper at 10-0, with two wins over regionally-ranked opponents, and a higher SOS than all three of the UMU, UWW, and St. Thomas trio).

I've posted this in a couple places, but if Del-Val gets a top seed, I think that you'll see a "Screw it, these teams all have to fly anyway" bracket built around UMHB and Linfield with the Way South and West Coast teams all lumped together, especially if Centre/Redlands both get a Pool C bid.  That would still allow the committee to separate the Purple Powers and their potential #2 seeds look pretty good in UST and Wabash.

If that's the case, I think you get:

"East" - Del Val, Johns Hopkins, Salisbury, Wesley (assuming that they beat Huntingdon)
"North" - UWW, UST, St. Scholastica, Dubuque, and so forth...
"Midwest" - UMU, Wabash, NCC, Franklin, Illinois Wesleyan, and so forth...
"South/WestCoast" - UMHB, Linfield, Trinity, Redlands, Cal Lutheran, and so forth...

Many teams could easily swing between the UMU and UWW brackets above.  The challenge would be filling out the South/West bracket, and I think that's pretty easy to do if Redlands and Centre get Pool C bids.  The East, while it's not a strong overall region, will have plenty of teams in the tournament, and it's not hard to justify putting Del Val, Johns Hopkins, Salisbury, and Wesley in that region as "top dogs" and then filling it out with Kean/Montclair, Hobart/Union, Western New England, and Norwich.

If Widener beats Del-Val, of course, this is all blown to heck because there's no "East" team that possibly merits a #1 seed.

[jknezek]

Anything is possible, but remember the "new" criteria. If you can't determine between undefeateds, you can use past playoff performance. Which undefeated out of UMU, UWW, UMHB and UST are you going to look at past playoff performance and say, hmm, I think Del Val's is better??? UST has been to the quarters two years running while Del Val went to the quarters in 04 and 05. That new criteria gives the committee an easy out.

I also don't buy the SouthWest bracket. As long as McM gets a Pool C, you have 3 teams to fill a Texas subdivision and you send a sacrificial lamb to UMHB. That makes for 1 flight in 2 rounds. I believe I figured something similar out for the West coast pitting two NW teams and two SW teams together and getting 1 flight in round 2. While it won't follow seedings per se, that's nothing new. A few years ago the West had a 1-2 matchup in round 1 just for flight purposes.  So out of these 2 sub brackets you end up with 1 Texas team in Rd 3 and one West/West team in Rd 3. Essentially you have 2 flights in 2 rounds. No bean counter is going to argue too much about that since it is pretty typical and you can't do better doing a Southwest bracket where you still have a flight in Rd 1 (UMHB opponent) and at least 1 flight in Rd 2 (SW to NW). Why mess with it all, put that many top teams in 1 bracket, just to get the same bean counter result?

[Ralph Turner]

jknezek, I see it a little differently.  I think that Del Val might well get a #1 seed with a win over Widener (they'll look good on paper at 10-0, with two wins over regionally-ranked opponents, and a higher SOS than all three of the UMU, UWW, and St. Thomas trio).

I've posted this in a couple places, but if Del-Val gets a top seed, I think that you'll see a "Screw it, these teams all have to fly anyway" bracket built around UMHB and Linfield with the Way South and West Coast teams all lumped together, especially if Centre/Redlands both get a Pool C bid. That would still allow the committee to separate the Purple Powers and their potential #2 seeds look pretty good in UST and Wabash.

If that's the case, I think you get:

"East" - Del Val, Johns Hopkins, Salisbury, Wesley (assuming that they beat Huntingdon)
"North" - UWW, UST, St. Scholastica, Dubuque, and so forth...
"Midwest" - UMU, Wabash, NCC, Franklin, Illinois Wesleyan, and so forth...
"South/WestCoast" - UMHB, Linfield, Trinity, Redlands, Cal Lutheran, and so forth...McMurry and 2 "fly-ins"

Many teams could easily swing between the UMU and UWW brackets above.  The challenge would be filling out the South/West bracket, and I think that's pretty easy to do if Redlands and Centre get Pool C bids.  The East, while it's not a strong overall region, will have plenty of teams in the tournament, and it's not hard to justify putting Del Val, Johns Hopkins, Salisbury, and Wesley in that region as "top dogs" and then filling it out with Kean/Montclair, Hobart/Union, Western New England, and Norwich.

If Widener beats Del-Val, of course, this is all blown to heck because there's no "East" team that possibly merits a #1 seed.

I like the idea of a UMHB Linfield bracket this season, just because the teams can be aligned that way.

[Raider 68]

After seeing the Region Ranking (2nd edition), the top seeds could be:


UWW
UMU
St. T
UMHB

No. 2's in each region, who knows for now?

[Ralph Turner]

After seeing the Region Ranking (2nd edition), the top seeds could be:


UWW
UMU
St. T
UMHB

No. 2's in each region, who knows for now?

Do you want to create a Southwest/ West Coast bracket?

I think that is where the committee starts to build the brackets.

[SUADC]

I totally like the last six post, everyone has a great point. This is what makes it so crazy this time a year.

[K-Mack]

I read all these. Safe to say no one, me included, had:

UMU, NCC, Wabash
UMHB, Linfield, Wesley
UST, DV, JHU
UWW, Salisbury, Kean

as the respective top threes.

[Ralph Turner]

I read all these. Safe to say no one, me included, had:

UMU, NCC, Wabash
UMHB, Linfield, Wesley
UST, DV, JHU
UWW, Salisbury, Kean

as the respective top threes.

Of course, no one foresaw that the committee would go with 9 inter-regional games in the first round.

I had 10 of the 12 in my Top 12. 

I had Cal Lu at 8 and Redlands at 12. Both are in the 2011 Football version of the "Bracket of Death".

I had Kean at 14 and JHU at 16.  Of the 12 in that group, I think that JHU is most vulnerable to upset in the first round.

[bleedpurple]

D3 Top 25 Fan Poll

1. Wisconsin-Whitewater  (11)        299           1 (LW)
2. Mount Union (1)                         288            2
3. St. Thomas                                 272           3
4. UMHB                                        259            4
5. Linfield                                       258            5
6. North Central                             238            6
7. Wesley                                       225           7
8. Wabash                                      206           8
9. California Lutheran                     203            9
10. Delaware Valley                       187            10
11. Salisbury                                  156            11
12. Johns Hopkins                          153            13
13. Redlands                                  144            12
14. Illinois Wesleyan                       114            17
15. Wheaton                                   113            15
16. Trinity                                       105            14
17. Kean                                        104            19
18. McMurry                                    96              18
19. Thomas More                             95             21
20. Franklin                                     88             20
21. Bethel                                        64            22
22. Dubuque                                    50            23
23. Montclair State                           44            16
24. Baldwin Wallace                         34            24
25. Wisconsin-Oshkosh                    26            unranked

Dropped Out of Top 25: Hampden-Sydney   

Also Receiving Votes:  Cortland State (23), Hobart (22), Centre (18), Monmouth (13), Wartburg (11), St. Olaf (9), Louisiana College (7), St. John Fisher (5),  St. Scholastica (2),  Amherst (1), Case Western Reserve (1)