Mid-Atlantic Region 2016

[rudy]

Did I read that right?  Messiah got no votes at all?

Still early in the season. I imagine if they beat Gettysburg at Gettysburg that would be considered a "quality" win. So far they have not played a top 25 team. Gettysburg not ranked either but they probably are considered the best team Messiah will have played so far. Roanoke looked to be the best team they played so far. Lynchburg just packed it in...something like 20 shots to 3.   They need a couple quality wins to get attention I think. Etown game will be big in couple weeks. Need to get by Gettysburg on their home field first though which will not be do easy.

[PaulNewman]

The NSCAA poll doesn't come to your results in a thoughtful, methodical or logical way that your post suggests.  Next week the poll may be just as far off as this week with Messiah magically at #4 (and it won't have much to do with Gettysburg).  As another example, they actually moved F&M up 5 spots from #12 to #7....AFTER two blemishes.  I think they have Carnegie Mellon at #6, based on who knows what.  It's nice for schools to post on their websites, which they all seem to do.

[rudy]

The NSCAA poll doesn't come to your results in a thoughtful, methodical or logical way that your post suggests.  Next week the poll may be just as far off as this week with Messiah magically at #4 (and it won't have much to do with Gettysburg).  As another example, they actually moved F&M up 5 spots from #12 to #7....AFTER two blemishes.  I think they have Carnegie Mellon at #6, based on who knows what.  It's nice for schools to post on their websites, which they all seem to do.

Have to agree with the F&M move.  Makes no sense.  It seems that they do not count ties as flaws...even to bad teams.  Perhaps sometimes a team packs it in but the team F&M tied just lost the night before 5-1 to Messiah so they do not appear to be a team that packs it in.   Certainly they should drop some spots.   

[Mid-Atlantic Fan]

We had this discussion last year, but the NSCAA top 25 poll usually directly reflects the regional rankings...so F&M being #1 in the Mid-Atlantic will be the top team in the poll from that region somewhere in the top 8 (because of the 8 regions). So slots 1-8 are typically the #1 teams from each region. Then slots 9-16 are usually #2 from each region and so on and so forth. So Messiah did not receive votes being 5th in the region as to where Haverford was 4th and only got 2 votes. Not saying Messiah couldn't have gotten votes even as #5, but that's why for this first poll.

[Shooter McGavin]

Shooter's Predictions

Rowan@Hood---------------Rowan 6  Hood 1
F&M@Etown-----------------F&M 1  Etown 1
Fords@Stevens-------------Fords 3  Stevens 2  2OT
Messiah@Getty--------------Messiah 1  Getty 2 OT
St. Mary's@Catholic---------St. Mary's 0  Catholic 0
JHU@York-------------------JHU 1  York 0  OT
Susquehanna@Leb Val------Susquehanna 2   Leb Val 1
Arcadia@Ramapo------------Arcadia 2  Ramapo 1
Goucher@Dickinson---------Goucher 1  Dickinson 1
Lycoming@Juniata----------Lycoming 4  Juniata 0
Drew@Muhlenberg----------Drew 0  Muhles 1  2OT
Eastern@Swarthmore-------Eastern 0  Swat 2
Camden@Cabrini------------RUC 3  Cabrini 1
Stockton@Alvernia----------Stockton 1  Alvernia 1

Just for Fun: Battle of Ohio
Ohio Northern@Ohio Wesleyan-----ONU 3  OWU 4  2OT

[lastguyoffthebench]

Rowan 4, Hood 0
F&M 1, Etown 2
Fords 2, Stevens 0
Messiah 3, Gettysburg 0
St. Mary's 3, Catholic 2
York 2, JHU 1
LVC 2, Susqu 1
Arcadia 1, Ramapo 1
Goucher 0, Dickinson 3
Lycoming 7, Juniata 0
Drew 2, Mules 0
Eastern 1, Swat 0
Camden 2, Cabrini 1
Stockton 1, Alvernia 2

ONU 1, OWU 4

[rudy]

We had this discussion last year, but the NSCAA top 25 poll usually directly reflects the regional rankings...so F&M being #1 in the Mid-Atlantic will be the top team in the poll from that region somewhere in the top 8 (because of the 8 regions). So slots 1-8 are typically the #1 teams from each region. Then slots 9-16 are usually #2 from each region and so on and so forth. So Messiah did not receive votes being 5th in the region as to where Haverford was 4th and only got 2 votes. Not saying Messiah couldn't have gotten votes even as #5, but that's why for this first poll.

Where do you see regional rankings? If I select regional on the  NCAA site it still has 2015 rankings

[Mid-Atlantic Fan]

We had this discussion last year, but the NSCAA top 25 poll usually directly reflects the regional rankings...so F&M being #1 in the Mid-Atlantic will be the top team in the poll from that region somewhere in the top 8 (because of the 8 regions). So slots 1-8 are typically the #1 teams from each region. Then slots 9-16 are usually #2 from each region and so on and so forth. So Messiah did not receive votes being 5th in the region as to where Haverford was 4th and only got 2 votes. Not saying Messiah couldn't have gotten votes even as #5, but that's why for this first poll.

Where do you see regional rankings? If I select regional on the  NCAA site it still has 2015 rankings

http://www.nscaa.com/web/Rankings/College_Rankings/NCAA_DIII_MEN/web/rankings/ncaa/diii_men.aspx

Click on Mid-Atlantic under "Week 1 Regional Polls"

[Flying Weasel]

The NSCAA poll doesn't come to your results in a thoughtful, methodical or logical way that your post suggests.  Next week the poll may be just as far off as this week with Messiah magically at #4 (and it won't have much to do with Gettysburg).  As another example, they actually moved F&M up 5 spots from #12 to #7....AFTER two blemishes.  I think they have Carnegie Mellon at #6, based on who knows what.  It's nice for schools to post on their websites, which they all seem to do.

In the case of the regional poll, the previous ranking refers to the final 2015 regular season rankings*, because there were no rankings last week and the preseason rankings are only national.  Thus, the movement of teams in the regional ranking is based on the whole season to date, not just last week's results.
 
In the case of the national poll, the previous ranking refers to the preseason poll because there were no rankings last week.  That is, the previous ranking isn't based on any results in 2016, rather largely on tournament finish in 2015.  Ranking in the national poll, as we know, are tied into the regional polls and this week this regional rankings, as I just mentioned, are based on the whole season to date, not just last week's results. 

So . . ., you can't really compare the current to the previous this week yet and you can't equate the movements you are observing to just last weeks results.

* you can see those rankings in this post from last season as the NSCAA site doesn't have an archive at the moment

[PaulNewman]

 
In the case of the national poll, the previous ranking refers to the preseason poll because there were no rankings last week.  That is, the previous ranking isn't based on any results in 2016, rather largely on tournament finish in 2015.  Ranking in the national poll, as we know, are tied into the regional polls and this week this regional rankings, as I just mentioned, are based on the whole season to date, not just last week's results. 

So . . ., you can't really compare the current to the previous this week yet and you can't equate the movements you are observing to just last weeks results.

* you can see those rankings in this post from last season as the NSCAA site doesn't have an archive at the moment

You're providing the explanation, which may help some new folks understand how the NSCAA poll works, but in so doing I think you expose the lack of rationality. Regardless of how the preseason ranking is derived, blemishes shouldn't move you UP, unless they were against higher ranked teams, and the requirements vis-a-vis the regional rankings don't in my mind constitute a worthy excuse. Regardless, we will see moves that defy intuitive explanation throughout the season and not just at this odd beginning with what amount to rather arbitrary starting points.

[Flying Weasel]

Well, F&M did have 3 wins against those two ties since the pre-season rankings came out.  So even if you choose to consider the pre-season ranking as the starting point or "previous" (I wouldn't do that as it's based off 2015 tournament finish), their movement up would be based on 3 wins despite the two ties.  You are writing as if the two ties moved them up and the 3 wins didn't even factor in.  But they did.  Their record changed from 0-0-0 to 3-0-2.  There was no intermediate ranking (when they would have been 2-0-0).   (Now I agree that F&M is ranked too high given those ties and who they came against, but just want to point out that their wins, including in the first week, factored in.)

However, I personally do not consider the pre-season poll the starting point or "previous" and even the NSCAA doesn't really consider that the starting point even if they misleadingly filled out the "Prev." column when leaving it blank would have been more appropriate.  There is no pre-season regional ranking, so there is no starting point (or previous) for this week's regional rankings.  Thus, being that the national rankings are based off the regional rankings, there is no true starting point (or previous) for this week's national rankings.  Let's use your example of F&M.  There was no regional ranking before the season started when F&M was 0-0-0.  They was no regional ranking after week 1 when they F&M was 2-0-0.  This is the first regional rankings of the year.  This week's ranking is the starting point.  F&M's regional ranking is based on their record going from 0-0-0 to 3-0-2 overall record compared to the other Mid-Atlantic teams overall records going from 0-0-0 to X-X-X.  F&M did not move up after going 1-0-2 last week.  There was no starting point to move up from.

Now, I do agree that the NSCAA does some irrational things.  That we can agree on.
(a) They publish a pre-season poll that basically just reflects the previous season's tournament finish and repeats their final ranking of the previous season.  Not much sense in that as it completely ignores all factors that contribute to whether a team can be expected to do better, the same, or worse than the previous season.  Skip doing a pre-season ranking or do it right and base it on graduation/retention, especially starters and key subs; experience/class distribution (e.g. senior and junior-heavy); program history beyond last year's tournament; trajectory of the program; coaching change or coach reaching his 4th year in charge with all his own players; recruiting class (maybe the toughest to factor in); etc.
(b) They typically put all the regional #1's in spots 1 thru 8 in the national ranking, regional #2's in spots 9 thru 16, and so forth.  No ration behind that.
(c) They list the final regular season regional ranking as the "previous" ranking for the first new regional rankings of the season.  Leave it blank; that is what would make sense.

[PaulNewman]

FW, agree entirely with you last paragraph.

As for the rest, the fact that you nor I or hardly anyone else might consider the first poll the starting point is beside the point.  It is the starting point.  It's not much more absurd than making the defending champ #1 "until otherwise indicated."  What if Amherst had lost 10 starters and Rowan had picked up 6 D1 All-American transfers?  That "tradition" only works because we all expected Amherst to be very good again, just as we expected Tufts to be very good again last year.  Look at the websites of teams that lost to teams ranked in the top 10 in the Preseason poll. They all cite a great effort against #7 ranked so and so or took #2 so and so to the wire.  Then in what you consider the first real poll teams are considered to have "dropped out" and a team like W&L is noted have have cracked the top 25 from outside the poll.  And if the 1st poll isn't for last year and isn't for this year, what is it exactly?  Which of course goes to your point that they shouldn't have it unless done differently or more like preseason polls are done for D1 football and bball.

As for F&M, I'm obviously just using that example.  I know they are a good team.  That said, I am considering the 3 wins in addition to the draws.  But I imagine that there are other just as highly valued teams that had all wins and no draws.  Whether based on two weeks of work or one, two draws shouldn't elevate you 5 spots UNLESS the results of other teams warrant that and/or F&M's draws were would we would term phenomenal draws.

[rudy]

Messiah 2 Gettysburg 2

Messiah was up 1-0 with under 10 minutes to go then Gettysburg scored on a free kick (should not have  been called IMHO) and then scored again a couple minutes later.  Messiah did well to pull back even with 5 minutes to go but neither team could score in 2 OT.  Gettysburg has some fast forwards and play the ball forward constantly..not much action through the midfield.  It works for them.  Messiah started slow but played better for second part of first half.  They started second half getting a lot of shots (something they did not do in 1st half..they possessed in first half but did not take shots) but could not convert.   

Overall even game with different styles.   Messiah now has 2 injured starters (midfielder and outside defender who got hurt in 2nd half of this game) so not sure when they will be back.
Gettysburg will be a tough game for most teams due to their speed and quick transition game.

[rudy]

F&M 2 Etown 0

Good win for F&M to keep them top of the region

[PaulNewman]

F&M 2 Etown 0

Good win for F&M to keep them top of the region

I had trouble with the video.  E'town looks like they have a great venue and nice field.  A lot of good venues in PA.