Yearly Archives: 2008

Triple Take: Second-round predictions

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In Week 13, the round of 16 is often where we separate the proverbial men from the boys; where we find out who’s OK with taking one playoff win back to campus and who has a real shot at getting to Salem.

Of course, these are not exactly dog matchups with obvious favorites and likely losers. Some powerful teams very capable of advancing are going to bow out on Saturday because they’re matched up against similarly powerful teams. Makes the job of predicting final scores pretty difficult.

But then again, even “experts” don’t expect to call every game correctly, and what fun would the playoffs be if we could? The surprises are as interesting to us as they are to you, and the ones we can’t call (but try to anyway) are what makes us appreciate the sort-it-out-on-the-field system we have.

Though it isn’t hard to keep track, as Ryan Tipps went 12-4 last week with correct picks on three of the four No. 7 seeds that advanced, while Pat Coleman went 11-5 and Keith McMillan 10-6, these picks are really for your gratification, not ours. We’re setting the expectation, but teams do the unexpected every week, and frankly, we expect that too.

If you want to taunt us next week for a score we fail to accurately predict, knock yourself out. Hindsight, of course, is 20-20. If you really want to impress, use the comments section below to guess the scores of this week’s games yourselves.

Our expectations, compiled without consulting each other, from the westernmost bracket east:

No. 5 UW-WHITEWATER at No. 1 WILLAMETTE
Keith: Whitewater, 28-21
Ryan: Whitewater, 27-24
Pat: Willamette, 38-34

No. 7 WARTBURG at No. 3 MONMOUTH
Keith: Wartburg, 23-21
Ryan: Wartburg, 21-14
Pat: Wartburg, 28-25

No. 5 WASHINGTON & JEFFERSON at No. 1 MILLSAPS
Keith: Millsaps, 41-31
Ryan: Millsaps, 38-21
Pat: Millsaps, 45-24

No. 7 WESLEY at No. 2 MARY HARDIN-BAYLOR
Keith: Wesley, 21-20
Ryan: Wesley, 34-24
Pat: UMHB, 35-31

No. 5 FRANKLIN at No. 1 NORTH CENTRAL
Keith: North Central, 35-34
Ryan: North Central, 45-38
Pat: North Central, 51-45

No. 7 WHEATON at No. 6 WABASH
Keith: Wheaton, 17-13
Ryan: Wheaton, 31-27
Pat: Wheaton, 28-24

No. 4 HOBART at No. 1 MOUNT UNION
Keith: Mount Union, 54-23
Ryan: Mount Union, 52-10
Pat: Mount Union, 42-10

No. 7 CURRY at No. 3 CORTLAND STATE
Keith: Cortland State, 24-14
Ryan: Cortland State, 31-17
Pat: Curry, 31-27

As with last week, if anyone wants to put together a composite expectation or chart the unanimous vs. split picks, feel free.

ATN Podcast: Shootouts, upsets

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A lot of things went according to plan this week. Triple Take was a more accurate predictor of who would win than the NCAA’s actual seedings were.

And yes, all four No. 7 seeds advanced.

Plus, Keith McMillan was at the bracket’s biggest shootout, between Franklin and Otterbein. But we run through the games in all four brackets plus take a first look ahead at the second round in this week’s Around the Nation Podcast.

You can load the podcast page in iTunes or can also get this and any of our future Around the Nation podcasts automatically by subscribing to this RSS feed: http://www.d3football.com/dailydose/?feed=podcast

Or you can click the play button below to listen.

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Game day from the madness

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I’m in Naperville, Ill.; Keith McMillan is in Westerville, Ohio; John McGraw is in Geneva, N.Y.; and Frank Rossi is in Belton, Texas. And there are photographers elsewhere and of course, your eyes are everywhere.

Twelve weeks into the Division III football season, and while us Triple Takers were fairly unanimous with our first-round predictions, there are still lingering questions.

We all think Wheaton will win, but here’s what Trine has on its side. Trine has a 10-game home winning streak going and hasn’t lost at Shive Field since a 21-7 loss to Hope on Oct. 28, 2006. That’s another era in Trine/Tri-State football, to be sure.

We all picked Hardin-Simmons to lose to Mary Hardin-Baylor. I know I looked at the last meeting and took into account that Mary Hardin-Baylor is really banged up. But we all picked the home team to lose, and that’s a red flag. This game is too close to call, and I think our scores reflected that. That’s also why we sent a broadcast crew, since we think this is going to be a great game.

Plus, there’s the weather. It should hold scores down across the North Central and Mount Union bracket. Is it enough to prompt an upset? There aren’t many games being played on grass today, but the ball will still be affected.

We’ll update. You’ll update. It’ll be a great time. Madness on!