OK, I’m stumped with Southern Maine’s loss to Salem State on Saturday, I’m trying to figure out who I should vote for as my new women’s No. 1 team. Anyone have any suggestions? I see 5 to 6 possibilities out there, but I haven’t fully weighed the pros and cons of each.
17 thoughts on “Who can it be now?”
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One of my pet peeves with the polls is that it seems like sometimes people think a loss has to lead to a team falling in the polls. This is why I was so happy on the men’s side this week to see that Wittenberg did not drop from #3 after losing on a last second basket @ #2 Wooster.
I don’t know anything about the Southern Maine or Salem State women, but from clicking around a little I see that Salem State…
* Was 6-1 before this game with the one loss being by 5 points to an 8-0 team (Clark)
* Was 21-7 last year and 10-2 in their league
Southern Maine lost on the road in what appears to have been a hard-fought game. Does Southern Maine have to fall from #1 automatically?
Last year in Week 6 of the men’s poll (through games of Jan. 2), Stevens Point (10-0) was rated #1, receiving all 25 first place votes. On January 4 the Pointers lost a tough WIAC road game @ Whitewater 63-71. 11 of the voters decided that Stevens Point, the team that won the national title with the same guys the year before, was no longer the best team in the country after this loss on the road to a good team in the nation’s best conference. 13-0 Wooster was the new #1. While Wooster had some nice wins, they didn’t have a single win vs a ranked team (hadn’t played Witt yet). We all know how 2004-05 ended up on the men’s side and who turned out to be #1.
I’m not suggesting that this Southern Maine situation is comparable to the UW-Stevens Point men fallen from #1 last year…again, I have no idea where Southern Maine should be ranked. I’m simply suggesting that voters not assume a team HAS TO fall after a loss. That’s when the poll gets messed up.
Agreed.
I am not sure I will change my vote. I know some will. One voter called me this morning to talk things over and told me who he/she was voting for. I was surprised, but the person had a logical progression to reach that conclusion.
I asked why they thought Southern Maine wasn’t as good as last year and the answer was that they think the road to the final four will be tougher because the Norhteast is on the road this year in women’s basketball. (The men no longer use such a rotation, or if they do, they don’t publicize it the way the women do.)
But that sort of begs the question of what the poll is supposed to be about. Are the voters predicting who will win the national title, or projecting who they think the best team is? Southern Maine may indeed be facing a long road to reach the Final Four, but that doesn’t (or shouldn’t) change the fact that they are the best team in the nation (if indeed they are; I wouldn’t know.)
An ancillary question is whether the poll is supposed to identify the best team as of the moment, or out into the future. Penalizing a team for having a tough future schedule is even worse than penalizing them for losing a tough game in the past. Remember; it is comparatively rare for a team to go unbeaten on either the men’s or women’s side. So if we can agree that losing a close game to a tough team on the road is not necessarily a disqualification from being #1, then surely it’s not a disqualification to have a tough stretch of games ahead, a stretch where the team is unlikely to go unbeaten.
If I were a voter, I think I’d evaluate the teams based on their performance to date, against their schedule to date, and consider their future only in the abstract (i.e. can they keep it up against whoever they might play.) This is another way of saying I’d try to divine who the best team is right now, the team I’d favor against any other team in the country on a neutral court tomorrow night.
“But that sort of begs the question of what the poll is supposed to be about. Are the voters predicting who will win the national title, or projecting who they think the best team is?”
Excellent question. Those aren’t always the same answers midseason, of course, but in the end the team that wins the national championship has to be considered the best team in the country.
This voter has earned a lot of credit in his/her account with me based on correctly projecting breakout teams in the past.
Excellent points, David.
My take is that the D3hoops.com poll should be a reflection of the best teams in the country as they are perceived by the voters during that particular week, and as they’d stack up on a neutral court…and not a ranking of the teams with the best chance to get to Salem. The two are of course very different in Division III due to how the tournament field is selected and seeded.
For example, I feel very confident that Illinois Wesleyan is the best men’s team right now. But would I say IWU has the best chance to get to the Final Four? I don’t know. IWU faces #14 Hanover tomorrow, #13 Augie twice in the CCIW, #16 Elmhurst twice, 5-0 North Central twice, etc.. IWU could be the best team in the country and still lose 2-3 games, just like UW-SP did last year. In Division III when you lose, you risk getting seeded lower and having to play a Sectional in someone else’s gym. That changes everything. Certainly there is a team out there with a much easier road to Salem than Illinois Wesleyan. (In Division I, the Top 25 poll is pretty much the “national title odds” because of the way the touney works and the fact that all games are neutral court.)
All that being the case, again I still feel strongly that the D3hoops.com poll should not factor in the whacky D3 tournament process. I want it to reflect the best teams as best as possible. When I hear of voters factoring in who will have the tougher road, etc. I worry that the poll – considered by all to be THE Division poll – is compromised.
I will say that the history of the polls indicates that most of the voters cast their ballots based on who they think is truly “best.”
Good point Titanq…Perhaps I should have left the word “new” out of my post. I’ll throw Southern Maine into the mix too. Basically I’m looking at them, Bowdoin, Brandeis, Washington U, Millikin (presuming a win today), and George Fox. I’ve seen Bowdoin and Southern Maine and know how I feel about them. Am looking for some sort of basis of comparison related to the other teams.
I have, in the past, left a #1 team at #1 even after a loss, and I suppose I shouldn’t rule it out here either.
I agree here too Titanq…
Looking back at football, Ohio Northern did not make the postseason and going into the playoffs, I still had them midway up my ballot even though a bunch of other teams below them or not on at all were in the postseason.
As it turns out, ONU was the only team to beat Mount Union, the eventual national champions. ONU will probably remain towards the top half of the final top 25, even though they played only ten games.
Pat,
What are these arrangements for this year for all the regions? (referring to your comment that the northeast is on the road)
I would have to agree with titanq. I think most voters vote for who they feel is best right now. I think sometimes teams may drop when they lose depending on several factors. Was the team they lost to ranked? Had a winning record? Or was it truly a “big upset”? I would guess most voters would tend to drop a team if they lost to someone unranked or who had a losing record. I would vote that a team stays where they are or close if they lost to someone ranked higher than them.
However dcollinnge’s point is well taken in that so few teams go undefeated that I think some voters look at the poll and say should I have someone with a loss ranked above someone who doesn’t? Voters really need to look at the overall picture i.e. SOS or QOW, records of opponents etc, which can be time consuming knowing that the poll is due Mon. afternoon.
But all in all I think the voters do a pretty good job of accurately reflecting who is the best right now. And it definitely should not be who they think will get to the national title games. I was surprised to see Milikin drop as much as they did the first time they lost. However with a recent second loss it made the pollsters look like they new exactly what they were doing!
I see that the men’s poll is out but the women’s poll is lagging. I guess this was a tough question for more voters than just Mark.
Answer is now posted.
Thoughts on teams who did not lose last week yet dropped in the polls and were passed by teams who were not ranked last week? Personal opinion is that in most cases if you win you should not drop in poll unless there is a lot of shifting in front of you. I’ll admit a little bias toward W&J women but they were the only team to drop a space in the poll who did not lose a game the previous week.
Got passed by McMurry, which deserved to after beating Hardin-Simmons.
That’s far less interesting than Bowdoin, which also fell, probably because it could not be considered for the No. 1 spot because of its loss to Southern Maine.
Odd too that George Fox leap frogged them as well considering 5 of their 9 wins are against non-DIII teams and possibly their next two wins will be against non DIII teams. Any idea why they play so many non DIII teams?
George Fox is located in the West Region in Newberg, Ore. West of the Rockies, the only D-III schools out here are either in our conference (the Northwest) or the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. There are quite a number of NAIA and D-II schools in our immediate area, though, several of whom we used to play on a regular basis in the ’80s and ’90s when we were an NAIA school, and we have kept some of those rivalries alive while helping our travel costs.
This year’s non-conference schedule for the Bruins includes five NAIA teams (three from Oregon, two from California), two D-III teams (both from California), and two games against a D-II opponent.
Hope that clears up the reason for so few D-III teams on our schedule for you. It is not an uncommon problem for those of us in the Pacific Northwest, or in California for that matter.
Thanks Blair. Sounds like the same problem some Independents have and problem non AQ conferences used to have. Those seven non DIII games puts you right at the NCAA minimum, I think, for games played against DIII teams (18) to be eligible for the post season. For your sake, I hope no one drops out of your conference or anything of the sort, because then it sounds like you guys would really have a tough time filling your schedule.