David Collinge has become the D3hoops.com Top 25’s unofficial historian and has produced weekly notes that he’s been posting on the message board. We’ve invited him to bring his milestones and observations to the Daily Dose.
The voters in the men’s poll took a week off to celebrate the holidays, and returned to find that 14 of the previous top 25 lost at least one game (a 15th lost an exhibition game, and two other teams were idle), including two losses by the #1 team and losses by five of the top 6 in the Dec. 19th poll. The new poll, the 114th poll in D3hoops.com’s history, reflects this turmoil. The gap between the new #1 (UW-Stevens Point) and #3 (Amherst) is just 5 points, the closest the top 3 have ever been to one another. The #1 votes are nearly evely split between the top three teams, with #1 Stevens Point receiving just nine #1 votes; only Wittenberg (8 in week 6 last year) and Carthage (8 in 2000-01 week 3) reached the top with fewer #1 votes.
Two-time champion Stevens Point is the #1 team for the 14th time, a mark exceeded only by Carthage (22.) The #1 team in the 113th poll, the College of Wooster, slipped to #4 but added another week to their many poll records: most poll appearances (114, a perfect mark), most top 25 appearances (106), and most top 10 appearances in total (84) and consecutively (44). #3 Amherst was denied the top spot in the poll, despite gaining 6 first place votes, but did extend their record streak of top 25 appearances to 69 consecutive weeks.
- Debutantes:
The University of Texas at Dallas, the first D3 team this season to upset a D1 team, made its poll deut this week at #22. Texas-Dallas becomes just the 7th team in poll history to make its poll debut as a top 25 team, and recorded the fourth-highest vote total for a first-time vote-getter. #23 Brandeis also appeared in the top 25 for the first time this week. Congratulations to the Comets and Judges!
- Streakers:
> #12 Augustana, #14 Hope, and #21 Lawrence are each members of the top 25 for the 20th consecutive week.
> #21 Lawrence received votes for the 50th consecutive week. #3 Amherst has received votes in 70 straight polls; Lincoln has been mentioned 20 straight times; and #5 St. Thomas and #6 Whitworth are vote-getters for the 10th consecutive week.
> UW-Whitewater had received votes in 82 consecutive polls before falling short this week. Calvin had a 30-week voting string snapped as well.
- High-Water Marks:
#11 Averett reached an all-time high ranking for the fourth straight week, a streak likely to end after their loss to Guilford last night. #2 Ohio Northern, #6 Whitworth, #15 Bates, and #20 NYU also attained their highest-ever rankings this week, as did #22 UT-Dallas and #23 Brandeis, our top 25 debutantes.
- Milestones:
> #1 UW-Stevens Point is in the top 10 for the 60th time;
> #14 Hope and #16 Wheaton (IL) are each ranked for the 50th time;
> #9 William Paterson is in the top 25 for the 40th time;
> #6 Whitworth is ranked for the 20th time;
> CCIW rivals #16 Wheaton (IL) and #17 Carthage are vote-getters for the 75th time each; and
> #5 St. Thomas received votes for the 70th time in this poll, and Worcester Polytech attracted votes for the 30th time.
Congratulations to all of these outstanding programs!
Every time I see that Carthage has been No. 1 22 times, it reminds me just how long this poll has been around. Not long enough to track back into the UW-Platteville era but pretty darn long.
Thanks, Dave, for compiling this information.
Dave:
I love this stuff. Thanks for the hard work.
Good work Dave…sometimes people feel like they do work and no one reads it and no one appreciates it. I do both.
The front page is the right place to put this content! Thanks, Pat!
And thanks Dave for the hard work!
It seems like every time we get an e-mail complaining about the poll, it’s from someone who uses a fake e-mail address, or one that bounces. Here’s an e-mail complaint and my response, since others may have the same question.
Hi, thanks for writing.
The East region has only about 35 teams — you shouldn’t expect it to get the same representation on the site as the larger regions. Plus, the schools don’t really do a great job of getting news to us.
But that’s the news stories — you’re upset about the poll. I can understand why you would be, but frankly, seeing as the East has won exactly zero national championships since 1990, it’s hard to look at them as national contenders. The Northeast did win one in 2003 and our voters have no qualms about putting a Northeast team No. 1, when warranted.
But let’s be honest here: Amherst has the lowest strength of schedule among the three teams that got No. 1 votes this week — by far. Let’s take a look:
Record of opponents Amherst has played to date: 35-40, .466
Record of opponents Ohio Northern has played to date: 70-32, .686
Record of D-III opponents UW-Stevens Point has played to date: 54-27, .667
(They also played a D-II scholarship team on the road. Most voters don’t pay much attention to losses in that type of situation.)
We have coaches, SIDs and yes, us media. I have followed Division III basketball on a national level since 1997 and I am more than qualified to rank teams. I’ve seen teams from all across the country — this year alone I’ve seen teams from Massachusetts, Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Mississippi. I’m trying to squeeze in a trip to the Brandeis/Rochester game this weekend but I only have one day off from my day job so I might not want to spend 12 hours in the car.
When you win a bunch of national championships, like the Great Lakes and Midwest and West have, it’s very easy to see that they might have the best talent in the country.
I’m sorry you don’t think we have credibility, but the rest of the nation knows we do. We didn’t get this far by not knowing our stuff.
I can’t even imagine the size of the Excel spreadsheet that Dave Collinge must have to store all that poll data.
It’s not so bad; 115 columns (one per week) plus a few extra for conference, region, streaks, etc.; about 220 rows, one for each team that has appeared in the poll over the years; double it as I have vote-points in one s’sheet and poll rankings in another; then double it again for the other gender. In fact, that bare-bones structure is really not flexible enough for the sorts of questions I routinely get, such as one I got this week: what is the highest ranking a men’s team has ever received after getting no points in the previous week? Since points and rankings are in completely separate places, that’s a toughie. (Answer was Wilmington, debuting at #17 in week 6 of last season. UT-Dallas made the fourth-highest debut this week at #22.)
I’m glad you folks like this feature.
You know, that insane emailer may have stumbled on a half decent idea to shut up some critics.
I know that you don’t release the voters’ names and for good reason, but you might be able to release the actual votes of each region each week.
We could see how the NE region voters voted. It would be interesting to us stat-geeks and it would also further show people that there is regional balance in the poll.
It’s just an idea I had. Ignore it if its really dumb.
Anyone who looks at the men’s top 25 and concludes that this site has a bias against schools in the East and Northeast only needs to scroll down a bit and look at the women’s top 25 poll.
Nope, DC, that won’t work either. You see there’s an undefeated NYU squad languishing in the 20’s behind several blemished midwest darlings like IWU, Stout and Calvin.
You just can’t win.
And when that NYU squad is still undefeated after the first round of UAA games, they will have risen nicely in the poll. 🙂
Maybe I should have asked this earlier, but I was wondering how does Baldwin-Wallace’s men’s team go from receiving 70 votes for the poll in week 2. Then the next week, after their only game of the week is against the then ranked 3rd team in the country who they beat by 17 points, and yet they get even less votes, 53. Can someone explain how that happened? Thanks
I cannot come up with a particularly good reason why that might have happened. There were certainly some teams that passed B-W with good reason (Carthage, UW-La Crosse) but that’s not usually enough.
I don’t usually do this except for internal discussion purposes and I’m not going to promise to do this regularly, but:
I voted for UW-Stevens Point.
Atlantic: Ohio Northern, Ohio Northern, Ohio Northern
East: UW-Stevens Point, Ohio Northern, UW-Stevens Point
Great Lakes: Ohio Northern, Amherst, Amherst
Mid-Atlantic: UW-Stevens Point, UW-Stevens Point, Amherst
Midwest: Ohio Northern, Amherst, UW-Stevens Point
Northeast: Amherst, Amherst, Amherst
South: Amherst, Amherst, Ohio Northern
West: UW-Stevens Point, UW-Stevens Point, UW-Stevens Point