This week, I decided to do some number-crunching to see what the historical Top 25 polls might have to say about which regions are the strongest. Be prepared to be bored, and don’t say you weren’t warned!
The first thing that leaps off the page at me is the balance in the men’s polls, relative to the women. At present, there are 386 non-provisional D3 men’s teams; of those, over one in three (138, 35.8%) have been ranked in at least one of the 131 polls taken since 1999. There are 23 more women’s programs, but 16 fewer teams (122, 29.8%) have cracked the poll (and there’s even been one extra women’s poll!) The same pattern holds when you look at voting patterns rather than rankings: nearly 60% of the men’s teams (229) have received votes, while less than half of the women’s programs (195) have earned voting support. What these data suggest to me is that the women’s game tends to be more concentrated at the top, with the best programs sticking in the poll, while the men’s teams have a slightly stronger tendency to come and go. This is perhaps underscored by the fact that there are now eight women’s programs that have been ranked in at least 100 polls, vs. just two for the men.
Looking at the men’s regions, it seems to be the conventional wisdom that the “strongest” regions have generally been the three westernmost–the West, Midwest, and Great Lakes—but the data doesn’t necessarily support this. The Midwest (48%) and West (44.4%) have each produced 24 ranked teams, but third on this list is not the Great Lakes (17) but the South (20 teams). These two regions are roughly equal on percentage terms, as the south is a larger region (33 to 26), meaning that about 40% of each region has been ranked. The four eastern regions lag far behind, with 17 teams each from the large Northeast (24%) and smaller Mid-Atlantic (33%), and less than 30% of the East (10) and Atlantic (9), having been ranked. The voting patterns are somewhat more balanced, with each of the West, Midwest, and South regions having two-thirds of their current members receiving votes, leading the Great Lakes (62%), East (57%), Atlantic (56%), and Northeast (49%).
The women’s polling has been much more balanced. The Central Region (20 ranked teams out of 52 non-provisionals, 38.5%) is on top, but only the Atlantic (11/46, 24%) is more than 12 percentage points behind. The voting show a greater discrepancy, with the Great Lakes a clear leader at 61%, 9 percentage points ahead of the second-place Central. Perhaps this suggests that the Great Lakes has a number of good-but-not-great programs (15 that have received votes but never enough to reach #25), while the Central is filled with haves (20 ranked teams) and have-nots (25 programs that have yet to receive their first vote) with little (7 schools) in between.
On a somewhat related note, by virtue of the three points earned by Middlebury this week, the NESCAC becomes the seventh men’s conference to have every team receive votes at one time or another. (The other six are the HCAC, NJAC, OAC, UAA, USA-South, and WIAC.) Of these, the WIAC stands alone as the only conference in which each team has been ranked. There are four other men’s conferences that are one program short of 100% participation (CCIW, Empire 8, LEC, and NEWMAC), and one conference that is one team away from joining the WIAC with every team ranked: the CCIW (and that team is Millikin.) This is all in sharp contrast to the women, where the only conference to have every team receive votes is the UAA (and all but Emory have been ranked), and just two conferences (HCAC and NESCAC) are one team short.
For those of you who are still awake, on with the categories!
Debutantes:
Women: Two excellent women’s programs that have recently been overshadowed by their male counterparts stepped into the limelight this week. #11 Amherst, one of the dwindling number of unbeatens left, cracked the Top 25 for the first time ever. Down in Jersey, the Stevens Ducks are out to an 8-0 start in the Empire 8, and this week joined the voting rolls for the first time.
Men: Used to success in a wide variety of sports, Middlebury College can now add men’s basketball to their list of honored programs, as the Panthers become the 10th and final NESCAC member to debut as vote-getters in the D3Hoops.com poll.
Congratulations to the Lord Jeffs, Ducks, and Panthers!
Streakers:
Women: Third-ranked NYU, in addition to reaching a pair of significant milestones (see below), extended their streak of Top 25 appearances to 20 weeks. Both #11 Kean and #12 Randolph-Macon have now received votes in 10 straight polls, while Brandeis saw their own voting streak come to an end after 62 weeks.
Men: #3 Amherst finds itself among the Top 10 for the 30th straight week, while #22 Virginia Wesleyan has an ongoing Top 25 streak of identical duration. VWC’s conference mate #17 Guilford has received votes in 20 straight polls, ten more than Amherst’s archrival #8 Williams.
Milestones:
Women: The Violets of #3 NYU are ranked for the 100th time in this poll, with 60 of those rankings being within the Top 10. Ninth-ranked Simpson and #16 George Fox each made their 50th appearance in the Top 25 this week. Other Top 25 milestones reached this week include #15 Southern Maine (110 weeks), #12 Randolph-Macon and #24 Cortland St. (40 weeks), #25 Puget Sound (30), #18 Illinois Wesleyan (20), and #6 Thomas More (10 weeks.) IWU also reached a voting milestone, appearing on the list of vote-getters for the 30th time, a distinction they share with #20 Medaille.
Men: This week marks the 75th time that #3 Amherst has been ranked among the Top 10 teams. Both #2 Brandeis and #4 Mary Hardin-Baylor are ranked for the 10th time. #8 Williams received votes for the 90th time; #17 Guilford and #24 Carnegie Mellon are twenty-time vote-getters, and #15 Stevens received support for the 10th week.
High-Water Marks:
Women: New all-time highs were achieved this week by #2 Howard Payne, #6 Thomas More, #14 Tufts, and Top 25 debutante #22 Amherst. Both #8 McMurry and #20 Medaille equaled their previous high-water mark.
Men: Fourth-ranked Mary Hardin-Baylor and #20 Centre reached new all-time high rankings this week, while #2 Brandeis tied their best-ever mark.
Movers and Shakers:
Women: It seems like the same story every week: the largest moves were again the downward ones. #18 Illinois Wesleyan lost to 2005 champion Millikin, costing them 161 points and 8 poll positions. #24 Cortland St. had their hopes of an undefeated season ended by new #23 William Smith, resulting in a 159-point, 8 position drop for the Dragons and a best-of-the-week 62 point gain for the Herons.
Men: Unbeaten Mass.-Dartmouth was the week’s biggest gainer, adding 104 points in their five-slot gain to #14. Five teams each fell at least four places on the average ballot after losing this week: #18 Wheaton (IL) (-129 points), #9 Augustana (-120), #17 Guilford (-118), Lewis & Clark (-114), and #22 Virginia Wesleyan (-101.)