So I’m sitting here with the brackets, trying to figure out who all the winners are going to be so I can finally win this dadgum Pick’em competition. I’m surrounded by tea leaves and goat entrails, my fingertips are numb from the Ouija board, and still I’m stumped. On the women’s bracket, I have not one but three unbeaten teams to choose from; and on the men’s side, well heck, I’ve been confused all season.

Fortunately, we have the collective wisdom of 50 pollsters to help us out. But before I pack up my Magic 8 Ball, I’d better see how good they are at prognosticating the tournament. Let’s ask a few questions of the poll; everyone please join hands.

Q: The Hope men and women are the #1 teams; aren’t they the favorites?
Well, yes and no. Teams ranked #1 by D3hoops.com coming into the tournament have won the title four times (two on each side) in 16 chances. That’s not bad. Oddly enough, though, teams ranked #6 have done just as well, and while the #1s have been shut out since 2005 (UW-Stevens Point men), #6s have won two of the last four titles (2006 Hope women and 2007 Amherst men). Furthermore, on the women’s side, the #9 team has had as much success as the #1, with two titles including last year’s champion, DePauw. Top-ranked teams are heavy favorites to go deep; all but one have reached the Sweet 16, and ten of sixteen qualified for the Final Four. But when it comes to championships, don’t sleep on the #6 Augustana men, #6 DePauw women, or #9 Simpson women.

Q: If the #1 team isn’t golden, can’t I at least I can count on the teams in, say, the top 5?
Oddly enough, no. #1 teams do pretty well, but the teams ranked #2-#5 have combined to win just one of the 16 championships (#3 Williams in the 2003 men’s bracket.) The top 5 teams do a great job of reaching the Final Four—out of 64 semifinalists, 24 have been in the top 5—but they tend to falter once they get there. By contrast, the second five (i.e., teams ranked #6-#10) get there barely half as often (just 13 semifinalists in eight tournaments), but the ones that reach the Final Four are gangbusters: eight of them have won the title, and of the five that didn’t, three lost out to another member of the “Second Five.”

Q: Hmmm. So are you telling me I can’t go wrong by filling up my Final Four with teams ranked in the Top 10?
That’s a good strategy, but maybe not a winning one. Of the 64 Final Four teams in the D3hoops.com era, a bit more than half (19 men, 18 women) have been in the final Top 10. Looked at from another angle, about 23% of the teams in the final Top 10 have reached the Final Four over the past eight years, so if you push a Top 10 team that far in your bracket, historically you have about a one in four chance of being right.

Q: Well, okay. But at least I can forget about unranked teams going as deep as, say, the sectional finals, right?
Basically, yes; 86% of the sectional finalists since 2000 have been ranked teams. No unranked team has made the men’s Final Four this decade; however, eight of them have reached the Elite Eight, exactly one per year. The past two years, the unranked Elite 8 teams (Brockport St. in 2007 and William Paterson in 2006) didn’t receive a single vote in the final poll. For the women, a total of 10 sectional finalists (nearly 16%) have been unranked, including four Final Four squads. The 2004 women’s champions from Wilmington started the tournament as an unranked team. The Ohio Wesleyan women didn’t appear on any pollster’s final 2001 ballot, and two weeks later the Bishops were headed to the Final Four.

Q: All right. Let’s lay our cards on the table. Who’s going to win these tournaments?
Answer hazy; ask again later.

Oh well. At least I still have my tea leaves and goat entrails. Anyone care to join me for lunch?

Debutantes:
Women: none this week.
Men: Hope moved up to the top spot this week, becoming just the 19th member of the men’s #1 club. Three other programs received their first-ever #1 votes in this poll: #2 UW-Whitewater, #7 Plattsburgh St., and #8 Guilford. Congratulations!

Streakers:
Women: Second-ranked Howard Payne is ranked in the top 10 for the 25th straight week. #22 George Fox received votes for the 25th consecutive time, while the vote-getting streaks for #17 Southern Maine and #20 William Smith reached 110 and 10 polls, respectively.
Men: For the 30th straight week, #9 UW-Stevens Point, #11 Washington U., #13 Rochester, and Wheaton (IL) each received votes. For UWSP, this is also the 30th straight week in the Top 25, while Wash. U. is ranked for the 25th straight time. Tenth-ranked Mass.-Dartmouth has now been ranked in 10 straight polls. #4 Centre extended its vote-getting streak to 20 weeks, while both #14 Millsaps and #25 Occidental have received voting support for ten consecutive weeks.

Milestones:
Women: Twenty-first ranked UW-Eau Claire appears in the voting rolls for the 100th time this week. Other vote-getting milestones were reached by #10 Baldwin-Wallace (120 weeks), #19 DeSales (80), #20 William Smith (40), #3 Thomas More (30), and #18 Tufts (20 weeks.) McMurry is ranked #12 this week, the 50th time they’ve been in the Top 25. Sixth-ranked DePauw is ranked for the 110th time. #5 Mary Washington, #2 Howard Payne, and #9 Simpson have now appeared in the top 10 in 30, 25, and 20 polls, respectively.
Men: Wooster, ranked #17 this week, has now been ranked in 130 polls, extending their poll record in this category. #20 Capital is a Top 25 team for the 40th time. Ninth-ranked UW-Stevens Point is a top 10 team for the 80th time; new #1 Hope is in the top 10 for the 40th time, while #6 Augustana has now made 30 appearances in the top 10. Randolph-Macon received a single vote, marking their 75th appearance on the voting list. Other programs to achieve vote-getting milestones include #10 Mass.-Dartmouth (40 weeks), Richard Stockton (30), and #4 Centre (20 weeks.)

High-Water Marks:
Women: Illinois Wesleyan moved up to #7 this week, their highest-ever D3hoops.com ranking. All-time highs were matched by #2 Howard Payne, #3 Thomas More, and #14 Amherst.
Men: Top-ranked Hope leads this category with their first-ever #1 ranking. #7 Plattsburgh St., #14 Millsaps, and #16 Ursinus also reached new highs this week, while #2 UW-Whitewater matched their best-ever ranking.

Movers and Shakers:
Women: UW-Stevens Point won the WIAC championship, resulting in a gain of 146 points and six-position leap to #13. Two teams that were upset in their conference tournament finals, #17 Southern Maine and #20 William Smith, suffered the largest drops, 125 and 113 points, respectively.
Men: Millsaps ended Centre’s 25-game winning streak, and was rewarded with an eight-point vault to #14, gaining 182 points in the process. Two Ohio rivals that failed to win conference tournaments they hosted led the list of point-shedders: #17 Wooster dropped 167 points and six spots, while #20 Capital lost 158 points and seven places. But the biggest loser of all was #23 UW-Platteville, which lost to UW-Eau Claire in the WIAC quarterfinals, costing them 107 points, four notches in the poll, and a spot in the NCAAs, the only team in either poll to fail to make the tournament.