Monthly Archives: March 2008

Franklin vs. Centre

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Due to technical problems that randomly have put a stop to my broadcast… I will try and give you updates through this until we can solved the problem.

At the half – Centre 34, Franklin 27

Franklin and Centre have been trading shot after shot from inside and outside. The gym is packed with mostly Centre fans, but it isn’t affecting Franklin who is playing very well. I will get you stats as soon as I can, but both teams are playing very well. It is a complete opposite of the first game which Heidelberg controlled from the five minute point on.

Centre keeps hitting three point shots – including one at the end of the half – that seem like daggers, but Franklin keeps answering.

Will bring you the stats as soon as I can!

It’s Madness I Tell You (Friday Games)

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I pride myself in being objective, but yesterday, I just couldn’t help myself.

I was broadcasting Coast Guard-Trinity from high atop courtside, and in the excitement of the moment, during one timeout, I started bopping up and down, like a jumping bean. My broadcast partner (a Coast Guard lieutenant) teased me about it, as did the columnist for one of the local papers, but I didn’t really care.

If you’re a fan, that’s what today is all about. If you’re going to a game, enjoy the madness. If you’re following one of the games today at home, you can do it too (so what if you’ll look a little silly).

I’m in charge of the scoreboard today, and I’ll be trying to file reports here from time to time, while prepping for my next game. If you wanna chime in on what you see or hear, feel free to do so here.

On the Road: Danville, KY

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Well, every March, many of us at D3hoops.com hit the road (and sometimes the air) to bring you as many games from as many places during the NCAA Tournaments as possible.

Tonight, I am sitting in a hotel on the outskirts of Morgantown, WV, having already traveled a little over three hours from Baltimore. Tomorrow, I will spend another six or so hours on the road as I make my way to Danville, KY and Centre College.

I am truly looking forward to seeing this “pod” of games at Centre. I haven’t seen any of these teams/schools during a basketball season and I will admit I kind of “volunteered” to Pat that I would make the trip (not realizing at the time it would take more than 9 hours to drive).

I am certainly familiar with most of the teams. Ohio Wesleyan was actually a school I was very seriously considering for my collegiate education (along with Wooster and Roanoke; how I got to Goucher is another, very different story). I still remember the passion many students had for the Battling Bishops, and I am sure they will be well represented this weekend. Though, in my preperation for these games, I noticed the Bishops don’t seem to do as well away from the home gym. I will interested to see if they are ready for the game Friday night against Heidelberg.

Heidelberg may have won their first OAC title, this season, but we have been talking about the team for most of the season on Hoopsville. The team has quietly been playing what seems to be very good basketball in the Great Lakes. I am looking forward to seeing if this team is for real!

Franklin ruined Defiance’s hopes of playing post-season basketball with an 11-point come-from-behind victory in the HCAC title game. Outside of that, Franklin hasn’t been a team many have been talking about. Most of the talk in the HCAC has been about Defiance – who ended up stumbling to finish the season losing two or their final three.

And Centre has certainly had the most interesting trip of the season. Losing the opener to Rust (which finding a score for normally is very difficult) and then not losing again until the SCAC title game against Millsaps. Along the way, Centre has struggled to not get down in games and has had to use late runs to win games. Millsaps should know, they had a huge lead earlier this season at Centre, only to see it disappear and lose the game in OT. Then, Millsaps has another huge lead in the SCAC title game, only to see Centre make another late run – luckily for Millsaps, the clock ran out before the lead did!

So… what in the world should I expect? I’m not going to expect anything. I can’t wait to just sit down and see what will probably be three great games of basketball. If you are in Danville this weekend, make sure you say hi! If not, enjoy the broadcasts and the blog!

Top 25 News and Notes–Week 14

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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.

NCAA Selection Shows

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If you got a chance to join Pat Coleman and me for “Breakfast with Hoopsville” or “Lunch with Hoopsville”, you got to hear the exclusive announcements of the women’s tournament and the simulcast of the men’s tournament.

It was an incredible honor of mine – and for that matter the show – to have the Division III Women’s Championships Committee choose Hoopsville, after our invitation, as the place to announce the women’s teams (Sunday night) and then the brackets (Monday morning). I thank Pat Coleman for helping facilitate the invitation and then those on the committee, Shirley Egner (Chair & UW-Stevens Point Coach) and Kristin Steckmesser, for helping us get the information we needed, or even joining us on the show to answer questions.

As for the men’s show, while it was delayed, it was still incredible to see how many fans, teams, coaches, parents, etc. tune into our simulcast and then stay online as we talked about the tournament, interviewed coaches, and did our best to answer your questions. You all are very important to making Hoopsville the show that is and I thank you very much for joining us!

I would also like to thank Gary Grace, Chair of the Men’s Championships Committee, who not only agreed to call in to answer some questions on the show right after the brackets were announced, but also called a few minutes before hand to announce how the NCAA Production made a mistake with how the brackets were done and wanted to get us the correction as quickly as possible.

Now, below you will find the selection shows which we will keep up for only a few days, before removing them from the site. Take a listen and enjoy. I will be sharing a few stories from behind-the-scenes of the shows (including Sundays) in this week’s upcoming Around the Nation article.

However, there is one link I wanted to share ahead of time: enjoy the reaction of WPI when they had learned they were “dancing” in the NCAA Tournament.

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