This time of year is full of speculation. How many starters does Team X have back? Is the transfer for Team Y any good? What does Team Z need to do to replace its backcourt scoring?
We can only guess. And that’s what a preseason Top 25 is, a guess. Some guesses are more informed than others — for example, the annual magazines make their guess with limited information about Division III. They might hit on some of the good teams, but shoot, they don’t even know who to ask.
In October we ask about 60 schools to provide detailed information about their basketball programs and who is returning. We find out how much of their scoring, rebounding, ball-handling (assists) has graduated and how much is returning. And then we still have to guess. When I was filling out my men’s ballot, I had two teams I knew I wanted No. 1 and No. 2, the two Titans of the midwest (lower-case, not NCAA Midwest Region). The rest was like pulling teeth. When you’re presented with as many as 85 data points on more than 50 teams, it’s information overload.
In the end, here’s what concerns me about the first poll:
As attrition hits teams higher up in the poll (it seems unlikely Illinois Wesleyan or UW-Oshkosh can run the table in such tough conferences), teams such as Puget Sound and St. John Fisher will likely do a slow float to the top. We might see one of them at No. 1 by January.
To a lesser extent, the same goes for Mississippi College, though they are lower in the poll. We simply won’t know how good this team is until the NCAA Tournament comes, since they play one D-III non-conference opponent.
For a team we received no information on, UW-Whitewater is quite high at No. 13. Taking a chance here.
I have to wonder how good Worcester Polytech really is. And Catholic is going to have to be much improved to live up to its No. 25 ranking.
Here’s what I like:
I think the voters made the right call on UW-Stevens Point. There’s always a few voters who give the defending champion the benefit of the doubt until they lose their first game, but it makes sense not to in this case. Too much lost.
In the end, Gustavus Adolphus will end up living up to this ranking, I believe, though they might stumble early in the season as in previous seasons.
I like not giving the Final Four a bye into the Top 10 for the previous year. Only York had anything significant back, and there’s reason to worry about the Spartans as well, considering who they beat and didn’t beat to get to the Final Four last March.
Well, Pat, you know how I feel about the preseason poll, so I won’t revisit that long-ago-hashed-out argument. I’ll only say in passing that if somehow UWSP defies the conventional wisdom and goes on to have an overachieving 2005-06 in which they acquit themselves as worthy of a Top 25 ranking throughout the season, then that sentence in your front-page blurb about the Pointers’ ranking streak being stopped at 62 will be pointing out an injustice.
(Go ahead and point out how I’m oversensitive to streaks of 62. ;))
As far as a general overview of the poll is concerned, I think it’s mostly fair. I think you got the top five right and in order, and the only change I’d make in your top ten is to swap out Albion in favor of Virginia Wesleyan.
While you may be right about Gustavus Adolphus, however, I’m puzzled as to how they ended up #19 with 168 votes while St. Thomas got a single measly vote. The MIAC room, which I think is the most improved room on Posting Up over the past couple of years in terms of analysis, appears to have almost unanimously flipped those two teams in their preseason predictions. Even some of the GAC posters appear to be leaning that way. I gotta go with the people who have their ears close to the ground in MIAC-land, especially since a number of them are recent former players who know the current personnel involved from having played with and against them. I mean, I could see the Top 25 pollsters going with GAC over the Tommies out of recent history, but by a 167-vote spread?
The rankings accorded to the three MIAA powers baffles me even more. Albion lost star players Travis DePree and Michael Thomas from last year’s team. While they still have Brandon Crawford, it’s hard to imagine that they won’t falter a bit after losing two players of that caliber. Calvin lost their star (Dan Aultman), their playmaker (Ricky Shilts), and a key role player (Joel Hoekstra), plus four important reserves, and they have no experience at the point returning this season. Yet those two teams are ranked (Albion quite highly) while Hope only made the ORV category. I think that the general consensus in the MIAA room is going to be that Hope — which is loaded, especially with Greg Immink returning after a medical redshirt — is the preseason favorite in that league.
Still, all complaints aside, this poll is still the gold standard of D3 preseason polls, for what that’s worth. Your dead-tree competitors shouldn’t even bother anymore.
The two previous comments by Mr. Coleman and Mr Sager is exactly what makes this a great site.
I agree that there are some inconsistancies, but like everyone has been saying, the top of the poll looks pretty good. I still think Amherst is too high, but from everything I’ve seen, WPI is good enough to be where they are. Whether they can play at the same level as last season is a good question, but they should get the benefit of the doubt.
I’m not even remotely well-enough informed to pass judgment on the accuracy of the poll. I’ll leave my comment at this: I’ll be very surprised (and very delighted) if Wooster turns out to be the 3rd best team in D3 this season. The Scots have played an inside-out style (high-% shot, rebound, threes to extend the defense) for years, but return just one big man from their rotation last season. (And at 6’6″ 205, “big” is an exaggeration.) They’re switching to an outside game this season, and while there is an abundance of talent at the 1,2, and 3 spots, the jury is out on how well they can pull off this change in focus.
Wooster has traditionally piled up a fantastic record on the backs of their weak conference brethren. While that will probably be the case again this season, their non-conference schedule appears to be as rough as it has been in recent years. In fact, I would not be surprised if the Scots lose as many as 3 of their first 8 games. If they can start out 7-1, then I’ll be a believer. Until then, consider me unconvinced.
I think there might be something at work on the St. Thomas situation — last year people were all saying the same thing, if I recall, that St. Thomas was going to win the league and GAC’s days were done. But that turned out to not be the case.
Hope February was definitely a very good team. Looks like they got dragged down by Hope November-January.
I can go along with the top ten no problem, I think it is hard to argue against those teams at this point. I do disagree with Ramapo at 12, I think they lost too much after last season with Amin Wright and a few others who are done with their careers. I would have had them a little further down between 17 and 20 probably. At this point I think the NJAC is a two team race this season, with Ramapo and NJCU leading the pack and most of the other teams fairly even in the middle and Camden to bring up the rear again.
It’s a pre-season poll… and we all know those can be very difficult to really put together.
IWU #1 is hard to argue against… since they bring back so much from a team that should have been set-up to go farther in the tourney (NCAA it’s called parity!).
I agree Amherst might be a bit high… they didn’t prove much last year and really were a bit of a disappointment (i.e. Williams).
York is a bit high I think… they bring back everyone but the 8th and 15th men off the bench, but they are going to be in a tougher conference (CUA brings everyone back to) and we all know they didn’t have the hardest road to Salem. They deserve to be in the Top 15 though.
I also feel too much was giving to St. John Fisher. Don’t get me wrong, their run last year was impressive, but when the games really matter, they weren’t there.
Overall, it will be interesting to see which of these Top-25 really end up in the tournament.
We’ll break that down on Hoopsville soon :).
Roll the dice – move the mice. Preseason pools are a big crapshoot. Fortunately, there’s a long season and something at the end that will be the ultimate poll, right?
I actually think we have SJF pegged just right. They return most of their team to a squad that basically had one bad day (there are teams with worse skeds that didn’t go undefeated)…they’ve got 2 games with teams “also receiving votes”, a potential game at Randolph-Macon and will prob meet up with Rochester in the Chase Tourney. Granted, that’s not a WIAC or CCIW sked, but if they can get thru that, i’d feel good about ranking them top 5.
One comment on the “science” of polling…from having done this for awhile, one of the biggest factors for me is seeing that “5” in the “returning starters” column. We’ve tended to “vote up” good teams with “5’s” in the preseason poll, and rightfully so.
My $.02 on the women’s poll…good to see that the voting nation agrees that the top 5, regardless of what order u put them in, are no-brainers (check out the point totals for men’s #5 vs women’s), but after that it’s anybody’s guess…I see we ‘took the bait’ on Capital again (they were 13th in last yr’s preseason poll), which is interesting considering the OAC’s rep lost a home NCCA 1st-round game last season, and am not sure what to make of the fact that Springfield finished ahead of Wash U (hopeful of seeing both teams this season). More observations in the first “Around the Nation.”
Having seen 8 games involving the top 5 teams in the women’s poll in the last 2 weekends of the recent ncaa tournament, I agree that they ought to be at the top this year. It’s hard to believe that Minott can be replaced for Milliken but otherwise they have a lot of returning talent,Macon seems to be getting better, both NE teams have impressive frontcourts, and we continue to be optimistic at Scranton.