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.

Lesley University and Immaculata University each were formerly all-women’s schools that have started accepting male undergrads in recent years and are starting men’s basketball teams this season.

Zach Rocha of The Standard Times takes us through the Lesley program as it gets underway.

Just an update as to where we stand on the 2005-06 basketball schedules. We’ve got about three-quarters of them input so far, still plowing away.

Programs of note that have gotten in recently on the men’s side include Hanover, John Carroll, King’s, Lewis and Clark.

On the women’s side: George Fox, Wesleyan, St. Benedict and others.

The primary sticking point remains lack of tournament pairings. SIDs, if you know the pairings, put them on your Web site. And if you’re hosting a tournament, I think you have an obligation to list all four games of the tournament on your schedule, not just the games your team is playing in.

To see what we have on schedules, pick a region from the list of Sites by Region on the front page, then select the team in question.

At the end of last summer, I was invited to attend the American Southwest Conference basketball coaches’ annual meeting in Dallas. Aside from the Texas Rangers/Cleveland Indians game and the fried alligator (it actually does taste like chicken), the main topic of discussion was how to increase exposure for the conference, and help it get an at-large team into the NCAA Tournament.

The 16-team conference is relatively isolated, with few non-conference Division III opponents to choose from. But the teams also play 22 conference games (everyone in the division twice, everyone else once), so there is precious little opportunity to showcase a program outside the league. I recommended, among other things that schools concentrate on playing D-III opponents rather than local NAIA schools, including teaming up with their conference travel partner and sponsoring a holiday classic to attract schools from other parts of the country.

It’s been a year. Some have changed their ways, some not so much. East Texas Baptist’s men and women each do not play one single Division III team out of conference. Jarvis Christian, LSU-Shreveport and Wiley College won’t get any respect or at-large consideration for the Tigers, nor will they help any other ASC team. Louisiana College’s men play three Division I schools, so congrats for the payday, but remember that you’re a Division III school and you should consider playing some Division III schools.

Grading each men’s team’s schedule

Austin: Plays Continue reading →

As we get past the halfway point in terms of schedules posted on the site, here are some games and dates to watch out for:

Of course, there aren’t always a good number of interesting games right from the opening tip. (It gets better when championship games of tipoff tournaments roll around on the second and third day of the season.) However, Nov. 18 features one of last year’s cinderella teams vs. one of this year’s national title favorites when Texas-Dallas and Illinois Wesleyan face off at Wabash’s tournament. Gwynedd-Mercy’s women face Trinity (Texas) at Marymount’s tipoff tournament, and we’ll be broadcasting the first round and winner’s bracket of that event, which includes tournament contenders such as the two mentioned above, the host team, Wesleyan and King’s.

Circle Nov. 21: Texas Lutheran’s women play Schreiner in what is the earliest conference game we’ve seen. The next day Montclair State plays New Jersey City, Rutgers-Newark plays Ramapo and Richard Stockton plays Rutgers-Camden. Presumably Rowan, TCNJ and the other NJAC schools play too, but who knows when we’ll find out.

By the way, Schreiner, of the record losing streak snapped in February, plays three Division I schools. Hope the payoff is good.

Circle Dec. 6. It’s when Tom Murphy returns to Hamilton as head coach of SUNYIT. Hamilton was pushed out the door at the end of the 2003-04 season after winning a mere 600 career games. He landed as an assistant to one of his former players at SUNYIT and when he stepped aside to focus on his athletic director role, Murphy was hired.

Circle Dec. 20. Hanover travels to Illinois Wesleyan. This game has been too good to miss in recent years, whether regular season or NCAA Tournament.

Circle Dec. 21. Lincoln’s men will be playing their fourth consecutive game on that day, in two different states. They leave campus probably on Dec. 17 and play at Randolph-Macon on the 18th, either Lake Erie or St. John Fisher at Macon’s tournament on the 19th, then travel to Myrtle Beach, S.C., and play Christopher Newport and Greensboro on the 20th and 21st. Such is the life of an independent.

Circle Jan. 8, in pencil. We could see a rematch from the 2001 Sweet 16 as Brockport State and Catholic would play in Catholic’s tournament, should they both advance. Or somehow both lose, to Eastern and Drew respectively.

Circle Jan. 10 and 11. It’s the day the Chase Scholarship Tournaments start for women and men, respectively. This event features seven Division III teams (and, unfortunately, one NAIA team) in the Rochester, N.Y., area. Championship games are Jan. 14.

Circle Jan. 20. It’s the date Carnegie Mellon plays its first home men’s basketball game since Dec. 6, a span of 45 days. In between they visit upstate New York (Skidmore and Union), New Jersey (Princeton), western Ohio (Bluffton), Boston (Brandeis), Manhattan (NYU) and the Tidewater area of Virginia (Christopher Newport).

Circle Jan. 21. That’s when Rust plays its 12th regional game of the 2005-06 season, equalling Chapman’s total from the entirety of 2004-05. In fact, with regulations coming in that require a school to play regional opponents in at least one-half of its schedule, it’s time Chapman gets with the program. Rust is in a similarly difficult situation to Chapman — geographically isolated and one of only a couple of independents for miles around, yet it’s getting it done.

Circle Feb. 4. It’s the date UW-Eau Claire and Finlandia’s men play, possibly for the third time. Eau Claire hosts the team from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on Dec. 12 and Finlandia plays in Eau Claire’s Dec. 29-30 tournament (the Lions play Northland in the opener). Even if they don’t play each other in the tournament, expect the teams to be scouting each other.

Feb. 4 is also the day Wooster and Wittenberg meet for the second time. The game at Wooster’s Timken Gymnasium should be a blast, too, but it’s on Dec. 10, in the first semester. This game is right in the heart of the conference season and should be well worth your while.

Circle Feb. 11. UC Santa Cruz’s women’s team plays its last regular season game (against University of Dallas at Colorado College). Although they might participate in the western regional independents “conference” tournament, that’s an early ending to the season. Such is life as an indpendent. Maybe I already said that.

And circle Feb. 24. It’s the date the CCIW men’s basketball tournament starts, the first one ever.

There will be more, I’m sure, when we get more schedules in. What dates are you circling?