Week 10 was a good week to be Violet, and a bad one to be either a Bear or from Chicago. The NYU men’s and women’s teams welcomed their westernmost conference rivals to the Coles Center this weekend, and came away with four victories and a combined 16 place jump in this week’s polls. On Friday, the distaff Violets thrashed then-#11 Washington U. by 25, and their male counterparts followed up with a 16-point whipping of the then-#7 Bears. In both cases the Violets were avenging narrow defeats administered by the Bears in St. Louis just five days earlier. NYU then had a super Super Sunday, with the men nipping Chicago after the women had handed the then-#13 Maroons their fourth consecutive loss (two at the hands of the Violets.) The women, now ranked #11, ascended to the top of the UAA standings alongside #6 Rochester and #17 Wash U., while the #16 men remain two games back of co-leaders #11 Wash U. and Chicago.

Both polls remained unchanged at the top. Men’s #1 Amherst, now just one game away from a perfect regular season, inherited a first-place vote and are now either first or second on every ballot. UW-Stevens Point grabbed the other six first-place votes and moved into the #2 slot vacated by #5 Wooster, losers to archrival and new #7 Wittenberg. Women’s #1 Messiah gained two first-place votes, but still saw #2 Bowdoin inch closer in the poll; Messiah‘s margin is now just 3 points on the Polar Bears. Calvin remained solidly in third, with their rematch with archrival #9 Hope looming this weekend. The Knights handed the Flying Dutch their first-ever loss at the new DeVos Center last month.

The CCIW once again has four men’s teams ranked this week, as Wheaton (IL) upended #15 Carthage and snuck back into the poll at #25. Joining the Thunder and Red Men in the poll are #10 Augustana and #12 Elmhurst. This is the fourth time this season that the conference has had half of its membership in the national poll.

Debutantes:
Women: #10 Illinois Wesleyan joined the top 10 for the first time in poll history.
Men: Centre College blasted SCAC co-leader DePauw and in return received their first-ever poll votes.
Congratulations to the Titans and Colonels!

Streakers:
Women: #7 Scranton, #16 Hardin-Simmons, and #17 Washington U. each received votes for the 120th time, extending their jointly-held perfect records in this, the 120th women’s poll. #2 Bowdoin has received support in 90 straight polls, and has been among the top 25 in all of them; #10 Illinois Wesleyan and #19 Lake Forest have each been voted for in 10 straight polls. #6 Rochester is a vote-getter for the 20th straight week, and a member of the top 10 for 10 straight weeks. This week marks #8 DePauw‘s 50th consecutive week as a top 25 team. #14 Mary Washington has been ranked in 25 straight polls. Top-ranked Messiah is in the top 25 for the 70th straight time; #15 Wilmington and #23 Chicago have each been ranked in ten straight polls.
Men: Top-ranked Amherst is a vote-getter for the 75th straight week. For #7 Wittenberg, this is the 50th consecutive week with a mention by the voters; the single vote received by Lincoln marks the 25th straight week they have rated a mention; and Brandeis attracted voting interest for the 10th consecutive week. #6 Hope and #10 Augustana are top 25 teams for the 25th straight week. #13 Whitworth and #17 Johns Hopkins are each making their tenth straight appearance in the rankings, while #2 UW-Stevens Point is in the top 10 for the tenth straight week.

Milestones:
Women: #1 Messiah is a top 10 team for the 40th time. Fourteenth-ranked Mary Washington is a member of the top 25 for the 25th time. #9 Hope is in the rankings for the 90th time; #12 UW-Stout is a top 25 team for the 40th time; and #19 Lake Forest joined the rankings for the 10th time. #4 Southern Maine and #11 NYU appear on the voter rolls this week, the 110th week for each. For #6 Rochester and #18 Emmanuel, this marks the 70th straight poll with at least one vote. #25 McDaniel has been mentioned in each of the last 40 polls.
Men: #1 Amherst received votes for the one hundredth time this week. #3 St. Thomas has been a vote-getter 75 times. Others reaching significant voting milestones include #7 Wittenberg (110 weeks), #15 Carthage and #25 Wheaton (IL) (80 weeks), #22 UW-LaCrosse (30 weeks), #16 NYU (20 weeks), and Brandeis (10 weeks.) This week marks #7 Wittenberg‘s 40th appearance in the top 10. #8 UW-Oshkosh is in the top 25 for the 50th time; #13 Whitworth is ranked for the 25th time; and #12 Elmhurst makes their 20th appearance in the top 25.

High-Water Marks:
Women: This category is simply owned by the #5-ranked Yellow Jackets of Howard Payne University. This week marks the tenth consecutive week that HPU has tied or set a new highest-ever ranking. Each week it gets tougher; this week they had to defeat two other ranked teams (#16 Hardin-Simmons and #13 McMurry) to keep the streak going, and at #5 there’s very little headroom left. The third-ranked Calvin Knights tied their highest-ever ranking, set last week; and #10 Illinois Wesleyan established a new high-water mark in this, their debut week as a top 10 team.
Men: #3 St. Thomas jumped three places to tie their all-time high, set earlier this season, while #16 NYU, as chronicled above, defeated two ranked conference opponents and established a new high-ranking in the D3Hoops.com men’s poll.

Movers and Shakers:
Women: #11 NYU gained 194 points and 7 places by beating Wash U. and Chicago; the Maroons (-204 points/10 placings) and Bears (-148 points/6 slots) were the week’s biggest losers.
Men: #16 NYU jumped 9 places and 149 points; Wittenberg won at then-#2 Wooster and leapt 4 places to #7, gaining 141 points. #19 Ohio Northern, losers of 4 of their last 9 games, shed 130 points and dropped 5 places. Other large drops were recorded by #11 Wash U. (-115 points/4 spots) and #9 Mississippi College (-106 points/5 places.)

Thanks to Sports Information Directors and our partnership with D3Scoreboard.com, we’re able to bring you a great deal more in-game updates than we ever had in the regular season in past years. As I look now, not even 2 p.m., there are already a half-dozen games with scores of games in-progress. On a busy weeknight you can find more than a dozen going on at the same time.

Thanks to the schools that post them. I hope everyone realizes these are out there for you to keep up on games.

Today’s scores: Men | Women

Also, schools can post links to their live stats package or their audio broadcast by using the Edit feature next to each game under their login.

I’m off to a game myself — want to see Mike Hoyt for Mount St. Mary play in person. The points he’s been putting up are unbelievable. But follow the scoreboard, listen to games, watch the live stats. Should be a good day.

Oh yeah … February is here and the final 25 days leading up to Selection Sunday/Matchup Monday are just going to get more and more crazy.

Some of you don’t even check in here until February begins, and while we certainly welcome you, where have you been? You’ve missed a lot. But we have a lot to get to, as well.

Don’t forget, these tournaments expanded last year. There are 59 men’s teams heading to the NCAA Tournament — 37 automatic bids, three Pool B bids which are set aside for teams not in those conferences, and 19 at-large bids for the teams remaining. In women’s action, there are 63 teams going: 39 conferences have automatic bids, four Pool B bids are set aside and there are 20 at-large bids.

New automatic bids go to the North Eastern Athletic Conference men and women and the Great South Athletic Conference women. The new Northern Athletics Conference won’t be eligible for an automatic bid until 2009.

Remember, too, the NCAA is only going to give us the names of the teams in the tournament on Selection Sunday. They can’t come up with pairings on Sunday anymore, so we’ve dubbed the following day, the day we get the brackets, as Matchup Monday.

It’s a little early to give a good read as to who’s on the bubble, though I did get a call from the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun this afternoon and gave them my thoughts on a scenario they proposed in which Wittenberg fails to beat Wooster both this weekend and in the NCAC final. (I suggested it would probably be 50-50.)

We still have about 3,000 games left to be played. It’s going to be wild.

I’m looking forward to another new experiences, and perhaps reliving an old one this weekend.

Unlike basically all of the other D3hoops.com regulars, I have never been to NYU’s Coles Center. The five-hour trip from the D.C. area always seemed like a waste when Mark Simon could come down from Connecticut, Ray Martel from Long Island, John McGraw from upstate New York or Gordon Mann from Philadelphia (or Binghamton, previously).

So when Wash U swept all comers this weekend to set up this showdown at NYU this Friday, let’s just say I can’t wait.

I was sitting at home listening in 2001 when Ray and Gordon called a women’s game between the two, won by Dari Magyar on the Miracle in Manhattan shot (audio). While it would be nice if history repeated itself, I’m just looking forward to the spectacle. NYU has drawn pretty well this season and has a promotional program in play that should help pack the Coles Center again.

I’ll only be getting one new team to scratch off my list that night — I’ve never seen the NYU men — but it should be a fun night.

Meanwhile, there’s been some whining (from fans of teams not based in St. Louis) about Wash U’s meteoric rise in the Top 25. I would suggest that they were underrated last week after dismantling Rochester and should’ve been higher in the Week 8 poll. Three wins in a row against ranked teams tends to suggest that one should be ranked.

Just my $.02. I don’t think they should be getting a No. 1 vote without winning their two games this weekend, but I only get one of the 25 ballots. 🙂

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