Tag Archives: Amherst

Amherst alum: D3 should stay with D1 on championship weekend

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Ben Kaplan played basketball at Amherst when the Lord Jeffs reached the 2008 national championship game in Salem. The next season he gave us an inside look at the Lord Jeffs’ 2009 NCAA tournament run. Four years later, Ben went to Atlanta to watch his alma mater play for the national championship. He describes how the Atlanta experience compared to Salem and gives his take on whether the Division III men’s title game should be regularly played at the Division I Final Four site.

Of all the possible confrontations at Saturday’s Final Four in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, I couldn’t have anticipated the first and only one I would witness. A fifty-ish man in maize, who made the trip with his twenty-ish son from New York, stuck a stubby finger in the face of a sixty-year-old man in purple who sat with his purple-clad daughter one row behind him. A vein pulsed in the man in maize’s forehead and spit flew with each obscenity. Some surrounding fans stepped in and the man in purple quietly stood and summoned security. Hey, you know what they say about Michigan and Amherst fans, right?

For the first time in its history, the NCAA celebrated 75 years of March Madness by crowning the Division II and III champions on the same weekend and in the same city as the D1 Final Four. If public sentiment has any say, it’s a change that the NCAA will make permanent. The D1 and D3 worlds pretend to exist on parallel planes when in fact they collide more often than you might expect. Bringing them together in one event is a fitting and well-deserved honor for the little guys.

The three most recent tournament coaching darlings, Butler’s Brad Stevens, VCU’s Shaka Smart, and Andy Enfield, formerly of Florida Gulf Coast, all played their college ball at Division III schools. Enfield made 92% of his free throws at Johns Hopkins to become the all-time Division III free-throw percentage leader, Smart set Kenyon’s career, season, and single-game assist records, and Stevens contributed for four years at DePauw.

The trio fit the popular D3 mold – scrappers who overcome size and athleticism deficiencies with intelligence, hard work, and often one special skill. D1 fans who dropped by the title game between Amherst College and University of Mary Hardin-Baylor probably expected the crisp passing and sharp shooting Amherst rode to the title, but they probably didn’t expect Amherst wing and Final Four Most Outstanding Player Allen Williamson to grab an offensive rebound on the block, take one dribble to gather himself, and rise up over a defender’s outstretched hand for a thunderous dunk. They probably didn’t expect Mary Hardin-Baylor star Thomas Orr, a lanky lefty who used a variety of crossovers and stepback moves en route to a team-high 24 points, to take off for a slam after a top of the key isolation move in the half court. And they definitely didn’t expect lumbering Amherst center Pete Kaasila to meet him at the rim and send the dunk attempt back. (OK so they called it a foul, but I not-so-objectively thought it was clean. Regardless, it was the second most impressive mid-air meeting in Atlanta called for a foul this weekend.)

Division III normally crowns its champion in Salem, Virginia, a town that hosts the D3 basketball and football championships. This year, the Elite Eight and Final Four were played in Salem two weeks prior to last Sunday’s title game. As a player at Amherst, I attended the 2008 Final Four. It was the school’s third trip to Salem in a row, and the previous year the team won their first national championship.

To get to Salem, we flew a chartered plane instead of our usual bus. A camera crew greeted us when we landed, instructing us to “act naturally” while they filmed. As we waited almost an hour for our coaches to pick up the rental cars, they interviewed a few players about the upcoming weekend. Instead of the usual motel or Howard Johnson, we stayed in a hotel with leather furniture and a fancy restaurant in the lobby. We dealt with never-ending TV timeouts for the first time all year, attended a banquet, and the starters spoke at official press conferences after the game. Little girls play “house,” and that weekend we played “D1 basketball.”

In Atlanta, this year’s Amherst team had a bus waiting for them at an airport and a police escort on each and every trip they made. When I ran into Amherst’s iconic coach, David Hixon, in the hotel lobby, he immediately told me about how thrilled the players were with the lengthy autograph sessions, media interviews, and TV footage shoots. The schedule was wonky, with a pair of two-week layoffs during the tournament, and the weekend was a minefield of distractions, but the players and coaches wouldn’t have had it any other way. For one weekend, they truly got their time on the big stage.

The weekend’s charms weren’t limited to the players. The Final Four hosts the National Association of Basketball Coaches clinics and conferences, which nearly every NCAA coach attends, so I had the pleasure of seeing and speaking to the Amherst graduate assistants from the past seven years who have now moved on to other schools. I sampled the Atlanta nightlife with alums who, myself included, probably wouldn’t have come had the game been in Salem. The D1 Final Four and accompanying activities, like the pop-a-shot games at Bracket Town or the free Ludacris concert at The Big Dance, provide more of an incentive for students and alums to make the trip to support their team. The academic toll of two long trips and a longer season may cause some educators to complain, but the two Amherst players I saw studying for an economics midterm next to the table of NCAA Merchandise in the hotel lobby seemed to manage the juggling act just fine. Half an hour of studying is a small price to pay for a weekend as a VIP at the Final Four.

The game itself took place at Phillips Arena instead of the Georgia Dome for the same reason that ping pong tournaments aren’t held on Centre Court at Wimbledon. National press stopped by to cover the game, and some wrote glowingly about the talent on the floor. They learned a well-kept secret, that the things like late growth spurts, injuries, and a desire for playing time that force bracket busters to attend mid-majors also contribute to low-D1 talents playing on the D3 level. One such talent, Amherst All-American Willy Workman, who had a hip injury in high school that kept him off the D1 radar, spoke at a reception honoring the players after their championship win. He said, “Playing at the D3 level, we don’t get a ton of support, so you guys are our everything. Thanks for being our parents, friends, fans, cooks, laundry-doers, and everything else we needed to get to this point.” Williamson, the Final Four MOP, talked to me about his desire to continue his playing career overseas, as more than a dozen alums in the past have done. “It’s getting a lot more competitive,” he told me, “so hopefully I’ll land somewhere.” To the media, a few Amherst players talked about how they always dreamed of playing in the NBA, and since that was out the window, winning a championship in an NBA arena was next-best thing.

Around 6,000 fans filed into the lower bowl of the Atlanta Hawks home while the upper bowl was curtained off, so the teams got the thrill of playing in a large arena without having it feel empty. At the Dome the previous night, screaming seas of maize, yellow, orange, and red dominated the stands, but at the D3 game the following afternoon, a few rowdy Amherst fans and a screaming Mary Hardin-Baylor student in a purple tutu holding an “Amherst Likes Nickelback” sign were the exception rather than the rule. Physicality and speed didn’t dominate the game as it did on the Division I level, but finesse, athleticism, and tremendous skill were still on display. On my road trip from Chicago to Atlanta, I marveled at the beauty of rolling green hills and the black structures and yellow lights of skylines. Both different, both majestic in their own way. I felt the same about the atmosphere and the on-court performances on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.

Which brings me back to the confrontation during the Michigan and Syracuse game. The Amherst fan expected his 200-level seats to the Division I Final Four to provide respite from the rowdy student sections. After all, he’s from Amherst, where basketball games are best enjoyed with quiet amusement and occasional polite clapping, preferably with a book on hand. The Michigan fans, who called the players by first name and referred to the team as “we”, wanted to celebrate each basket with a jump, a fist pump, and a high-five. Speaking from personal experience, post-graduation D3 fanhood is more a source of quiet pride than loud and boastful cheers. When “we” used to play on the team and actually know each player by first name, the wild rowdiness seems to us, for whatever reason, a bit over the top. Not that I look down on it. Quite the contrary. I envy it. I wish Amherst results put me in a wild frenzy. I wish I could go to a bar in Chicago on Saturdays and cheer with friends as Amherst beats Middlebury in football. I love when my school wins, and I hate when they lose, but the lack of fanfare and smaller stage puts the game in a different perspective for us.

In the end, both men overreacted. The Amherst alum shouldn’t have grabbed the younger Michigan fan and nudged him down to his seat when he stood up to celebrate a Mitch McGary layup. The older Michigan fan shouldn’t have responded by pushing and swearing at the Amherst alum.

At the heart of that clash were two parents who didn’t want a once-in-a-lifetime experience with their kids at all compromised. The father and son decked out in maize, the father and daughter in Amherst sweaters, my father and me a few seats over, the two Michigan grad students who bought our tickets to Monday’s finals – we were all living out a weekend we would remember and laugh and talk about forever. Watching Amherst win was great, but sharing that experience with my old teammates, seeing the big hugs and bigger smiles on the court, and the tears of the new generation of team parents made it truly special.

That’s why this past weekend should be the beginning of a new tradition. Other Division II and III schools deserve this chance, and other alums should get to experience what I did. Between the overload of endorsements and allegations of athlete exploitation, the NCAA creates these unforgettable shared experiences between athletes and fans alike. Why not maximize them?

An open letter from D-III fans to Amherst, Williams

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Dear Biddy Martin, President, Amherst College; and
Adam Falk, President, Williams College:

The Williams broadcasters aren't bad but the technology seems straight out of 2003.

The Williams broadcasters aren’t bad but the technology seems straight out of 2003.

Congratulations on having athletic departments and basketball programs specifically that are at the pinnacle of NCAA Division III. Your institutions’ young men and women on the court (and on other playing venues) represent your institutions well. They have performed on the biggest stages in Division III basketball.

Unfortunately, the way most people are viewing your program of late is through your schools’ official athletics webcast, each of which puts your institution in a poor light, for varying reasons.

It’s great that over the years more and more schools have found ways to video stream their games even if it just one camera and no broadcasters. A consistent quality broadcast requires infrastructure, manpower, time and of course, some money, whether you are paying an outside company to host your stream or hosting it on campus.

However, Division III fans, and your institutions deserve better. Amherst and Williams have had plenty of home games this month and have men’s home games on Saturday. You have an opportunity to fix this and raise the bar for this final home game of the season.

It upsets me that not only are these learning experiences that are being thrown away, but also this is the time of year Division III basketball gets to showcase itself and these broadcasts are doing the exact opposite. In order to get the rights to broadcast these games, your institution deals with NCAA partner Turner Sports, which handles rights for all sorts of NCAA Tournament games.

There are requirements and guidelines schools are supposed to follow, including this one:

The Streaming Entity may not denigrate Turner, the NCAA, NCAA member institutions or teams, their players or officials, or any NCAA sport, and must comply in all respects with the NCAA bylaws, rules and regulations in effect, which may be amended from time to time by the NCAA in its sole discretion.

That is pretty important to note. These broadcasts have to have a neutrality to them even if it is a “homer” broadcast team calling the games.

Schools get waivers of the $1,000 per-game rights fees. With that waiver comes those requirements and others, as well as benefits. These broadcasts are linked from NCAA.com as part of the official NCAA bracket, meaning it is being given prominence well beyond your institution and its fanbase. What kind of face does it put on your institution and NCAA Division III in general when your broadcasters act unprofessionally, screaming into the microphones, not bothering to check pronunciations of names, and generally treating the broadcasts as if they were any other fans in the stands rather than spokespersons for your school? That’s how Amherst College portrays itself on its official athletics webcast. If athletics is indeed the front porch of the college, then Amherst’s broadcast makes it look like a frat house.

Now, on the other hand, Williams has a little more professionalism in the commentary. Saturday’s men’s game was quite well done in that aspect. (More on the women’s games in a bit.) But the broadcast itself looks like a first-generation online broadcast, something straight out of 2003. And that was when the video finally came online at halftime. If athletics is the front porch, then Williams’ broadcast makes it look like a dilapidated shack.

The two young ladies calling the Emory/Whitman women’s game at Williams College on Friday night seemed less like broadcasters and more like two people asked to talk about the game with microphones in front of them. I couldn’t figure out who the play-by-play person or color analyst was – they both talked over each other and didn’t particularly describe the game. The crew that called the games that featured Williams was a bit rough, too. The play-by-play lady kept trying to call the game like she was yukking it up with her friends and even tried several times to bait the color guy into slang comments that made no sense and didn’t have a place for a game many people are watching from around the country. That was especially true considering the participating teams were from Georgia and Washington state.

We know technical problems can plague any webcast, whether hosted on campus or by an outside company. What works once doesn’t necessarily work the next time – instead of broadcaster in my description or Broadcast Director in my D3sports title, it probably should read Broadcast Troubleshooter and Director.

Let’s start with Williams: The video feeds looks like it is from the 1990s. The audio broadcast is even harder to deal with since it sounds like the broadcasters are talking through an old telephone line with absolutely no background noise. It sounds like a game being played in the 1980s.

However, to be honest, I would rather listen to those games than the ones at Amherst.

Those guys clearly have no interest in calling the game with any iota of professionalism. They sounded like they happened to have some microphones and thought it would be cool to call the games for their frat brothers while sitting in the stands. Constant complaining about officials’ calls when they aren’t in favor of the Lord Jeffs; snide comments about the opposing team even one comment, “he celebrated like it was an NBA game, I am not sure what that was all about” which had no context especially since the video feed wasn’t working; overall disdain for anything not in purple; lack of preparation, “I think that is how you say his name, but I need to look that up;” and overall a lack of caring. I even heard the “color analyst” acting like a coach yelling out to an Amherst player to watch out for a defender who was coming in for a double-team at mid-court.

I am shocked that a school like Amherst which has name recognition and often hosts games would allow these two to broadcast. Furthermore, I wonder if the NCAA and Turner Sports are watching these broadcasts since they actually own the content.

Let’s get back to two key points: educational experience and the spotlight on these institutions who are streaming games and for Division III as a whole.

How does a reputable school like Amherst allow a broadcast that is so below amateur to represent it? And how can a very reputable liberal arts college think these broadcasters are getting an educational experience? The players on the court are held at a very high standard when it comes how they conduct themselves. Shouldn’t the same high standards be held to the broadcasters on the official webstream for the college?

This applies to all schools in this situation. I have worked with quite a few where they know this experience is something that can better these students so the mission is to make it part of their college education. I know schools with less name notoriety or attention this time of year who would have pulled the plug on the Amherst broadcasters before the first half even ended!

As for the spotlight, we as a Division III family should be embarrassed and ask for something to be done. This is the division we love and cherish and wish would get more attention from national and even local media. These are teams we know will show the basketball world in Atlanta that the Division III brand of basketball is pretty high-caliber. We are proud of these student-athletes and we are proud of those who support these athletes from their coaches to administrators to even broadcasters. But when you turn on showcased games and broadcasters aren’t respecting the magnitude of the game or the viewers, something needs to be done. These broadcasts may be popular among your alumni, especially your young alumni, because they are energetic, but they sound more like a video game than a college basketball contest.

Next weekend the D3hoops.com crew will be Holland, Mich., for the culmination of the women’s basketball season. And perhaps you will be too, since your teams have advanced. I am half-tempted to cancel my trip if I could travel to Amherst or Williams and show them how a broadcast in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division III Men’s Basketball Championship tournament should be done. In fact, I would be willing to travel to St. Mary’s (Md.) who doesn’t have a broadcast so that people can compare how bad those other entities are doing it at schools with plenty more national attention because of their institution’s names than most in Division III. Amherst even had a crew of ours in LeFrak Gymnasium earlier in early February for its doubleheader with Tufts University (men’s game tips off at 52-minute mark of that video). That was a crew made up entirely of former student broadcasters, ones who took the role seriously in their time at Division III schools. All of us at D3hoops.com had microphones in front of our faces as students, and we weren’t perfect, but we took the game seriously and worked hard to make ourselves better, even if we weren’t being mentored by anyone.

Plenty of Division III schools have fantastic student broadcasters, and continue to produce quality broadcasts year after year, even though students graduate and move on. If you are in Holland this weekend, stop and listen to what the students from DePauw University sound like. WGRE has been producing quality broadcasts for years, ones that the entire institution can be proud of and put a fine face on Division III. Other schools do so year after year as well, schools such as Ithaca College, North Central College, Wheaton College (Ill.) and others who take it seriously and would never tolerate the type of broadcasts put out recently by Amherst and Williams.

Division III fans shouldn’t stand for this; you and your institutions shouldn’t stand for this; and those broadcasters should realize they are doing far more than embarrassing themselves. They are embarrassing the student-athletes, the athletic departments, their institutions and Division III as a whole.

Advise your students to take themselves seriously, do their homework and respect their opponents. It’s important not only to know how to pronounce the names of starters but also head coaches and assistant coaches, and whether the opponent’s school goes by College or University. You should listen to their tapes, but more importantly, so should they. That is how you get better as a broadcaster. They should learn not to talk over each other, because usually when two people talk, then neither one can be understood.

But most importantly, what they should learn is that a big game tends to bring a big audience, and they need to elevate their game in response. Just as they wouldn’t expect the players on the floor to revert to a playground game when there is a title on the line, they shouldn’t use those two hours as a time to joke around with their buddies.

Dave McHugh
D3sports.com

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Dave’s Top 25 ballot: Week 12

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Parity… it has to be parity. Twelve teams in the D3hoops.com Top 25, including mine, lost a game in the last week. Eighteen teams receiving votes by voters lost a game. It has to be parity. What else could explain why this late in the season trying to figure out where teams fit on a Top 25 ballot is still a head-scratching experience.

Illinois Wesleyan moved into #2 on Dave’s ballot, but whether they stay there will depend on whether they can finish the CCIW campaign undefeated after their tussle with North Central.

This week, because of the number of teams that lost from top to bottom, some teams didn’t really shift that much on my ballot. Teams moved up and down, but only one made a dramatic move (Rose-Hulman) and once again I was thinking about who I should have in the last five spots.

So with just one ballot left until the NCAA tournament begins (and two total), here is this week’s version:

1 – St. Thomas – Unchanged

2 – Illinois Wesleyan – Up 2 spots
I am not sure if the Titans are the second best team in the country, but when everyone else doesn’t seem to want that distinction, the mantle passes to IWU. The Titans have a chance to be the first team since 1973 to get through the CCIW schedule undefeated if they can past North Central on Tuesday – but that game could also mean I am searching for another #2 next week.

3 – Hampden-Sydney – Down 1 spot
I still think the Tigers are a team that could make a serious run in the NCAA tournament despite their loss this week. Of course their loss was at home, but it was to an always tough Virginia Wesleyan team that used the game to wrestle the regular season title away from the Tigers. Considering there will be no home court advantage in the ODAC tournament, I think Hampden-Sydney has the best chance to win the conference title.

4 – Amherst – Up 3 spots
I stated on Hoopsville that I even after the triple overtime win over Middlebury I didn’t think the Lord Jeffs were a top five team. However, I also admitted that Amherst could move into the top five simply because of the number of teams that loss. I think Amherst is a really good team, but they have some things that give me concern on whether they can make a significant run in the NCAA tournament – similar concerns that cost them a deeper run last year. Let’s see if they prove me wrong in March.

5 – WPI – Unchanged
The Engineers lost to MIT on the road, but held onto the top seed in the NEWMAC thanks to a double-digit rally against Clark. The only two losses for WPI came back-to-back against Springfield and MIT on the road in what might a testament to just how tough the NEWMAC has been than any weakness of WPI may have. Thanks to those already discussed losses by other teams, moving WPI down didn’t make any sense.

6 – Middlebury – Down 3 spots
The Panthers made an great comeback on Amherst, but were the victims of an incredible purposely missed free throw put back to force a third overtime which they would eventually lose. I was chatting with Pat Coleman during the game that if Middlebury won, I would consider keeping them at #3. I also stated that if they lost, I could move them down to where Amherst was. Well, they are a spot above where Amherst was on my ballot last week and I am fine with that. The Panthers are a good team, but like Amherst I think they have some flaws that could cost them a significant run in the NCAA tournament. And like Amherst, let’s see if they prove me wrong.

7 – Catholic – Up 1 spot
I saw the Cardinals for the fourth of fifth time in person this week and once again they reminded me why I feel so confident in their squad. They came back from a loss to Scranton with a beatdown of my alma mater, despite the game not starting all that well (Goucher can force that in teams this year). In fact, they were playing so well in the second half, I swear Coach Steve Howes was using the opportunity to practice different offensive and defensive looks they made need in March. Now they have a chance at their first Landmark Conference championship title and first NCAA tournament appearance since 2007 – their last year in the CAC.

8 – Whitworth – Up 1 spot

9 – North Central (Ill.) – Up 2 spots

10 – Rochester – Down 4 spots
Have the Yellowjackets peaked too early? They had a two-game lead in the UAA, three games over Wash U., at the beginning of the month. Now they have to beat Emory to win the UAA. Should they lose, they will finish in a three-way tie at the top of the conference and will lose in the tie-breaker. They have lost two of the last three including Sunday’s six point loss at home to now 12-12 Case Western Reserve – ending a 35 game winning streak at the Palestra. Sometimes a loss near the end of the season is the perfect kick in the butt for a team, but you would have thought that loss would have been at Wash U. last week.

11 – St. Mary’s (Md.) – Down 1 spot

12 – Calvin – Up 2 spots

13 – UW-Stevens Point – Up 2 spots

14 – Wooster – Down 1 spot

15 – Ramapo – Down 3 spots
The Roadrunners are once again making me wonder what is going on. Yes, William Patterson is a good team, but they aren’t world-beaters. You would have thought Ramapo would have given the conference a message by beating the Pioneers and maybe set up the NJAC tournament up a bit differently. Instead, they will have to face the Pioneers in the conference semifinals Tuesday. They have lost both games this season to William Patterson and if they don’t want to find themselves on a fragile bubble they better figure out how to actually beat the Pioneers.

16 – Rhode Island – Unchanged

17 – Williams – Up 1 spot

18 – Wheaton (Ill.) – Up 1 spot

19 – UW-Whitewater – Up 2 spots

20 – MIT – Up 3 spots
The Engineers are back in the conversation thanks to winning eight straight games including a win at home against WPI. They still don’t have two of their top players from last year’s team back from injury, but Will Tashman has stepped up with the rest of this teammates, like Michael Kates, and has become the first MIT player with 1000+ points and 1000+ rebounds in his career. They may be a team to watch out for in the NCAA tournament because they aren’t going to be nervous.

21 – Cortland State – Down 1 spot

22 – Rose-Hulman – Down 5 spots
Man, did the Engineers lose a bad game or what? Granted, Earlham finished the week with a two-game winning streak, but they were 2-21 entering the game against Rose-Hulman. The Engineers did win on Saturday and will host the HCAC tournament – which they won on the road last year. I wasn’t going to take Rose-Hulman out of my rankings for the loss to Earlham, but I certainly thought long and hard about doing it.

23 – Virginia Wesleyan – Unranked
Last time I put the Marlins back in my poll, I said it looked like they might have righted the ship… then they lost. So, I do put them back in my poll while knowing they could easily loss in the ODAC tournament despite being the top seed. However, a win on the road against Hampden-Sydney to take the top seed away from the Tigers along with winning six straight and 12 of the last 14 while battling through the ODAC is worth noting.

24 – Alvernia – Unranked
The more I talk to different coaches in the Mid-Atlantic, the more Alvernia’s name keeps popping up. Many coaches think they are one of the best teams in the region. They won the MAC-Commonwealth regular season title by two games over crosstown rival Albright and beat a pretty good Lycoming team this past week. The road to the NCAA Tournament will go through this Reading, Penn. gym and not the other, so I like the Crusaders chances.

25 – Hobart – Unranked
Coach Mike Neer is proving again he can get a team rolling at just the right time of the year. They have won 11 straight and dominated the Liberty League. While they may not have the strongest out of conference schedule, they also didn’t exactly have the strongest schedule last year before nearly getting to the Sweet 16.

Dropped out:

Washington Univ. (Mo.) – #22 last week
The Bears just can’t figure out road games! They loss to a decent NYU team in a game they shouldn’t have lost on the road Friday night. They certainly rebounded well on Sunday against Brandeis, but the damage was already done. I appreciate the abilities this Wash U. team has and the schedule they have played and I realize they are in a good position in the regional rankings to probably make the NCAA tournament as a potential Pool C bid, but I just don’t have any confidence they can make any type of run in the NCAA tournament.

Wesley – #24 last week
The Wolverines are a pretty good team, but they already knew Salisbury had beaten St. Mary’s earlier in the week so you would have thought they would be ready for the Seagulls in the last game of the season. Wesley is now 2-2 in the last four losing to the other top teams in the CAC and after winning 11 straight games I wonder if like Rochester they peaked too early.

Old Westbury – #25 last week
I realize it was the Panthers first loss since NYU on Decemeber 5th and it was their first loss at home, but it was to now 13-12 Sage and would have meant an undefeated season in the Skyline Conference. I think maybe the Panthers were looking ahead. I like how Old Westbury has played and overcome many adversaries this year, but they have to stay focused. And when you are already at the bottom of my ballot, one loss will usually cause you to slip out.

Dave’s Top 25 ballot: Week 11

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Hampden-Sydney is a team Dave thinks is very under rated and his biggest ballot move was placing the Tigers at #2.

I mentioned last week it seemed voting in the Top 25 seemed to be getting harder, more challenging as the season progressed on. Usually it gets a bit easier as the top teams cement themselves a bit and you are only making some adjustments. This past week proved that this season is wide open and as Pat Coleman said on Hoopsville Sunday night this could lead to a very fun national tournament this year.

Of the 25 teams on my previous ballot, seven teams lost nine games with four of those teams and five of those losses happening in my top six. As a result, there is some major adjustments at the top of my ballot and not the bottom, for a change.

This was rivalry week with almost everyone playing an arch-rival, so I did consider that major fact while looking at some losses and wins this past week.

1 – St. Thomas – Up 1 spot
In the matter of three weeks, the Tommies have moved out of the top spot on my ballot and then back. They have moved past their lone loss and looking like one of the toughest teams in the country.

2 – Hampden-Sydney – Up 6 spots
I have stated numerous times that I think the Tigers are the most underrated team in the country. They play in one of the toughest conferences in the country and seem to be putting their foot down emphatically. They trounced their arch-rival, Randolph-Macon, on the road to sweep the season series for the first time in years. And when you look at the SOS numbers, they are impressive. Ahead they have a major clash with Virginia Wesleyan coming up Wednesday in which the Tigers could clinch the ODAC regular season crown.

3 – Middlebury – Up 2 spots
Middlebury may be a bit overrated at #3, but with so many teams losing in this part of the ballot, they simply migrated up the poll. I didn’t feel comfortable placing the Panthers #2 because of the number of close games and their one-point win over Williams now looks less interesting with Amherst looming on Tuesday night.

4 – Illinois Wesleyan – Up 4 spots
Last week I said the Titans would probably have to win the CCIW to crack my top five, but thanks to numerous losses ahead of them and another dominating week in the CCIW, they have moved up accordingly. The only test left for an undefeated conference season is North Central on the road… if they don’t overlook Millikin first.

5 – WPI – Down 3 spots
Almost everyone was waiting for the Engineers to lose their first game and it never seemed to be coming until Springfield got the job done Sunday afternoon. Springfield is having a good season and has a win against Amherst on their resume as well, so losing to the Pride on the road isn’t a shock. Now whether it was the delay thanks to an historic blizzard or just playing in a tough place, WPI has to right the ship quickly since they have MIT and Clark on the road to finish.

6 – Rochester – Down 2 spots
We know the UAA is a tough conference mainly because of the travel required, so we shouldn’t have been surprised that Rochester couldn’t stay undefeated in the conference. But Rochester is now 2-2 in the last two weekends and is holding on to a one game lead in the conference with three to play. And the team behind them, Wash U, dominated Rochester in St. Louis which you hope doesn’t mean Rochester peaked too soon.

7 – Amherst – Up 3 spots
The Lord Jeffs had already thumped their arch-rival Williams in a game a couple of weeks ago, but when they did the same thing, holding the Ephs to 48 points at home, it made me notice. It was Amherst’s only game of the week, but they are now on top of the conference with an important battle with Middlebury coming up.

8 – Catholic – Down 2 spots
The Cardinals losing on the road to Scranton shouldn’t be too surprising, except at times it isn’t clear what Scranton team will show up on the floor. Catholic did have to come from 20 points down to within 2, but couldn’t pull off the victory. The match-up is a bit of a rivalry, so I wasn’t going to bring them down the poll too far.

9 – Whitworth – Down 8 spots
Two losses probably would have resulted in a further slide down the poll if not for the number of losses by others and the fact that some of the teams below the Pirates didn’t seem like top ten teams. However, the loss to George Fox at home does give me great pause since this conference didn’t seem to be that big a challenge.

10 – St. Mary’s (Md.) – Up 3 spots
I am not sure the Seahawks are a top ten team, but they have migrated up thanks to a few factors: the number of losses my others and the fact they still have only loss two games this season (both to teams on my ballot). St. Mary’s has clearly played better than many expected especially since they don’t have any significant inside presence.

11 – North Central (Ill.) – Up 4 spots
The Cardinals appear to be playing better basketball than a few weeks ago when they were dealing with injuries to their top three players. I probably would have moved North Central into my top ten, except that while they beat Augustana handily on the road they couldn’t do the same to Millikin on the road. They have a major game against Illinois Wesleyan this week that could change the landscape of the CCIW.

12 – Ramapo – Down 3 spots
Another loss in the NJAC is not what the Roadrunners need right now before the conference tournament. The loss was to the third place teams in the conference on the road, but Ramapo needs to avoid these losses if they want to be ready for post-season play.

13 – Wooster – Up 4 spots
The Scots got through rivalry week with a win in overtime against Ohio Wesleyan and an easier win over Wittenberg. Wooster is a good team that just has to focus on all games and not forget what the goal is when playing teams like Wabash.

14 – Calvin – unchanged
Here is where I took a rivalry game into mind. Calvin losses a close game on the road at Hope which probably shouldn’t have been that unexpected just based on the history in this rivalry. Plus the fact, you had to figure Hope wanted revenge for the embarrassment in the first game. I still think Calvin is a good team and shouldn’t fall because of the biggest rivalry in Division III.

15 – UW-Stevens Point – Down 3 spots
The Pointers went 1-0 this past week, but their move downward is because they seem to be racked with injuries. I am not sure what has gotten them to this point in the season can allow them to hold on to the end.

16 – Rhode Island – Up 2 spots

17 – Rose-Hulman – Up 3 spots

18 – Williams – Down 7 spots
The Ephs got embarrassed on their own court by a team that has now embarrassed them twice this season. Yes, it was a rivalry game, but Hope showed they could show up at home against Calvin. Williams didn’t seem to show anything. The game was delayed several days because of the blizzard, but since it was at home that is less of an excuse in my book than a team that would have been on the road. It appears the Ephs were a little overrated in previous ballots.

19 – Wheaton (Ill.) – unchanged

20 – Cortland State – Up 1 spot

21 – UW-Whitewater – Up 1 spot

22 – Washington Univ. – unranked
The win over Rochester told me that the Bears may have figured out whatever was wrong and are back on track – at least at home. I think Wash U. is a team to watch out for, but I still have questions on where their season is headed especially because they may have to hit the road in the NCAA tournament.

23 – MIT – unchanged

24 – Wesley – unchanged

25 – SUNY Old Westbury – unchanged

Dropped out:

Christopher Newport – #16 last week
The Captains are in a tail spin. They have lost three straight including to now 11-10 LaGrange on the road. Of course the previous two games were losses at home. I am not sure exactly what is wrong, but this is the worst time of the season to be dealing with a significant losing streak.