Tag Archives: Hampden-Sydney

ODACcess Rapid Recap: Williamson Powers #8 H-SC’s Upset of #1 R-MC

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SALEM, Va. — Upsets happen in college basketball, particularly in February and March. They just don’t usually happen like this.

The eighth-seeded Tigers of Hampden-Sydney took down the top-seeded Randolph-Macon Yellow Jackets, 68-55, in a thrilling opener to the ODAC quarterfinals at Salem Civic Center.

For a time, it didn’t even look like it would be that close. The Tigers opened the contest on a 12-0 run and eventually scored 28 of the game’s first 36 points, drilling threes and hitting from the paint in equal doses, and it appeared Macon had no answer.

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But the Yellow Jackets, the only men’s ODAC team ranked in the D3hoops Top-25, were resilient in the final minutes of the first half. Macon finished the first on a 13-3 run, including the final 8 points of the period, and trailed just 31-21 entering the locker room.

The Tigers clearly felt the pressure, particularly in the middle-to-end of the second. While star and newly-named All-ODAC First Team member Khobi Williamson sat on the bench with three fouls, Macon took advantage of H-SC’s lack of size, pushing into the paint and drawing fouls at a rate that really, really irked the Tiger fans seated behind press row. The Jackets chipped away at the Hampden-Sydney advantage, first to 10, then into single digits, and finally taking it all the way down to just three, at 55-52, on a Trent Walker free-throw with 4:53 left to go.

“I felt my season slipping away,” Williamson, a senior, said about sitting on the bench while Macon mounted its comeback. “That really gave me motivation to get out there and make the most of what time was left.”

That motivation turned into an exceptional late-game performance. Williamson became the first Tiger to get to the line all afternoon after the Jackets cut the lead to three, and hit both. He proceeded to knock down both parts of the 1-and-1 on the next trip down the floor. He completed the single-handed 6-0 run with a brilliant contested shot from under the rim with the shot clock expiring.

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He would push the lead back to 10 a little while later, and Mike Murray sealed the #8-over-#1 upset with 3-of-4 from the charity stripe with under a minute to play. H-SC advances to play #5 Eastern Mennonite, which knocked off Lynchburg in the second quarterfinal.

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The Yellow Jackets, meanwhile, will have to wait until Monday to see if this loss burst their NCAA Tournament bubble.

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  • Final: #8 Hampden-Sydney 68, #1 Randolph-Macon 55
  • Player of the Game: Khobi Williamson (H-SC) (22 points on 9-for-13 shooting, 12 rebounds, 2 blocks, 2 steals)

ODACcess: History in Hampden (ACAC South Region Classic)

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HAMPDEN-SYDNEY, Va. — One of the great things about college basketball at any level is the contrast in styles. The long shot clock allows coaches to adapt their pace and tactics to suit their personnel. Teams can slow it down and concentrate on defense, use the drive-and-kick to create open threes, or get it in to a big, athletic body to create points in the paint. Day 2 of the ACAC South Region Classic put a couple of differing ODAC styles on display, to different degrees of success.

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One can’t drive from our home base of Charlottesville to Hampden-Sydney without getting a sense of history. The signage reminds you of it constantly: “The Constitution Route”; “The James Madison Highway”; “Lee’s Retreat Trail.” These signs recall the important events that took place in Albemarle, Buckingham, and Prince Edward Counties, and Hampden-Sydney College has been around for all of it. Founded in 1775 and modeled after the institution that would become Princeton University, H-SC has continued its operations ever since. It has not strayed from its original mission to educate young men, remaining one of only three schools in the country to maintain an all-male enrollment. Understandably, it has an athletics history to go with it.

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As we left the car, looking for Kirby Fieldhouse, we could sense the excitement on campus. After the Tigers’ victory last week over their bitter rivals Randolph-Macon (more on that history in a later piece) to clinch the ODAC football championship, they were granted a surprising opportunity to host an NCAA playoff game. We arrived towards the end of the first half, but even as the game progressed across the street, the tailgating parties continued to be raucous. We could only hope those fans brought the same excitement to their Tigers’ basketball game against North Carolina Wesleyan later that afternoon.

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Before any of that, though, there was the first game of the day, between Shenandoah and Mary Washington.

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Shenandoah basketball has fallen on hard times in the last fifteen years. The Hornets haven’t made an NCAA appearance since 1996, and last year, their first season in the ODAC, they won no conference games (although they have since been awarded one against Bridgewater due to an eligibility controversy). That performance earned them twelfth of twelve in this year’s ODAC preseason poll.

But the Hornets began this season a surprising 3-0, winning their Tip-Off Tournament at home, as well as game one of the South Region Classic against former USA South rival North Carolina Wesleyan (despite a four-hour postponement). Leading the way was senior Avery Green, bouncing back from an early injury last season, averaging 27 points per game, and earning the ODAC’s first 2013-14 Player of the Week honors.

It soon became apparent that the Hornets were going to struggle against the Eagles, who had more talent across the board. This Mary Washington team had hung tough with #14 H-SC the night before and brought the same attitude to this game: trusting their starters to make plays from all spots on the floor. The Eagles’ size and power inside gave them the edge on the boards, and they used that to create second chance opportunities to storm out to an early lead.

Meanwhile, the Hornets seemed to forget their bread and butter early on: let Avery Green drive into the paint and create a play. Instead, the Hornets settled for deep threes and contested jump shots, most of which clanged off the rim and into the hands of the Eagles. It didn’t help matters that Shenandoah’s best rebounder, Xavier Alston, pulled down only one offensive board in the half, and their next best shooter, Jared Carithers, couldn’t buy a bucket. With 6:38 left, they were behind 28-12.

But then the Avery Green show started. The moves he made in the paint during the end of the first half, and the entirety of the second, were nothing short of spectacular. To close out the half, he went on an 11-3 run by himself, finished with 16 first-half points, and almost single-handedly closed the gap to eight. After another slow start to the second half, he burst out again, posting 21 more points in the frame. Unfortunately, the rest of the Shenandoah offense provided little help. Aaron Patterson had a nice day off the bench from beyond the arc, but his 15 minutes of effort weren’t enough. Moreover, the Hornets couldn’t create plays off the pass, finishing with just three assists (a stark contrast to the Eagles’ 15). Green (37 points) made some history of his own, finishing with the 8th-best scoring day in Hornets’ basketball history and making an early case for an All-Conference nod in the process. But man cannot live on Avery Green alone, and the Hornets fell by eight.

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Then came the highlight event. By halftime of our undercard, the Tigers’ football team had finished off their playoff opponent–the school’s first-ever playoff victory, speaking of history. It was part of an all-around excellent weekend of athletics south of Farmville. The night prior, the Tigers had won on a miraculous comeback thanks to the efforts of the sharpshooting Greg Lewis, who drained two three-pointers in the final six seconds to erase a five-point deficit and sink Mary Washington. Given the excitement on campus, the crowd arrived loud and lively.

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Greg Lewis immediately picked up where he left off the night before, missing his first three, but sinking two more shortly thereafter. The Tigers scored the first 13 points of the game, and never looked back. Their system made for a great counterpoint to SU’s single-player style. The watchword for Dee Vick’s team is balance: by the end of the first-half, the Tigers had no players in double figures, despite scoring 49 points. The drive-and-kick offense was anchored by senior big man and 2013 All-ODAC selection Khobi Williamson and the Tigers’ pair of sharpshooting guards, Mike Murray and the aforementioned Lewis. Together, their ability to make plays (and turn busted plays into second-chance points) overwhelmed the Battling Bishops. By the half, the Tiger faithful had more to celebrate, leading 49-29. The Bishops held tough in the second, with nice play from Fola Branco, but never closed the halftime deficit. H-SC led by at least 16 points throughout the second, and finished off the Tigers’ winning weekend with a 90-73 victory.

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Final, Game 1: Mary Washington Eagles 77, Shenandoah Hornets 69
Final, Game 2: #14 Hampden-Sydney Tigers 90, NC Wesleyan Battling Bishops 73
Players of the Day: Avery Green (37 points, 5 steals); Khobi Williamson (14 points, 11 rebounds)
Mileage Tracker: 414 miles
Next Stop: Virginia Wesleyan at Bridgewater, January 8

Acknowledgments: Big thanks to Scott Harris, Assistant SID at Hampden-Sydney, and the entire Tigers Athletics staff for accommodating us in the press area.

Programming note: ODACcess will be on hiatus for the remainder of 2013. As much as we love covering college basketball, in our real lives we are law students, with busy exam schedules and holiday obligations. But don’t worry, folks, we’ll be back, just in time for the conference schedule to heat up in early January. See you then!

Welcome to ODACcess

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“With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion.” ~ E.A. Poe

rmc-hassell-480x400 With all due respect to our friend Edgar, sometimes passion is a purpose. What, for example, is the purpose of Division III athletics? At the risk of overgeneralizing, it seems to us that to a significant degree its purpose must be to enable athletes passionate about their craft to pursue their love for the game. We mean no disrespect to those for whom college athletics is a means to an end, a vehicle for a scholarship-endowed education or a chance at greater glories at the professional level. But it cannot be disputed that those incentives do not exist at the D3 level. With few exceptions, we think a D3hoopster suits up on game night because he or she is truly passionate about the game of basketball.

College basketball is our passion, too. Though neither of us played college ball (or at any level after we could grow facial hair), we are as wild for our teams as fans can be. We are also students of the game, voracious consumers of basketball minutiae, committed road-trippers, and lovers of hoops wherever it is played, by whoever is playing it.

In that vein, today we welcome you to The ODACcess Project. For the next few months, we will be traveling to every arena in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference, witnessing in person the play of every men’s basketball team in the league. We — Sidney Helfer and Dominic Pody, for those scoring at home — have no connection to the teams we will be following. Rather, we embark solely because of our passion. Our purpose is to document in these pages what we see and hear on our journey.

odac-logoMost of the news coverage that surrounds D3 sports — to the extent that it exists outside of this website — is dry, factual recitation. More Joe Friday than Hunter S. Thompson. Informative game recaps are perfectly valid journalism, of course, but knowledge that Player X scored Y points and grabbed Z rebounds doesn’t tell the whole story of the game. We promise to tell that whole story, to give you the “access” explicated in our name. We will take you to the campuses, inside the arenas, and even into the student sections if we can. These communities are the lifeblood of D3 hoops, and that is what we want to tap.

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you already understand the pulse of D3 hoops. We get that. We are neither here to evangelize D3 athletics (though we certainly wouldn’t mind changing some skeptical minds) nor to patronize it. Our goal is simply to describe the experience of being there. We want to fill the gap that exists somewhere between beat writer, wire reporter, and diehard fan, and give national exposure to these teams and players that are often familiar only to locals, or to the coaches and ADs who live and breathe the game.

And although this project is about the players, people, and passions constituting D3 basketball, please indulge us for a moment as we introduce ourselves.

Sidney: My introduction to the world of Division III athletics happened mostly by accident. My parents both attended Beloit College, but growing up 650 miles from their alma mater, it was difficult to be passionate about them. Once at age 8 I was brought along to a college reunion and found myself attending Beloit’s homecoming football game against Monmouth College (they lost). That was the extent of my experience until I left to attend college myself. I’d developed passion for sports generally along the way, although my love of college basketball was still in its nascent stages.  My decision to attend the College of Wooster was not impacted by their status as a high-achieving D3 program. However, once there, the success of the basketball team, the comparable lack of success of their football counterparts, and the intimacy of the collegiate community, instilled in me a love of the sport, the team, the school, and the town that embraced it so wholeheartedly. Soon I found myself making road trips to Springfield, to Delaware, to Oberlin to follow the Scots, players whom I knew and respected as students and peers as well as athletes. And with the passion came a share of heartbreak, as my Scots kept falling a few buckets short of the ultimate goal: a championship in Salem. But no matter how the season ended, no matter how many games they won, we all went back to being students and members of our little community. Therein lies the magic of Division III basketball: the passion these athletes play with, and the community of their fellow students that forms behind them. Even though I’ve left campus, I still want to be part of that kind of community, and through this project I can be there and hopefully bring you along as well.

Dominic: Unlike Sidney, I come into this project as an outsider to the world of D3 sports. I do have two experiences that led me here, however. For a little while after graduating college, I worked as a copywriter in the newsroom of small national sports wire service. As many sportswriters will tell you, the thrill of being paid to cover sports is incredible, at least at first. But despite writing about some wonderful moments — covering both Lehigh-Duke and Norfolk State-Missouri on the day both 15-seeds shocked the NCAA tournament is particularly memorable — the joy waned with each boring game story. Writing that player X scored Y points and grabbed Z rebounds is just as unsatisfying as reading it. What I truly enjoyed during and after that time was my time with The Mid-Majority, a site for fans of Division I’s perpetual underdogs to congregate and discuss fandom from the perspective of an extreme monetary disadvantage vis-à-vis the big dogs. TMM will sadly close its doors at the conclusion of this college basketball season, but one of its core tenets, if not its central message, will live on: sports are better when you’re there. That is the key reason I’ll get behind the wheel to drive to our first game this Friday.

So now that you know a little about us and our philosophy, it’s time for the important question: what do we have on tap for the year? Well as far as teams go, we’ll be covering three of the country’s top-25 programs: Hampden-Sydney, Randolph-Macon, and Virginia Wesleyan. Two of these teams—H-SC and R-MC—share an historic rivalry, which we will explore in detail; the other is a former national champion and perennial contender. We’ll also visit 2012-13 NCAA Tournament squad Randolph College, who will be taking on a surprise Division I Tournament team in Liberty on Friday. There may be a surprise team or two, who knows. Whether we’re visiting these teams or others, we’ll do a little live-tweeting during the games, so give us a follow if you’re into that sort of thing. Eventually, we would like to take you behind-the-scenes, talking to coaches and players about their experiences in-game and out. What else? Only time will tell. This is, in part, an experiment for both of us. We hope you’ll join us for the ride.

See you Friday.

 

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 10

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Sorry for the tardiness on this, but celebrating the Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl title got me a little out of sync this week and then the computer I have my blog written on decided to quit working when I went to post this on Wednesday morning. Better late than never, I guess.

Once again, I had to do some real analyzing after not only the number one team lost, but when several other teams on my previous ballot took losses. (And as you will notice, I will already be changing my number one team next week.)

The one thing I have noticed and even discussed with other voters, there may be 15 or 20 teams everyone feels comfortable with, but those last five or ten spots are turning into a cluster(fill in the blank). For the most part, it seems like no one wants to step up and grab their position in the polls or in their conferences. As a result, I think voting this season may be getting harder in some ways than usual years when you really have a sense of who the best teams in the country are.

1 – Whitworth – Up 1 spot
I really debated about this. The Pirates have certainly been on a tear winning every one of their games except the season opener against St. Thomas, but besides Whitman their conference schedule has been somewhat weak. They already had to use extra time to get past a pretty decent Whitman squad, but they have also been dominating teams for the most part. I am sure I will be changing this pick sooner than I would like (and now after the fact this is indeed true).

2 – St. Thomas – Up 1 spot
I seriously considered putting the Tommies back into the number one place after they clearly rebounded from their lone loss pretty well. However, I had decided that St. Thomas’ loss to Concordia-Moorehead was worse than Whitworth’s loss to St. Thomas in game number one, so I didn’t feel comfortable changing that mentality a week later.

3 – WPI – Up 1 spot
Being the Engineers are undefeated and had a nice victory of Springfield this past week, I could have easily decided to move WPI all the way to #1. However, I am still considering who they have played… or not played. WPI is clearly having a better season than anyone could have expected, but I may need to see a little more before I think #1 is the right place for WPI.

4 – Rochester – Down 3 spots
I expected the Yellowjackets to get through the weekend unscathed, though maybe bruised, as my number one team. Of course if they had lost to Brandeis, I wouldn’t have been shocked. But to lose to an NYU team that I clearly had overrated earlier this year was not what I would have expected. Rochester did rally to get through the weekend 1 and 1, but they lost the wrong game. Considering it was their first loss of the season, on the road, and many teams below also lost, Rochester didn’t fall as much as I thought about moving them.

5 – Middlebury – Up 1 spot

6 – Catholic – Up 1 spot

7 – Hampden-Sydney – Up 2 spots

8 – Illinois Wesleyan – Up 6 spots
I was already starting to buy into the Titans, but when you beat Augustana (on the road) and Wheaton (at home) to sweep the season series from those two and remain three games ahead of North Central, I was ready to buy in further. Can the Titans get through the entire CCIW unscathed? Maybe, but the conference is too good in general for that to possibly happen. So I will continue to move IWU up the board, but won’t jump them into my top five until they get through the conference unscathed.

9 – Ramapo – Up 1 spot

10 – Amherst – Up 3 spots
The Lord Jeffs had a very good week beating Rhode Island and two conference opponents, albeit at home. As a result, their win over Williams now becomes a bigger factor, especially since it was a blow out, so I moved them ahead of the Ephs. However, Amherst didn’t have the strongest out-of-conference schedule and lost two games as well, so I think this could be my ceiling unless they beat Williams on the road in the same manner.

11 – Williams – Down 3 spots
I did move the Ephs down, but it had more to do with teams I moved ahead of them than the week they had. Granted they won two games on the road in the conference, but they were both close games against Bowdoin (12-9) and Colby (6-15). I know it isn’t the easiest thing to travel in the NESCAC especially from northwestern Massachusetts to anywhere in Maine (there is no such thing as a straight drive from Point A to Point B in that scenario), but if the Ephs are that good they should handle that scenario a bit better.

12 – UW-Stevens Point – Down 7 spots
It wasn’t like the Pointers had it easy this week: they played on the road against Platteville and La Crosse who are both having solid seasons. What surprised me was the fact the Pointers were held to just 46 points against Platteville and then couldn’t recover a few days later against La Crosse and only scored 62. That is just the kind of week that can derail a team and makes a voter nervous. I am not sold on just how good the WIAC is this season maybe because the top of the conference isn’t as good as usual while the middle of the conference is just as tough as always.

13 – St. Mary’s (Md.) – Up 2 spots

14 – Calvin – Up 2 spots

15 – North Central (Ill.) – Up 2 spots

16 – Christopher Newport – Down 5 spots
I was confident the Captains were pretty good this year, but when you lose to a .500 team like Greensboro at home, I take pause. I still think CNU is a solid team, but I may have had them too high in my poll. (And since I voted they lost to Virginia Wesleyan at home and it wasn’t close.)

17 – Wooster – Down 5 spots
The win over Denison at home was destruction; the loss on the road against Wabash was… well… embarrassing. I am not sure if the Scots were looking too far ahead to their game against Ohio Wesleyan or not, but this is the time of year where a team needs to put its foot down and not stub its toe.

18 – Rhode Island – unchanged

19 – Wheaton (Ill.) – unchanged

20 – Rose-Hulman – Up 3 spots
The Engineers put their foot down on the HCAC. With a very important game against underachieving Transylvania who beat them at home earlier in the year… they won on the road. Rose-Hulman now has a two game lead on the conference forcing everyone to go through Terre Haute, Indiana if they want to automatically pack their bags for the NCAA tournament.

21 – Cortland State – Up 3 spots

22 – UW-Whitewater – unranked
As I mentioned earlier, I am not sold on the top of the WIAC. I have also not been sold on the Warhawks a lot this season; they simply lost too much from last year’s national champions. But they keep winning and are now just a game back of UW-Stevens Point and may be finding their stride… for now.

23 – MIT – unranked
For the engineers, I mean beavers, no I mean Engineers (plenty of them in my Top 25), they still don’t have Jamie Karraker or Noel Hollingsworth back and may never get them back, but they are still winning. There are three seniors in double-figures including Mitchell Kates and Will Tashman who are scoring 15+ points a game and some of the underclassmen are stepping up. Only one of their four losses is a bad one (Salem State) and they have won five straight. Maybe MIT has found a way to win this season despite the challenges they have faced.

24 – Wesley – Down 4 spots
I knew that trying to sweep St. Mary’s, especially with the second game being on the road, would be a tall task. So, I really wasn’t going to eliminate them from my ballot and they only moved this far down because I was moving other teams in that I think might still be better despite the fact the Wolverines have still won 12 of the last 13 (as of my voting).

25 – SUNY-Old Westbury – unranked
In a constant search for who are the best 25 teams, I am taking another stab at a team that maybe isn’t getting enough attention. I don’t have the space to explain the season the Panthers have had simply from Superstorm Sandy and the aftermath. But consider that Old Westbury played their first 13 games of the season on the road, had to travel by van to every practice for the first several months at a gym off campus, and they didn’t even have their own locker rooms during that time. Still, the Panthers are undefeated in their conference and while games have been close recently it is probably because the Panthers aren’t used to playing in their own gym!

Dropped out this week:

DeSales – 21st last week
I will be the first to admit, I made a mistake here. Shortly after I placed DeSales in my ballot and stated they were one team flying lowest on the radar, they lost two games in conference including a pivotal game with Delaware Valley before falling asleep against Misericordia.

Transylvania – 22nd last week
The Pioneers did it to me again. I bought in and put them back in my Top 25 only to see them lose to Rose-Hulman, at home no less. I just can’t figure out the Pioneers who didn’t lose any of their starting offense from last year’s squad, but clearly lost something from the seniors who left even if it wasn’t on the court.

Alvernia – 25th last week
You can almost copy my comments about DeSales into this section: they lost a pivotal game against conference and Reading, PA rival Albright. They didn’t lose two games, but when you are on the very bottom of the ballot, any slip can cost you.