FOURTH MDIA Div. A Top 25 Poll is out (4/5/06)!

[benji]

Personally I'm more surprised that a team like Texas Tech -- with zero wins over the Top 25 and three losses to ranked teams by an average of over eight goals a game -- gets ranked 23rd. But thats just my opinion...

Your facts are correct, but can you offer any suggestion as to why they shouldn't be?

[yourmom]

-#12 Lindenwood- we debate them often. Based on today's poll, they beat the #17 and #19 teams in the country. They lost to #11, #3. No more ranked games, easy league. Does #12 make sense to anyone? Maybe in the 14-16 range would be better?...

Not sure how Utah could be behind Lindenwood right now either. Despite losses to Chapman (by 7), unranked chico state (by 1, and I thought they would drop back to 20 for that, right?), and Duluth (by 1), they beat the #11 and #10 teams in the country, both of which they are behind.

If your counting today's poll Lindenwood also beat #24 Illinois... I'm being picky, I know, but they earned thier ranking.

As far as the no more ranked games though, and the strength of schedule deal, we had #16 NorthEastern, #25 Minnesota, #11 Oakland, #18 Boston College, and #4 Michigan all scheduled. Outside of that, we have to play conference games sometime.

As for Utah from what I hear they are a very high caliber team, but they did lose to #20 Chapman by, as you said, 7! And to an unranked team Chico, and to Duluth. Now don't think I'm trying to take away thier wins over Cal Poly and Arizona, but saying they should be ahead of Lindenwood who has only lost 2 games to the #3 and #11 ranked teams by closer margins? Just my $.02

[steveperry]

If your counting today's poll Lindenwood also beat #24 Illinois... I'm being picky, I know, but they earned thier ranking.

As far as the no more ranked games though, and the strength of schedule deal, we had #16 NorthEastern, #25 Minnesota, #11 Oakland, #18 Boston College, and #4 Michigan all scheduled. Outside of that, we have to play conference games sometime.



Valid, I forgot that Illinois was now ranked. AS for the others you list, boston college and Minnesota are not ranked at this time, so they are not of much consequence. Oakland is #17 and Northeastern is #19 right now. If we were counting what teams were ranked, then Lindenwood lost to #15 ARizona when they were ranked #10.

I am not saying they are a poor team, because they certainly are not. Any yes, they have to play league games. But, if a team wants to be considered a heavy competitor, they seem to find a way to schedule the big teams in their season (Examples of very competitive schedules are Michigan, Colorado State, Sonoma, Utah, Cal Poly, Chapman, Arizona, etc.). These teams have very tough conferences, but also travel outside to play the other competitive teams. Oregon is in a similar situation with not having a strong division. Last year and the year before that, they traveled and played very hard schedules, because they wanted to prove that they were a top 10 team.

I do hope that Lindenwood plays a big schedule next year and shuts of critics.

[NomaBlueCollar]

Personally I'm more surprised that a team like Texas Tech -- with zero wins over the Top 25 and three losses to ranked teams by an average of over eight goals a game -- gets ranked 23rd. But thats just my opinion...

Your facts are correct, but can you offer any suggestion as to why they shouldn't be?

seems like he already answered that, a better question might be what team would replace the empty spot if Texas Tech weren't in the top 25 at all?

[sohotrightnow]

And to an unranked team Chico, and to Duluth. Now don't think I'm trying to take away thier wins over Cal Poly and Arizona, but saying they should be ahead of Lindenwood who has only lost 2 games to the #3 and #11 ranked teams by closer margins? Just my $.02

Closer margins to who? Lindenwood lost to Arizona. Utah beat Arizona. Oakland is not as good as they were supposed to be, although Lindenwood can't be blamed for that. In addition, Lindenwood only has once convincing win this year (Eastern Michigan). Every other game has been a close contest...even games against suspect teams.

[Bluevelvet]

.....Examples of very competitive schedules are Michigan, Colorado State, Sonoma, Utah, Cal Poly, Chapman, Arizona, etc.)..

The 2 top SOS on Laxpower are BYU and UCSB. These are the top 15. Notice that 13 of the top 15 are west of the Rockies.
1 Brigham Young
2 UC Santa Barbara
3 Colorado State
4 Sonoma State
5 Colorado
6 Arizona State
7 Michigan
8 UC San Diego
9 Arizona
10 Utah
11 Oakland
12 Chapman
13 Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
14 Oregon
15 Loyola Marymount
Some other notables:
FSU-29
Lindenwood-35
VaTech- 38
UMD-50
Northeastern-67

[Dan Wishengrad]

Personally I'm more surprised that a team like Texas Tech -- with zero wins over the Top 25 and three losses to ranked teams by an average of over eight goals a game -- gets ranked 23rd. But thats just my opinion...

Your facts are correct, but can you offer any suggestion as to why they shouldn't be?

My "suggestion as to why (Texas Tech) shouldn't be" ranked 23rd, Benji, is you have no wins over ranked teams and no close, competitive losses to ranked teams, either. Is this not a fair assessment? Simon Fraser beat Arizona State in Tempe and played a top-ten team (Oregon) to a one-goal loss. New Hampshire lost by one to Northeastern. I ranked both teams higher than Texas Tech, which didn't make my Top 25 -- although you WERE in my Top 30.

But I am but one voter, and you guys were voted 23rd by the collective despite the omission of TT on my ballot. Good for you, and good luck with the rest of your season.

[Blue99]

As far as lindenwood, Floridia State, and Virginia Tech, all of you who are saying don't have the TOUGH schedules, well i don't blame them for not driving 2000 hours to play competitive teams. Im sure they would all love to have those teams come down and play but this is club and thats money, lets not use blame teams for not scheduling high priced games. Furthermore Lindenwood has had good margin wins consistently 5-7 goal wins are good in my mind thats a pretty definitive win. you don't have to beat a team 28-1 to be a definite win (cough). With teams like the 3 i mentioned moving up in the polls i think neutral sites would be a good idea for them and the westcoast teams. And i think those 3 teams are going to come out firing come nationals if they all make it. which im sure they will.

[Laxfan87]

I beg to differ, cardy. Arizona State was properly rewarded. IMO, they are lucky to even be that high, based on what I've seen of them

maybe voters are unsure of ASU because of losing to briefly ranked/now unranked SFU?

As for Texas Tech, I dont think Dan wanted to sound disrespectful. It is just a bit odd that a team with No ranked wins gets a ranking. The closest to a ranked team they beat is Missouri.

While there are unranked teams with wins over ranked teams

Chico
LMU
SFU come to mind

Not saying those teams should be ranked in the 20-25 for sure, but just stating that there are other teams with a notable win.

[/quote]

[benji]

Personally I'm more surprised that a team like Texas Tech -- with zero wins over the Top 25 and three losses to ranked teams by an average of over eight goals a game -- gets ranked 23rd. But thats just my opinion...

Your facts are correct, but can you offer any suggestion as to why they shouldn't be?

My "suggestion as to why (Texas Tech) shouldn't be" ranked 23rd, Benji, is you have no wins over ranked teams and no close, competitive losses to ranked teams, either. Is this not a fair assessment? Simon Fraser beat Arizona State in Tempe and played a top-ten team (Oregon) to a one-goal loss. New Hampshire lost by one to Northeastern. I ranked both teams higher than Texas Tech, which didn't make my Top 25 -- although you WERE in my Top 30.

But I am but one voter, and you guys were voted 23rd by the collective despite the omission of TT on my ballot. Good for you, and good luck with the rest of your season.

Dan I don't dispute your argument, you have valid points. I get confused, however, when you part of the argument is that we have no wins over ranked teams. By that, I mean that we have our only losses against Chapman, UC San Diego and Colorado... Are you in some way implying that we should have won those games?

As for the rest of our schedule, the LSA is currently a pretty weak conference, but, we have to play conference games. I mean no disrespect to the rest of the conference, but I do wish that the level of play, conference-wide, was higher. Not much we can do about that, though.

[sohotrightnow]

Furthermore Lindenwood has had good margin wins consistently 5-7 goal wins are good in my mind thats a pretty definitive win. you don't have to beat a team 28-1 to be a definite win (cough). With teams like the 3 i mentioned moving up in the polls i think neutral sites would be a good idea for them and the westcoast teams. And i think those 3 teams are going to come out firing come nationals if they all make it. which im sure they will.

The thing is, Lindenwood does not beat teams by 5-7 goals. They have 8 wins. 2 of those wins are by 5, and one of those wins is by 15. Their 5 other wins are by 4 or less goals against subpar competition. One of those wins was by 3 goals over Minnesota, who lost to Cal Poly by 14 and LMU by 3. I would hardly call that a convincing win.

[Zamboni_Driver]

I notice a lot of forum posters refer to wins or losses over ranked teams based on what their ranking was in this latest poll when comparing who beat who, not what the rankings were at the time of the game.

I know laxpower retro-fits its strength of schedule (SOS) based on latest power rankings. However, shouldn't we lock ranking of each team after the game is played?

I ask this question because under the retro-fit system, if a team is trying to break into the top 25, and beats a 20-25th rank team, the ranked team will drop due to the loss, and the team trying to break in still doesn't have a win over a ranked team.

Or conversely, the #14 team beats the #12 team early in the season, and the #12 team goes on to rise to #5, we'd have to give credit to the #14 team for beating the #5 team.

I think many would agree that throughout a season the productivity of a team can vary greatly (due to a loss, and injury, a new coach, a return of a player, new strategies, etc), thus comparing wins over ranked teams should be set at the end of the game?

Now I'm new here, so I don't know what is standard practice, but I'd like to know college football and basketball handle this same issue?

[OAKS]

Georgia Tech also seems to be a bit out of place in my opinion. They only have one win against a #21 Michigan State, and after that there most impressive win is a now unranked BC. Just because a team has played a few highly ranked teams close doesn't warrant this high of a ranking.

GT also dismantled a Cal team that as many as 5 people had in their top 25 (or less people if they had them higher than 25) and a Tennessee team who received votes in the last top 25 (yes i know they also lost to ECU recently). Just adding that in.

[CATLAX MAN]

GT also dismantled a Cal team that as many as 5 people had in their top 25 (or less people if they had them higher than 25)

And this is supposed to be a feather in GT's cap? Come on now, you're really stretching now. This is a team that Cal Poly beat 18-0 and also does not have one single quality win on their record.

[laxcd1]

It is interesting that NCAA Football uses the "BCS Formula" to determine rankings. One message on the second page of this forum referenced that numbers are flimsy, but I have to disagree. This is just an opinion, and in no way does it take away from what the pollsters do to contribute to this league. The rankings take the poll into consideration, so the pollsters do in fact contribute. New Hampshire and Northeastern are obviously exceptions due to their number of games played. After so many years in existence, the NCAA ultimately decided to make the move. Should we learn from them? Should a math formula determine who goes to the tourney? All pollsters have to make assumptions about teams they haven't seen play, and this becomes an "X" factor in the rankings. I simply like the formula because it takes the emotions, personal biases, and assumptions out of the equation. I am anxious to hear peoples thoughts on this.