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Messages - West Coast Bias

#1
Thanks Pat! That is far too logical and reasonable.
#2
Thanks D-Mac!

I didn't know the criteria changed week to week. I was just going off of the NCAA D3 Primary Selection Criteria:

(Not listed in Priority Order)
●● Win-loss percentage against Division III opponents.
●● Division III strength of schedule.
-- Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OWP).
-- Opponents' Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OOWP).
[See below for explanation of OWP and OOWP calculations.]
●● Division III head-to-head competition.
●● Results versus common Division III opponents.
●● Results versus ranked Division III teams as established at the time of selection.

I was also counting "ranked" opponents as those regionally ranked (not my first rodeo!  :D )

Any way for us to know which criteria the regional committies are using in a particular week?

#3
Good to see the SCIAC getting some love in the West Regional Rankings with both PP (#7) and CMS (#9).

Interesting that both St. Thomas and St. Olaf are ranked ahead of PP. I was trying to figure out what criteria could be used to determine that...

Now assuming that the records are close (St. Thomas 3 losses, CMS 3, St. Olaf 4, PP 4):

I would usually start with head to head results. PP beat St. Thomas. So thats not a top criteria.

Its obviously not because they have superior non-conference scheudles (they only play 5 non league games).

Its not because they have a bunch of great non conference wins (both teams 3-2. Both lost to UWSP, and St. Thomas lost to PP, St. Olaf to Augastana).

I can't imagine that it is a significant SOS disparity, because the MIAC has 2 teams as bad as Cal Tech.

It can't be wins over regionally ranked opponents (PP-2, CMS-1, St. Thomas-1, St. Olaf-0)

I guess the most imprtant factor in regional rankings is who you lost to.

2 of the 3 losses for UST are to ranked teams. 2 of St. Olafs losses are to ranked teams. PP lost to CMS and then 3 non ranked teams. CMS lost to PP and 2 non ranked teams.

That would also explain how Whitworth could be ranked ahead of a Colorado College team that they lost to...TWICE!

Really interesting way of looking at rankings. Winning doesn't matter. It only matters who you lose to.
#4
Are they running some kind of special on rose color glasses in the Cal Tech Bookstore????

Cal Tech is definitely better. They can definitely compete in the SCIAC with every team. This has been the case however for a few years now. Ever since Roy Dow and the monster front court of Haussler, Hires, and Jordan Carlson has Cal Tech been good enough to beat people.

HOWEVER, they most definitely DO NOT get everyone's "best game". I wouldn't go so far to say that teams not to lose. But I would say that a win against Cal Tech is a relief. Win, and you did what you were supposed to do, beat the worst team in the conference that has won 1 conference game in 25 years. And if you don't win...

If you are Cal Lu, who do you think you would be more fired up to play... Pomona-Pitzer, the team directly ahead of you in the standings, who already beat you this season, and one of the best teams in the league...Or Cal Tech, a team you already beat this season by 24 and has won 1 SCIAC game in 25  years?

I hope they pull one off this year. I can't wait until they win a few league games in a season. It would be great for SCIAC basketball. And we wouldn't have to listen to the constant chorus of "Cal Tech might win one this year!" and "Look at  how much better they are!", and they can be just another bad D3 basketball team (which is what they are).

My man Big Cat coming in HOT with ALL SCIAC perdictions with as many as 6 games to play! Who cares about the last 6 games anyway....all that really matters is how you did in January...

The POY will always go to player nominated by the coach on the team that won the regular season title (e.g. 2011 Andrew Mills).

It will be interesting to see how the 5pm start time affects the crowd for the CMS-PP matchup. They have always been plenty rowdy by the 7:30 tip....




#5
Easy on my man OxyBob... He was keeping the old SCIAC board going practically by himself for awhile (with Gray Fox and WooStar of course).

Coach Bokosky's record in 21 years at Chapman is 380-170.

Hey Bigcat, what's your record as a college basketball coach?

Well said elfinley! Who would have ever thought that there was a Chapman blowhard out there that would make dahlby look like a perfect gentleman??  ;D
#6
First off I would like to acknowledge that CMS plays fantastic defense. They play hard, solid team defense and really make it tough on opposing defenses. If you want to look at stats, I would say ranking #14 in the nation in Field Goal Percentage Defense is a much more impressive stat than their current ranking #2 in Points Per Game Allwowed. I was just pointing out that PPG is not always a function of good defense, but the pace at which a team plays...and CMS plays SLOW ...

Through 7 SCIAC games (6 for CMS and Whittier), Average Shots per game (Opponents Shot Attpempts Per Game + Team Shot Attempts per game)

PP - 126.5
Whittier - 126.2
Redlands - 124.5
Oxy - 118.1
Cal Tech - 115.3
Chapman - 112.3
Cal Lu - 111.3
ULV - 107.3
CMS - 98.9

They make 4 corners look like 40 minutes of hell!

- I think the academic argument is one of my favorite arguments in D3. The high academic schools like to whine about how difficult it is to find good players that can get into school. The schools with less competitive academic situations will often point to the advantage in resources the academic schools often have. My take is that it is just plain hard to recruit good players and win basketball games. If you are winning, then you are doing something right. Those other guys are trying too...

- How dare anyone call Stag44 unbaised! The Stag44 I knew would take offense to that comment. He is unabashedly proud of his Stag roots, president of the Scali fan club, and still sleeps in his maroon and gold underoos. I take offense to your attempts to be unbaised. We all know where you stand. I expect more of  you.

- How can WooStar possibly say Cal Tech is any tougher to get into than Pomona or Claremont? They have 10 FRESHMAN ON THEIR TEAM!!! So for you non Cal Tech math wizards out there, that means 6% of the males in their freshman class are basketball players. I would venture to say that is by far the highest percentage in the country. They are a basketball factory!

- If (Fill in the blank SCIAC player) had (Fill in the blank missing skill) they would be playing in a better league than the SCIAC...But they don't. Hence they are in the SCIAC...
#7
The biggest probelm for Cal Tech is that they aren't very good. They are MUCH better than they were a few years ago, which is a testament to Coach O and but more importantly to the administration's commitment to not being an embarassment (as evidence by their improvement in athletics across the board, not just men's hoops). The hoop team is just your garden variety bad basketball team now, which is really a Catch-22. When they were REALLY bad they could sneak up on teams that underestimated them. Now that they are a respectable team, their opponents don't overlook them quite as much, coaches prepare more, players don't expect to win by 50. So even though they are better, there are on the receiving end of a better game from their opponents more often than they were a few years ago. And that is way too much time spent talking about a team that has won 1 SCIAC game in the past 25+ years...

Enough talking about  losing...

An overdue congratulations to Coach Kat at Pomona-Pitzer for winning his 400th game over the holiday break against Trinity in San Antonio. Coach Kat is a class act whose teams always play hard.  I believe Coach Kat (402 and counting) is the 2nd all time winningest coach in SCIAC history behind only Gary Smith of Redlands(450). Also to be mentioned is Rich Rider at Cal Lu whose career win total for divions 2 and 3 is 444.

Great for CMS to be #3 in the nation in scoring defense. We should also congratulate them on being #393 (out of 409) in scoring offense. Good to see that Scali and the Stags are up to their old tricks of trying to make the game as ugly as possible.

The league appears to be a muddle of mediocraty. CMS looks like the team to beat. They have the most balance and depth.  Be sure to check out their live broadcast of their games, especially if you have insomnia. It will put you right to sleep.

PP looks like every other PP team. I imagine their recruiting letter reads like a personal ad. Seeking smart male, between 6'2 and 6'6, can shoot the 3, but pleae no one over 190 pounds...Good enough to make the SCIAC tournament, but about as tough as tissue paper.

I put Whittier, Redlands, Cal Lu and Chapman in a battle for the 3 and 4 spots. Cal Lu will be dangerous as the season goes along as the players continue to learn each others names. Redlands has a chance if they can get Rudd and Peetz into a basic math class (My point< My man's points = UR Loss). Maybe Chapman can do a cross enrollment for that class with Hamasaki and Zarvsnick...who knew Coach Bo had it in him to play games in the 80s??? And Whittier, well I stopped trying to figure out Whittier a long time ago.

Oxy will always have a punchers chance as long as Montoya is there. La Verne has some good talent, if only the refs would stop screwing over Rich Reed.

And then there is the Mighty Techsters...Keep on trucking....or engineering...or whatever...I would still rather watch one one of your games over a CMS snoozefest any day.


#8
There is NO WAY you can see if he got fouled from the tape.  The angle of the camera in the CMS gym is in the 2nd deck and the shot happened right in front of the PP bench.  So the camera is 30 feet away, with the entire PP bench standing.  And unless our friend Hoopsallthetime is a CMS assistant, he has only seen the web stream of the replay.  I have seen many a web stream, and last I checked CMS isn't broadcasting in HD.  Meanwhile the official who made the call is standing there 5 feet from the play.  The official saw a foul and called it.  He didn't make it up.  Contrary to your conspiracy theories, the officials don't care who wins.  They just call what they see.  Call me crazy. 

I am shocked to hear a CMS fan say that he does not believe that CMS got the benefit of the calls!  Meanwhile BballJunkie seemed to think CMS did have the game called their way.  Sounds to me like it was probably called pretty evenly.

The only certainties in life are death, taxes, and the losing team crying about the officials!

Hoopsallthetime...you are really doing a disservice to the regular CMS posters like Stag44 and CMSfan.  They cheer unabashedly for their team, show their support, but they don't come on here and slam officials and other teams student bodies.  No doubt the PP fans said some vulgar things, but if you think the CMS fans are any different you are completely delusional.  Its an intense college basketball rivalry.  With intoxicated college students.  There are some that say some crude things.  AT EVERY SCHOOL.  Take your sour grapes somewhere else.

I watched on the webcast and could hear almost all of the PP fans chants.  You are probably referring to these horribly offensive chats.

"CAL STATE CLAREMONT!"

And when the CMS fans chanted "SCOREBOARD!"  They were met with a rousing "WHATS YOUR REAL SCORE?" from the PP side.



Oh the vulgarity!




#9
Professor Sager, most people don't even know what the primary selection criteria for a Pool C bid are out west because it happens so infrequently.  I think the reason posters out here cite "respect" as a factor because it often appears that way.  For example, take the current regional rankings.  In the 8 regions, the team with the best record in that region is ranked #1 in 5 of those regions.  The 3 regions that have a team ranked #1 that does not have the best record?  The Midwest - Wash U; Northeast - Amherst; and West - The UWs.  Im sure that there are numbers to back up the rankings in all 3 of those regions, but it is also easy to see why many people think there is a "respect" criteria as well.

Also I would like to get this on the record before the tournament bracket comes out and every starts talking about how the SCIAC never makes any noise in the tournament.  Home teams win NCAA tournament games.  Last year in the tournament the home team went 28-8.  Only 2 of last years sweet 16 teams had to win true road games to get there.  So while it may be true that the SCIAC hasn't "earned respect" by making deep tournament runs, few teams ever make deep tournament runs when they have to play all their tournament games on the road.
#10
Apparently Stag44 only posts after CMS wins.

La Verne is too talented to be 1-4.  Can they make a run to the conference tourney a la Cal Lu in 2009?

I heard Oxy was going up tempo this year?  Doesn't seem to be the case as of late.

Good to see Nettles back for Cal Lu.  He gives them another weapon they desperately need.

Whittier is the real deal.  Might be the most talented team in the league (although we have said that before).

Who are all these new guys for PP?  And what happened to Moss?
#11
Dahlby,

I just searched each schools admissions profile for the class of 2013 to get those percentages.

Pomona - 6149 applicants
CMC - 4,246
Cal tech - 4,413

Let me make it clear that I know the Cal Tech students are incredibly bright.  I know they are smart, motivated, and hard working.  And their basketball team is improving.  I hope they break the streak.  I was just responding to the asinine "They will work for Cal Tech grads some day" post.  It seems whenever someone brings up Cal Tech basketball it always comes back to the old "their students could never get in to Cal Tech" argument.  The best thing about the SCIAC is ALL the student athletes are just that, student athletes.  They go to class, study hard, and take their education seriously.  I just wanted to knock the Cal Tech crony off his academic high horse.

#12
Great to see some Cal Tech posters on this board!  And they seem to know who to go after right from the start!  OxyBob I guess you just can't make any friends in the SCIAC.

Say what you want about OxyBob, but the man knows his hoops.  He has been around the SCIAC for a long time, and has seen our best teams and our worst.  For those of us that can't make it to games, its great to have a somewhat biased but honest take on the games.  I wasn't at the game on Saturday, but when looking for an honest assessment of how much better Cal Tech is it looks like I can either go with OxyBob, an Occidental supporter and SCIAC diehard who decided to spend his Saturday night at a PP Cal Tech game, or what appears to be either a player, coach, or parent of this years Cal Tech squad, seeing with his or her heart.

No doubt that Cal Tech is better this year.  Their win total is evidence of that.  But when OxyBob says "Same old Cal Tech", he is probably referring to the fact that the Beavers were held to 12 points in the 2nd half, and 41 for the game.  Which looks an awful lot like the 47 ppg they scored in SCIAC play last year, and the 46 ppg they scored in 2009.  The only difference between the beavers almost getting a W and getting beat to sleep is PP only scored 47 for the game.  Inept offense?  Great Defense?  I wasn't there, I can't say.  But I do know that when one team has been to the SCIAC championship game 3 straight seasons, and one team hasn't won a conference game in 298 attempts, I would have given the former the benefit of the doubt too. 

And before you get too high and mighty about Cal Tech academics and people working for other people...

2 schools in the conference have had President's of the United States attend.  Cal Tech isn't one of them.

Pomona College acceptance rate - 14%
Claremont Mckenna College acceptance rate - 16%
Cal Tech acceptance rate - 17%

Not even the toughest school to get into in the SCIAC!   :o

Any predictions for this week? 
#13
Quote from: oldchap on December 12, 2010, 04:17:30 PM
Quote from: CrashDavisD3 on December 12, 2010, 12:53:31 PM
Chapman is now 8-1 and 6-0 vs SCIAC so far with 65-54 win over Pomona-Pitzer on Saturday. Will SCIAC vote Chapman into the SCIAC ? I guess we will find out in April 2011.

http://www.chapmanathletics.com/sports/mbkb/2010-11/releases/1211

Even though it makes complete sense, looking at the success they've had in the past several years against SCIAC teams, you would think no SCIAC coach would be very thrilled about welcoming Chapman in their Conference. We'll see...

Complete sense for Chapman?  Absolutely.  For the SCIAC?  I can't think of one reason why adding Chapman benefits the SCIAC.

Chapman is not as good as last year.  The SCIAC is down. 

Gray,  I think the reason there are no SCIAC posters on this board right now is because everyone is trying to figure out who is on their team.  There are a lot of new faces running around the SCIAC. 

Claremont went from being the run away favorite to just another team with the loss of Blees.
Cal Lu is trying to find their identity without Knudsen and Meyer.
Oxy has a nice 3 man show going with McCoy Hanley and the new guy.  But last I checked you played with 5.
PP doesnt have 1 player on their roster that I remember playing last year.
UR has probably the most veteran team, but can they put it together?
Whittier was one of the most talented teams going into the season, but the loss of Menez and Deane puts them at square 1
ULV has a lot of pieces back but are still trying to put them all together
Cal Tech is better, much better, but I am guessing their posters are on a different board.


Seems like most years where the winner of the SCIAC tournament will get the bid.  And it looks like we have a dog fight for the top 4.  Should be a fun year in the SCIAC.  Here are my SCIAC predictions:

1. Redlands
2. Cal Lu
3. Oxy
4. CMS
5. ULV
6. PP
7. Whittier
8 Cal Tech

Oxy wins the SCIAC tournament behind monster performances by their Big 3.

Cal Tech breaks the streak.

With a down SCIAC, Chapman sets a new record for lowest SOS for an NCAA pool B team.





#14
I think my point wasnt clear enough.  Joey Anderson is a Stud.  I love his game.  I think he is a true difference maker.  Every team in the SCIAC would love to have a guy like him.  He is a defensive monster and a rebounding machine.  He definitely deserved 2nd team ALL SCIAC.

I was just poking fun at another overstatement by Stag44.  That despite his wonderful qualities, I wouldn't really say that Joey Anderson was just scratching the surface of his offensive skills.  Deshun McCoy is just starting to scratch the surface of his offensive abilities.  So are Trevor Woodland, Jordan Sanvictores, and Donald Okpalugo.  If you said pick one guy to get a rebound to win the game Joey is my guy.  He is a gifted offensive rebounder.  I just don't think he has the skill set to be an offensive juggernaut in the SCIAC.

And while your games are similar,  he is missing the patented Stag44 fist pump as you are running down the floor after a rebound put back... but that will never be duplicated.  ;)
#15
Quote from: stag44 on March 04, 2010, 06:18:43 AM

Interesting though, that there was no one from Redlands on there (I thought Coffey would get a mention), and only 5 teams were represented on the All-SCIAC (3 from CMS, CLU, PP; 2 from OXY and Whittier)

Congrats to Blees who won Back2Back SCIAC POYs. I'm sure there was discussion of a Co-POY with Knudsen, but because the Stags won the conference by 2 games, I don't think they could have given it to anyone but Blees.

Very happy to see that Joey was given a mention as well - I think without question he would be the Most Improved player in the conference as well. The scary part is that he's just scratched the surface of his offensive skills and talent. Most of his impact right now is coming from energy and hustle plays and using athleticism to get boards, put backs and stops. One more year developing under Scali, and the frontline for Blees, Anderson and Lacey will cause serious issues for opponents!


I am also shocked that there is no Redlands representation on the All SCIAC.  I wonder if it had anything to do with their 5 man line change substitution pattern.  Pat Coffey was too good this year, and over his career, not to receive some recognition.

Interesting that you mention Knudsen as potential POY, but not Justin Sexton.  Sexton was 3rd in the league in scoring, and 1st in rebounding, 3rd in assists,  and ranked somewhere in the top 15 in every other category.  Knudsen was the most talented player in the league, Blees was the best player on the best team, but Justin Sexton was the POY.

Joey Anderson has offensive skills and talent?  That is news to me.  I only saw CMS play a twice this year, but it seemed his offensive "talent" was to launch himself into the air and pull down every offensive rebound in sight and make a layup. Or wait for teams to double or triple Blees, stand by the basket and make a layup.  Don't get me wrong, he is a huge part of that CMS team, and probably the main reason they are still playing, but I don't every remember seeing anything resembling offensive talent. 

Then again, Stag44, your offensive game consisted of standing near the basket and waiting for teams to double Parsons, Taylor, Winterbottom, and Maceira... so I guess that your view of good offensive talent is different than most.     ;D

Good Luck to CMS tonight!  Make the SCIAC proud!