WBB: American Southwest Conference

[Pat Coleman]

Ralph I do know Pat was at HPU, I had the privilege to talk to him. My point is that I think Pat has a big influence on voters, especially since he saw the teams in person. He saw HPU play a sloppy game and it was a blowout, hard to tell how good a team is when you see that. He saw McM play twice and once agaisnt the number 9 team in the nation. What if McM had only played once and blew that team out would they still jump 5 spots? His Texas rankings touted McM women as the top team, and he may be right. Now you will probably say the quality of opponents is better for McM, and your right. I just think McM jumping 5 spots is a little much considering HPU stayed where they were after convining wins.

Well, if/when HPU beats HSU or McMurry they will move up. It's not like HPU won't have the exact same chances to make noise as the other two ASC-West teams. Beating Fisk and Sul Ross is not the same in voters' eyes as beating a Top 25 team and I'm sure you understand that.

Indeed, not everyone automatically moves up when a team ahead of them loses. That's what standings are like, not rankings.

[Ralph Turner]

dballa, I looked at the polls and have these thoughts.

1)  Messiah gets credit for beating a very well respected opponent, DeSales.  I think that DeSales won a post-season tourney in the ECAC in 2004 and 2005.

2)  The initial assessment by the voters is that a McMurry win at HSU just flips the 2 teams.

3)  Mary Washingtion dropped the usual number of slots with their loss.

4)  The voters don't know what they want to do with #8-#12.  Ordinarily, there should be 100 votes between #8 and #12.  The voters have Baldwin-Wallace at 402 and Howard Payne at 364.  That's only 38 votes.  That bunch is too close to call.
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Well, while I was trying to pay the bills, and my thoughts were stuck on this side of the posting for 2 hours, Pat gives his expert commentary. 8)

[Ralph Turner]

dballa, here is another way to look at the voting.

A perfect #1 in this poll is 25 voters giving 25 first place votes worth 25 points each or a vote total of 625 votes.

A perfect #8 gets 25 votes worth 18 points each or 450 points.  Well, Baldwin-Wallace is only in at 402 points, about 10th.

HPU is getting 364 votes in 12th when one would expect only 350 points for a "perfect 12th place" vote, and which is more than "halfway" to 11th.

[fanstand]

Of course, I was excited about the polls, finally getting some movement up for L.I.B.  It is still so early to be overly concerned about polls.  I think that McM and HSU have had the tougher schedule only, because they played each other and Miss.College, HPU hasn't played the upper teams yet with the exception of ETBU, but ETBU came on strong at the end of the year last year, be patient. The 3 C's are what come in to play right now.... Conditioning, Coaching and Chemistry. Whoever can pull all three of those factors together will be the team on top. I think HPU is for real, and got a little scoop from an official who called one of their games and said they were a well balanced team. HPU is good about slipping under everyone's radar, but its one game at a time right now for everyone.  Finals week is almost over, and games will be back on schedule this weekend.........

[thundercat]

Oh, my goodness, I think hell may be freezing over as we speak!  I am going to completely agree with fanstand.  HPU is a great team, no doubt about it, but they have just blown out teams and will need to face some stiffer competition before they move up.  I think the game at UTTyler this weekend should be a good starting point.  It is always a very tough place to play against a very talented team. 

[mcmfan]

I suspect that McM, HSU, and HPU are pretty evenly matched this year, so the teams will bounce around on the standings until the end of the season.  The likelihood is that all three will end up in the conference tournament, and if history repeats itself further, they may still have to play each other again in the post-season.  A team with a high ranking may get a better chance at a Pool C bid than one without it if it doesn't win the tournament, but that's the only reason I can see to consider the current rankings important.  The only thing that matters is which team wins the last game between them.

[Ralph Turner]

UTD 50 Texas Wesleyan 48

[CUAfan]

The crazy thing is that, between MCM, HPU, HSU and UMHB, the four ASC West tourney spots are more or less sewn up already (unless one of the other four gets hot). I mean, we're getting slowly but surely getting better, but those four are a combined 16-1 in conference so far (if I remember right).

[Ralph Turner]

And CUA fan, I will bet that CUA could beat 10 of the 39 conference champs in the country right now as the 5th place team in the ASC-West!

[Ralph Turner]

The crazy thing is that, between MCM, HPU, HSU and UMHB, the four ASC West tourney spots are more or less sewn up already (unless one of the other four gets hot). I mean, we're getting slowly but surely getting better, but those four are a combined 16-1 in conference so far (if I remember right).

CUA fan, what do you hear about the new campus on the Schlumberger property?

[CUAfan]

Well, considering that we lost by 1 on a buzzer-beater to the #12 team in NAIA Division II, I wouldn't be surprised. I do know the girls would play their hearts out though.

As far as the new campus goes...every member of the athletic department I've heard talk about the plans for the new gym are anything but happy. All they're planning on doing, so far as I can tell, is essentially rebuild what we have now on the new campus. I intend to try to arrange a between-semesters meeting to try to get them to ante up for better facilities all-around, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

[calhsu]

Beating someone in NAIA DII isn't much of a win.      The D3 teams of NCAA match up with the DI of NAIA. 

[Ralph Turner]

Well, considering that we lost by 1 on a buzzer-beater to the #12 team in NAIA Division II, I wouldn't be surprised. I do know the girls would play their hearts out though.

As far as the new campus goes...every member of the athletic department I've heard talk about the plans for the new gym are anything but happy. All they're planning on doing, so far as I can tell, is essentially rebuild what we have now on the new campus. I intend to try to arrange a between-semesters meeting to try to get them to ante up for better facilities all-around, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Your comment on the loss to Menlo prompted me to visit the Menlo web site.

So far, they have several wins against D3's and play several games next year.

I will keep an eye on them, as much to gauge the strength of the Northwest Conference.

[CUAfan]

Can someone who's seen both ETBU and MCM play tell me if Lori Lewis is the conference's next Tarra Richardson like I think she is from her stats? Girl got 25 points and 16 boards on us last night.

[Ralph Turner]

McM at ETBU next Monday night and it will be on radio/netcast!