Clearing the bases
Mar
2008
This week I want to talk about the Top 25 poll. The poll exists for several reasons. I believe that it is expected and probably more importantly, I felt the ABCA poll started too late in the season and needed to come out more than once twice a week. In cooperation with the NCWBA, voters were identified and with our preseason poll in January, the D3baseball.com.NCBWA Poll was born.
The start date was set to be the last weekend in February to capture most of a month of games in the South and West regions. By the last weekend in February, eight teams in the preseason poll had seen action. The number of teams playing have increased until this week (Week 4) where just a few teams have yet to see action due to a late spring break or a canceled game or two. I expect every team to have played a game by the end of next week.
The weekly voting starts after the games on Sunday and a short list of about 80 teams (85 are low interest payday loanno fax payday advance loan1 hour payday loan,payday loan in 1 hour,1 hour loan paydaypayday cash loanapplication loan online paydayquick payday loanpayday loan ukguaranteed no fax payday loanaccount loan payday savings,no teletrack payday loan with savings account,account loan payday people savingsadvance cash loan online paydayloan payday store,payday loan store in chicago,alabama loan payday storehassle free payday loan,free loan payday,free payday advance loanno fax payday loanadvance fax loan no paydayadvance cash loan loan paydayquick low interest payday loan,fax loan payday quick,loan payday quickfast easy payday loancash loan payday tilconsolidate payday loan debt,consolidate debt loan paydaybad credit loan payday,account bad credit loan payday savings,bad credit loan loan no payday personalpayday payday loan cash advance loan,advance cash cash loan loan payday quick,advance cash loan paydaycash til payday loanno faxing instant payday loanquick cash payday loanonline payday loan serviceeasy payday loansavings account payday loanapproval guaranteed loan paydayno checking account required payday loan,no checking account payday loan,account checking loan no paydaypayday loan best rate,best loan payday,best payday loan siteez payday loansonic payday loaninternet payday loan law,internet payday loan,internet loan paydayemergency payday loanfax loan missouri no paydayloan milwaukee payday storecalculator loan paydaypayday loan on linepayday loan canadacalgary payday loan,calgary loan paydaycanada payday loan online,loan online payday,fast online payday loanloan payday uk,payday loan uk,payday loan in the ukcash advance payday loan softwareall payday loan in canada only,canada loan payday,canada loan manitoba payday winnipegonline no fax payday loanaccount bank loan no paydaypayday loan on line,line loan payday30 day loan payday,30 day payday loanloan until paydaycash central loan payday on the current list) is sent to each voter. Essentially the weekly summary has the records of each team, the record for the week and games played against other teams on this list. Teams on the list always include those teams who have received votes and teams with good records. Occasionally a team not on the summary list will receive votes but that is rare. I hope it is that I have identified all the possible candidates.
Each voter has their own system in identifying how to rank teams. My ballot from last week is below:
1. Chapman (15-2)
2. Wooster (9-1)
3. Texas-Tyler (19-3)
4. New Jersey (9-2)
5. Cortland (5-2)
6. Salisbury (11-1)
7. Wisc-Oshkosh (3-0)
8. Carthage (3-0)
9. RPI (7-1)
10. Johns Hopkins (4-2)
11. Kean (9-3)
12. Augustana (9-2)
13. Otterbein (0-0)
14. Piedmont (16-3)
15. Trinity (Conn) (3-0)
16. Linfield (14-3)
17. Pomona-Pitzer (15-3)
18. Transylvania (9-1)
19. Ripon (8-1)
20. Redlands (14-6)
21. Christopher Newport (14-4)
22. Widener (12-2)
23. The University of the Ozarks (18-3)
24. Wesley (15-3)
25. Concordia (Ill) (9-1)
Twenty-one of my votes come from teams with a winning percentage of at least .750. Those four teams with records less than .750 include: Otterbein who is the lone team on my ballot without a game played; Cortland, Johns Hopkins, and Redlands all lost games and the more games they lost, the farther they dropped but started in the top half of the poll in Week 3. The eight teams I dropped from Week 3 were dropped also because they lost games but dropped off the top 25. Each of these teams were ranked no higher than 17th on my previous ballot. The only difference was St. Thomas. They won all their games last week but got squeezed out due to teams who I wanted to rank higher. The 25 teams I ranked are a combined 268-54 (.832)
When I actually started looking at teams to rank and I wanted to rank about 50 teams in my top 25. I was not alone in finding it difficult to reduce the list to just 25 teams. From that point I started looking for reasons not to consider a team. This gave me a shorter list but left me trying to decide which team has had the better season. I used my previous ballot as a guide since I used the same process the week before. As I moved teams up and down, I eventually came up with my list of the best 25. In just a few cases, you have games played against common teams to help guide who is ranked higher but these are not as common as one would like. I am kidding you to say that position Linfield and Pomona-Pitzer are in cannot be switched but I am comfortable in the knowledge is that this the place in the poll where I think they should appear. If I had a 26th vote, my vote would be for either St. Thomas (6-2) or Calvin (8-1).
Seven teams I ranked did not make the top 25. This is not unusual since more than half of the teams that received votes did not end in the top 25. The one thing I notice as the votes roll in, the top 25 becomes more and more stable. When the last vote is cast, there are just a few changes, if at all in the order of the top 25. The last thing to remember is that a poll is an opinion (with knowledge) and as such is an attempt to answer the question: Who is the best team? The ultimate decision on who is the best team for the season is decided where it should be - on the field.
March 19th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I think you gave a great synopsis of how it works. I just wonder who specifically makes up the poll? And if each region is represented equally by the pollsters?
My general feeling is you should be rewarded for wins against good teams and penalized for bad losses. I also think its hard when southern schools pile up wins early on so it will be interesting to see how people will vote when northern schools might now pick up 4-6 wins a week and southern schools might only get 2-3
March 19th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I prefer not to give a list of voters but suffice to say, there is a regional balance. When the search for folks to participate, the target was 3 from each region and myself. Although the balance is not absolutely uniform, it is close.
I always look at the regional balance after I vote to make sure I dont have 6 Central teams and 1 New York team. As stated, it would be east to load up with West and South teams if you just base it upon the number of wins.
Since the summary has results against the best teams, it is easy for a voter to take that into account. This is why Johns Hopkins has managed to stay high in my ballot since they beat the teams they should and lose/win against teams that are as good as they are. Since I do not present all results and scores in my summary to the voters it is really up to the individual voter to research that kind of information if they want to use it in their determination.
Because of the number of voters, if there is a strange ballot that is so far off the norm that it stands out, all the other ballots serve as a buffer so that results are not skewed.
If everyone thought the way I did, we would not need more than 1 voter.
March 19th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Thanks Jim, I dont think there is a right way and wrong way to rank because it should work its way out over 25 voters. I just hope everyone uses your logic and isnt narrow mind and just loads up their region because thats what they know best.
I think its great that d3baseball does this every week because the abca baseball poll was inadequate doing it every 2 weeks and who knows what their deal is this year
March 19th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I expect the ABCA poll to come out next week, although it would not surprise me to see it at the last weekend in March.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Jim, I noticed that you have 9 schools from the West and South Regions plus Capital AC member Wesley. I think that the “early” start by those regions allows some schools that get off to fast starts. As those schools get into conference play, the quality teams persevere thru conference competition. The others, e.g. Texas Lutheran this season, are dropped quickly.
I also think that you have shown us that the mechanisms that you are using will provide a good Top 25. As the “new” northern teams begin to approach the quality records that has been historically associated by Top 25 teams in mid to late April, there will be places to put them in the poll and they should edge out those South and West region teams that are just beginning to fade.
Thanks for sharing the ballot and your insights.
March 20th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I must have checked the regional balance of the Top 25 instead of my ballot. I Pomona-Pitzer, Linfield were added to my ballot just this week. Although P-P had a very good record, they just got off a series with Cal Tech and I waited a week before adding them to my ballot. I think they were 4-0 last week and could not leave them off. Linfield has emerged out of the pack in the NWC and with a sweep this weekend they only have the games between them and George Fox which should decide the NWC regular season title. When you have a conferences like the USA South and the NWC where there is good competition within the conference it is easy to have teams that should be ranked with more losses than a team with few losses.
My ballot is a little shy on New England teams and a little heavy on the West. I could see Keene State or Curry being ranked since both have a good start to the season and Redlands and P-P play each other in a week so I expect that series to be big and a deciding factor in the SCIAC.
March 25th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Jim- I think your hard work on the polls is as close to accurate as we will ever get. I think your poll is a much more indepth poll than that of the ABCA and eventually the NCAA regional polls. Keep up the great work. It is fun to watch the teams move now that all are playing.
March 26th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
No poll will ever be perfect. The key is to get as diverse a voter pool as possible. One thing I have noticed with the poll is that once you get 20 ballots, the poll starts to really be stable. The more folks voting the better. I think this is the main difference in the top-25 and the ABCA/CB poll.
March 28th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
What Jim is doing is what we do on the D3hoops.com Top 25 and the D3football.com Top 25, which in turn is what we did on the ABCA coaches’ poll for Division I baseball when I was working for Baseball Weekly.
I feel it’s a good formula and hope it bears out this year in baseball. As always, the key is educating the voter. When you don’t get a chance to see games of teams across the country, the more hard data you can look at, the better a poll will be.