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Toledo being sixth is a joke but keep in mind their head coach is on the committee which makes that poll.

(12-27-2018 11:17 AM)JimJoyce Wrote:  Toledo being sixth is a joke but keep in mind their head coach is on the committee which makes that poll.

Gee I would sure hope one biased vote would not effect the poll in a noticeable way. I also hope the other voters wouldn’t let him make them change their votes. Seems to me this poll is a lot of to do about almost nothing. It’s not too different than a participation trophy.

(12-27-2018 07:23 PM)burden Wrote:  

(12-27-2018 11:17 AM)JimJoyce Wrote:  Toledo being sixth is a joke but keep in mind their head coach is on the committee which makes that poll.

Gee I would sure hope one biased vote would not effect the poll in a noticeable way. I also hope the other voters wouldn’t let him make them change their votes. Seems to me this poll is a lot of to do about almost nothing. It’s not too different than a participation trophy.

I am relatively certain (like 100%) that these coaches randomly send in their polls weekly without consulting other coaches. The other thing is, some of these polls you cannot even vote for your own team (don't know about this one). Lastly, Burden nailed it. This poll matters not.

Toledo is an interesting one. If you go off the various rating systems they might be a spot or two high on there but they're not a huge reach. What's interesting about them is they're a team RPI probably wouldn't like because they've played a weak schedule (even weaker than ours) but the newer systems that consider scoring margins do like them because they're average scoring margin is over 16 (ours is just over 7). This weekend they play Penn who is only a few spots behind them on that poll, so that should help tell us about them.

It's tough to gauge how we stack up with them right now. Their one loss is to Wright St. by 10 and we beat them by 7. The other two common opponents are Cleveland St (Toledo won by 13 us by 4) and Detroit (Toledo by 44 us by 4 points and a Jaylin Walker miracle). So I think I agree with them being ahead of us right now... But our top wins are definitely better than their top wins and almost half of our body of work was without Walker. So I like where we are for sure.

Could this be a year where if Buffalo loses in the finals we could see two MAC schools? If Buffalo loses 1-2 in MAC conf play and then loses in the finals?

ESPN has an article saying that the PAC-12 is having the worst month over the last 20 years for any P5+Big East conference in non-conference play. They have a 38-36 record this month for a winning percentage of .514. The next worst month over the last 20 years for P5+BE was the Big 10 in 2003, when they were 46-30 for .605.

I'm glad Kent State was able to contribute to that!

Arizona State coach Bobby Hurley said the playing field is becoming more equitable. "There is nothing good that can be taken from this," Hurley said after his team fell to 9-3. "We took a step back. There is a lot of parity in college basketball. If you're not ready to play, you're going to get beat." - especially since Arizona stopped paying its players, and all of the NCAA is treading lightly with the recruiting cash.


http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketb...teams-lose

Toledo rolled a very solid Penn team by 32 and it has them sitting at 53 on kenpom. They're going to be tough. In a little over a week they'll be playing Buffalo. Talk about a huge early season conference game.

toledo at #43 in the NET and opening MAC w #80 Ball St and #23 Buffalo

Interesting that nobody posted about the Oberlin game. I suppose it is because the game was an assumed easy win and would be uneventful. That is an indication of how improved the program has become the last twenty years. I recall sitting in Memorial Gym watching the Flashes LOSE to teams DIII teams more than once or twice. That seems unthinkable now.[/i]

(01-01-2019 04:32 PM)Muskrat Wrote:  Interesting that nobody posted about the Oberlin game. I suppose it is because the game was an assumed easy win and would be uneventful. That is an indication of how improved the program has become the last twenty years. I recall sitting in Memorial Gym watching the Flashes LOSE to teams DIII teams more than once or twice. That seems unthinkable now.[/i]

Thank goodness - I recall watching us once lose to Capital - ugh!

Yeah, I recall the Capital game, and also losses to Steubenville and Mount Union, All three at home. There may have been more, but those three are the only ones that come to mind. There may have been losses to Akron before Akron became D I. Akron had some good teams when they played in lower divisions.

Record-Courier didn’t even send a reporter to Oberlin game.