Didn't quite get this done before the first exhibition games took place, but here's the preseason rundown for Rupp D3. Discuss at your leisure and enjoy as always...

American Southwest — Texas Lutheran (blapo21) gets the preseason nod ahead of Hardin-Simmons, which had a rough recruiting period and brings 3 walkons into the year.

Capital — I’ll go with Catholic (bistiza) by an eyelash ahead of Simmed York (PA) and a 10-man Gallaudet. This is bistiza’s first season in Rupp, but he carries a .639 win percentage across all HD worlds, so this isn’t exactly a rookie coach stepping in.

Centennial — A long 37-season NT run by Ursinus (barjaz) got snapped last season as they settled for a PIT title in Collegeville. They’re the favorite to win the title and restart the process this year.

CUNY — Brooklyn (seanweber) is the only human coached team, and since he’s an experienced coach I’ll say that llifts him over CCNY, which might have slightly better numbers. But only slightly. It has been 11 seasons since an NT appearance for Brooklyn.

CCIW — Illinois Wesleyan (unlikelyhero) has an elite-level team this season and could be under-ranked at No. 8 preseason. In his fourth season at the helm, unlikely is looking for his first NT appearance after going two deep in the PIT last year.

Coast — Colby-Sawyer (mcandrews) by a nose over Wentworth. Colby-Sawyer looking for improvement over a 14-14 mark last season and mcandrews’ first postseason trip as a head coach in four seasons.

Commonwealth — Penn St. Altoona gets my nod to lead the Commonweath this season. It’s not as strong a team as he fielded last season, but it is plenty strong enough to make waves in national circles as he goes for his 16th consecutive NT berth.

Empire — Vassar (theriddler) will get a good chase from Union, but should have enough to come out on top at season’s end. Vassar has been to the NT for 37 consecutive seasons...likely Rupp’s longest active streak.

Freedom — Scranton (artie40) is the only human-coached team and should ease through the league. Scranton snapped a long NT drought last year. Now artie is looking for an unheard of back-to-back appearance.

GNE — The Evil Empire had a down year last season, but should swing back this year with three teams that should push elite status. Of that group, Rivier (jack_duck) should be slightly better than Johnson & Wales and Newbury, both of whom would be favored in most other leagues.

Heartland — Defending national champion Defiance (carl3298) will find the road to a repeat title challenging, but he will take the first step by winning the Heartland and returning to the NT. From there, we’ll see...

Iowa — Buena Vista (westcoast22) is severely underranked at No. 17 this preseason. After going 29-4 and reaching the Elite Eight last season, there’s no way this team isn’t top 10, possibly top 5 material.

Little East — East Connecticut St. (cjones4mvp) gets the nod here over a preseason ranked UMass, Dartmouth side in what should be a tight race. ECSU is going for its seventh straight NT appearance, but hopes to snap its streak of one-and-dones for cjones.

Michigan — Calvin (prc56) should lead a crowded and jumbled field in the Michigan as Eureka seems best-poised to give chase. Calvin was Elite EIght material last season.

Midwest — We’re talking the Midwest, so we’ve got to be talking about Rose-Hulman Tech (nachopuzzle). The longtime powerhouse will be running with 10 men this season, but that’s nothing strange here and nacho just keeps on winning.

Minnesota — St. Scholastica is the only team to begin the season with a team ranking above 500, so the Minnesota is likely to be kicked around this year. St. Scholastica is looking for its first NT in nine seasons.

NESCAC — Connecticut (rwright) is the team to beat in the NESCAC, but the pursuers are drawing closer. Will that be enough to prevent a sixth-straight 15+ win conference season for Conn? Stay tuned...

New Jersey — Okay, forget what I just said about the Minnesota. The New Jersey has nobody in the 500s for team score. New Jersey City is the best of the lot, and I use the term best loosely. Whoever represents this league will likely do so as a 16 seed.

North Atlantic — The North Atlantic is back to being Johnson St. (mrtickles) and the nobodies. After going 14-14 in his first season, mrtickles holds a roster that starts nearly 50 points better than the 11 Sims in the North Atlantic. This should be a cakewalk.

NCAC — Wabash (bigtexhawk) is the pick in the North Coast. After a slide back to 18-13 and a PIT appearance last year, Wabash should be back above 20 wins and dancing by season’s end.

Northwest — Chapman (redsoxrootr1) is breaking onto the elite stage this season. After back-to-back 20-win seasons, Chapman could be jumping to the next level this season and will be the team to chase down in the Northwest.

Ohio — John Carroll (whit6r) dropped from 27-6 to 18-12 last season. They could bounce right back up to near 27 wins this season as this roster is solid from top to bottom. That’s bad news for Capital, who would be called the favorite in at least half the Rupp leagues this year.

ODAC — Lynchburg (barney1974) by a nose over Emory&Henry this season. Lynchburg carries a No. 25 preseason ranking and is hoping for its third straight NT appearance for barney.

Penn — All-simmed again, the Penn frontrunner is...Alvernia?...which hasn’t won more than 10 games in a season since its last NT appearance in Season 57.

Skyline — US Merchant Marines (lynchmob1414) is still the favorite and gets the No. 6 ranking preseason, but the gap is closing in the Skyline. USMMA is working on back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances.

SoCal — There’s a new sheriff in town as Colorado (bdpoor) breaks to the front of the pack in the SoCal. They could make that break to the head of the class nationally as well. A third consecutive 20-win season is all but in the bag for bdpoor.

St. Louis — Dominican gets my nod as a sim team after going 22-8 and playing one round into the PIT last season. It could be a five-team race, with a clear fall off after that. Both human programs will be in that five-team pack.

SUNY — There is a lot of basketball talent in New York. None of it is on display in the all-sim SUNY, where 483 is the highest-ranked team preseason. That’s Brockport, and that’s as good a bet as any to take a 16 seed alongside the New Jersey conference. Brockport’s last NT came in Season 31.

University — Millsaps (brianxavier) gets shafted by the pollsters after finishing as national runner-up, but still gets some love from me. I think he’s a smidge better than Louisiana, Southwestern, Rhodes and Sewanee, all of whom could contend and really clutter the standings.

Upstate — Brandeis (lhrr) with a nod ahead of NYU and RPI. Brandeis is looking for a trip back to the NT after going two deep in the PIT last season.

USA South — After failing to go 16-0 in league play for the first time in four years, Greensboro (tilldog28) is back and looking to make amends. He’s also sporting a snazzy No. 1 ranking and bulls-eye in the preseason. N. Carolina Wesleyan has the best shot of hanging the loss on them.

Wisconsin — It seems I never get this league right from year to year. This time, I’ll curse Superior with the preseason favorite’s call ahead of EauClaire. Superior is coming off a 16-12 season a year ago.

rednu--Thanks, as always, for this thread.  It always makes for enjoyable reading and something to follow during the season--especially during the occasionally boring conference play schedule (filled with too many Sim cupcake opponents) that many of us non-Evil Empire teams will encounter.

Great stuff as always. BTW, I am slowly working on the dynasty rankings... just haven't been motivated to finish it lately as it can be a little tedious. 

The UAA keeps adding quality coaches, so we may actually challenge the evil empire in a season or two for conference rpi supremacy...

also, it certainly hasn't escaped my notice that the USA South is compiling quite the coaching talent as well....

and the So Cal IA is also slowly growing quite the West Coast presence... with the South Division sporting 3 top 15 teams with Whittier, Colorado and CSU, EB

The Way Too Early Final Four

I got the conference previews up late. Now with a high school football playoff game to deal with tonight, I'm jumping the gun and posting this before the second exhibition games sim and possibly before everyone has declared redshirts, so it's REALLY way too early!! I started with a pool of 14 teams that caught my eye this year, wrote down their numbers but omitted team names. Trimmed the group in half after the first set of considerations, then collapsed things to these four selections before paring things back up with their school names. In alphabetical order, I give you...

Buena Vista  (#17 preseason, 29-4 last season, Elite EIght)
Do like I did and don't look at the preseason ranking. Stare just at the numbers and compare Buena Vista with any of the 16 schools ahead of them. Tell me -- why is this the No. 17 team in the land preseason? Buena Vista is an incredibly experienced (11 seniors and juniors) club with one of the highest Ath-Def combinations in Rupp D3. Sure, westcost22’s club might be a tad slower than other elite teams, and the low perimeter score might cause troubles at some point, but I’m climbing on the bandwagon early on this one — BV is the real deal and I refuse to believe there are 16 schools better.

Colorado (#3 preseason, 23-7 last season, NT 1st round)
Last year’s Colorado team suffered from a lack of guard depth. Head coach bdpoor is shoring up that detail and this year’s team should be an improvement over last season’s product. The Ath-Spd-Def starts with two of the three values flirting with the 60 mark. There are still concerns — a low LP/Per pairing, a low overall ball handling — but a majority of upperclassmen and solid player starting values should help mitigate those areas.

Johnson & Wales (#4 preseason, 30-3 last season, Elite Eight)
Of the 14 teams I started looking at, spaticity’s club has the highest adjusted Ath-Spd-Def of any team out there. I’m not talking all three areas together. I’m talking each rating category individually. JW also starts the season with FIVE (!!) players rated 600+. They also have four players boasting speeds of 70+, the highest number among teams considered.

Newbury (#2 preseason, 19-9 last season, NT 1st round)
Another Evil Empire school with Ath-Spd-Def all starting in the 50s. Dinosaur’s club is looking a little light on the LP side of things, but has great speed and ball handling skills to make up for it. Nine upperclassmen means solid IQs and there’s elite-level speed in enough players to find an advantage against opponents at some stage of games.

Now, those of you reading the conference preview might be wondering where Rivier, my pick for regular season GNE champ, is located when two other schools from that league are on the list. I, too, was a little surprised to discover that they were not one of the last four sets of numbers I was looking at. Maybe redshirts made a difference. Maybe I'm just looking at the game from a slightly different angle today compared to yesterday. Maybe jack_duck paid me off not to name him and throw the cursed gauntlet at the foot of his competitors (hmm....). Whatever the reason, these are my picks...

Good luck to everyone this season and let the discussion begin!

Game of the Night

#15 Rose-Hulman at #6 US Merchant Marines

One of two preseason top 25 pairings taking place on opening night, this features nachopuzzle and lynchmob1414 going head to head for the fifth time. They've split the previous four encounters, winning two apiece. On paper, lynchmob's USMMA side seems slightly stronger, especially when you add the home court bonus atop that. Still, this should be a great game and a good test to see if both these clubs deserve their early lofty rankings. Penn St Altoona and Buena Vista meet in the night's other marquee clash. I'm going to try this feature again this season, although I'll probably just link box scores the morning after rather than trying to go all sportswriter to make it a little easier to keep up when life gets hectic.

One other aside, for those who don't pay attention to preseason matters, it should be noted that Johnson&Wales just took down Michigan St. 73-66 in exhibition play.

"One other aside, for those who don't pay attention to preseason matters, it should be noted that Johnson&Wales just took down Michigan St. 73-66 in exhibition play."

Yeah but we lost to Auburn, so it was all for naught.

War Eagle!

Game of the night recap

US Merchant Marine 59, Rose-Hulman 49

Merchant Marine ends the game outscoring Rose-Hulman 21-7 for the win. 

Game of the night
No. 4 Rivier at No. 3 Greensboro
Two teams on the short list of national championship candidates clash in the early non-conference. Should be a great game!

Game of the night recap

Rivier 89, Greensboro 71

Although the starting lineups produced equally, Rivier's bench produces three players in double figures. Combined with a huge edge rebounding, it's more than enough to lift Rivier over the preseason No. 1 Greensboro. 

Gave of the night
#10 Vassar at #5 Johnson & Wales
The real game of the night takes place between UMMA and Rivier tonight in a 3 vs. 1 matchup. This top 10 clash isn't anything to cry over though. Vassar is a traditional postseason presence, but theriddler is 0-5 lifetime against spasticy, who is no stranger to the postseason himself. 

Posted by bananajacobs on 10/26/2012 5:56:00 PM (view original):
War Eagle!

+1

Game of the night recap
Johnson & Wales 72, Vassar 52

No. 5 JW's defense forces 14 second-half turnovers and holds No. 10 Vassar to just 19 points to pull away from a 2-point margin at the half. Spasticity improves to 6-0 lifetime vs. theriddler. 

Bonus coverage
Rivier 85, US Merchant Marines 53

Top-ranked Rivier holds UMMA to 34 percent shooting as the meeting between the No. 1 and No. 3 turns into a blowout for No. 1 Rivier. 

Game of the night: Colby-Sawyer (3-0) at No. 14 Southwestern (3-0) 
THere are no games tonight involving two top 25 teams playing each other (!!) so I grab the highest pairing of 3-0 teams involving human opponents and throw it out here. Colby-Sawyer's closest game so far has been 15 points for mcandrews, Meanwhile, Southwestern and ironman2011 hasn't won a game by more than 4 points yet this season, but already has a win over then-No. 10 Whittier to its credit. 

Thought my Vassar squad might hang with the J&W juggernaut a bit better this time around.  Oh, well...I kept it close for a half, at least.  One of my stronger teams of late, too--though I'm a bit weak at guard (a senior guard rated only 542 doesn't help), which hurts against the monster press I was facing.  I would have liked to have had a stronger backcourt player on the court at SF (in lieu of a PF), but didn't have the squad to pull that off.  But with a 20-point defeat, it probably wouldn't have mattered all that much.

Now I get to recuperate for a week until I get to face one of the other heads of the GNE hydra--the (currently) #1 ranked Rivier squad that I also can't seem to beat. Both jack_duck and spasticity are closing in on brianxavier's mark of wins against me (I think BX's Millsaps squad beat me nine times in a row before I finally got that elusive W against him).

The lesson, as always: learn how to recruit better.  Anyone in the GNE want to give me any tips??!?

Posted by theriddler on 10/29/2012 12:00:00 PM (view original):
Thought my Vassar squad might hang with the J&W juggernaut a bit better this time around.  Oh, well...I kept it close for a half, at least.  One of my stronger teams of late, too--though I'm a bit weak at guard (a senior guard rated only 542 doesn't help), which hurts against the monster press I was facing.  I would have liked to have had a stronger backcourt player on the court at SF (in lieu of a PF), but didn't have the squad to pull that off.  But with a 20-point defeat, it probably wouldn't have mattered all that much.

Now I get to recuperate for a week until I get to face one of the other heads of the GNE hydra--the (currently) #1 ranked Rivier squad that I also can't seem to beat. Both jack_duck and spasticity are closing in on brianxavier's mark of wins against me (I think BX's Millsaps squad beat me nine times in a row before I finally got that elusive W against him).

The lesson, as always: learn how to recruit better.  Anyone in the GNE want to give me any tips??!?

Yeah I think the main problem for Vassar was only having 4 guards, including 2 young backups, against J&W's Press.  You have a good offensive team and shot well enough to win, but just too many TOs.  Not sure why we went nuts on the glass, but that didn't help you either.

But 20 points is a little deceiving, it was a lot closer than that most of the way.  gl the rest of the way!

Game of the night recap
Southwestern 79, Colby-Sawyer 57

Southwestern shoots 54 percent from the floor, cans 10 of 21 shots from downtown and manages to out-rebound Colby-Sawyer by 10 to turn the Game of the Night into a rout and vault from No. 14 to No. 10 in today's rankings

Game of the night
#3 Colorado (4-0) at #24 Sewanee (3-1)
Coach bdpoor and Colorado hit the road for a game at Sewanee. Colorado is quickly rising to national prominence and has already held the No. 1 ranking in the land for 24 hours this season. Now they hit the road for a game at Sewanee, which lost its opener by a point at Otterbein and escaped overtime disaster last night. Also on tap tonight is a game pairing #19 Emmanuel and #5 John Carroll.