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softball d-1 polls

Started by flippinhogmana, February 20, 2018, 04:44:02 pm

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flippinhogmana

Interesting enough from where we were at the tail end of last year, I wouldn't have expected that we would get much consideration for national ranking, but among the polls I could find we were indeed mentioned in them - in the section 'others receiving votes'.  We were from 29 to 38 if you extend the ranking that far.

It really doesn't mean much at this time, but like the recognition for Haff, its still nice for the program to get notice.  In some ways it rewards fans, but it also gets some attention from the potential recruits (although not as important as the conference, the school, the coaches and playing time).

One might consider the Utah victory as its own evaluation, they are a ranked team that has a 6-5 record with their losses coming to ranked teams, us and Loyola Marymount.  They lost to 25th ranked Georgia and by one run to Tennessee among those losses.  That they lost by a narrow margin to power SEC teams, and played us about the same gives us some forecast of our relative progress.  A lot can happen yet, but still we are on a good building pace. 
Like the erstwhile Clark Kent, my true identity is shielded.  I am an author, Nathan J. Allison is my pen name.

hawg1221

Well, if they were watching our defense, it's pretty easy to see why we're not ranked and shouldn't be ranked. They get that fixed and I could see us cracking the top 25.

 

psycHOGlogist

I don't think anyone is watching anything other than results (ours were fine) and expectations (ours were moderate). The polls will give us no credit for winning games we should win.  Had Utah not also lost a bunch of other games, our win over them might have had a bigger impact.

Our spot in the polls is, imo, directly related to where folks saw us pre-season, which is somewhere in the 30s nationally, and that's based solely on our 2017 results. That's why you see programs like Kentucky, South Carolina, and Mississippi St, who probably aren't very good this year, and OK State, who is good but not great, being ranked or getting more votes than we are -- they ended 2017 with better reputations than ours (though ... Miss St. lost to FORDHAM in the NCAA tournament last year). We still have some work to do to overcome the 3-4 seasons before last year. When we do, we'll be getting the benefit of our reputation from pollsters, even when we don't deserve it. ;-)

If we keep winning, errors or not, we'll crack the rankings (of course, it'll be VERY hard to keep winning with this rate of errors).

flippinhogmana

Quote from: psycHOGlogist on February 21, 2018, 09:29:41 am
I don't think anyone is watching anything other than results (ours were fine) and expectations (ours were moderate). The polls will give us no credit for winning games we should win.  Had Utah not also lost a bunch of other games, our win over them might have had a bigger impact.

Our spot in the polls is, imo, directly related to where folks saw us pre-season, which is somewhere in the 30s nationally, and that's based solely on our 2017 results. That's why you see programs like Kentucky, South Carolina, and Mississippi St, who probably aren't very good this year, and OK State, who is good but not great, being ranked or getting more votes than we are -- they ended 2017 with better reputations than ours (though ... Miss St. lost to FORDHAM in the NCAA tournament last year). We still have some work to do to overcome the 3-4 seasons before last year. When we do, we'll be getting the benefit of our reputation from pollsters, even when we don't deserve it. ;-)

If we keep winning, errors or not, we'll crack the rankings (of course, it'll be VERY hard to keep winning with this rate of errors).

I agree that polls at this point in the year are little more than beauty contests.  But to hawg's point as well, how we do shoring up fundamentals, and how we take on the SEC matter most on how we end the year, and how far we go.  Still, I thought you guys might like to know we are getting some recognition.
Like the erstwhile Clark Kent, my true identity is shielded.  I am an author, Nathan J. Allison is my pen name.