This may be one of the most bogus set of rankings in a while. http://www.nscaa.com/rank/20050906/D1M/0/index.html Carolina goes from unranked to number 2? Who is Missouri State? Wake loses 1-0 to IU and beats Notre Dame and drops 8 spots? Akron beats Evansville and Robert Morris and goes from unranked to 9th? UVM? Just to name a few. I know rankings don't mean much to the teams but they should at least provide an accurate picture of the strength of teams.
Polls, polls, polls... the NSCAA one is so weird... I think the SoccerTimes poll might be the best because they have coaches vote.
The NSCAA is THE poll since the NCAA makes their tournament selections based upon it. The others are simply fun to talk about but they are basically beauty contests without meaning.
Missouir State is the new name for Southwest Missouri State, they are a team that has barely competed in the MVC conference. How they go from unranked to 11th is beyond me, as im assuming beyond a lot of people also. They beat 2 teams that werent nationally ranked. I could see them jumping all the way up there if they had beaten two ranked teams away from their home, but what i think they did was just looked to see if you were undefeated and then ranked them by pulling straws. O well, its just the first poll in a very long season, it only matters what you are ranked in December
Sooo ... if the National Soccer Coaches Association of America doesn't determine rankings by the coaches actually voting, how DO they do it?
I believe this is the first poll of the year for the NSCAA ... the prev column refers to their final regular season poll of 2004, where the rankings (for the top 10) were: 2004 NCAA Division I Men - National November 16, 2004 Final Regular Season Poll Rank School W-L-T Prev. 1 UC Santa Barbara 17-2-1 1 2 Southern Methodist University 15-3-1 3 3 University of North Carolina, Greensboro 18-2-1 2 3 University of Virginia 17-4-0 8 3 University of New Mexico 16-1-1 6 6 Indiana University 14-4-1 4 7 University of Maryland 15-5-1 5 8 UCLA 13-3-2 13 9 University of Notre Dame 13-2-3 7 10 Wake Forest University 13-5-1 9
That is EXTREMELY WRONG!!! The NCAA does their selections based on the RPI not the polls. That is why Wake Forest was #1 in the NCAA Tournament last year, not UNC-Greensboro or New Mexico. Soccer Times is probably the best one because coaches are voting...but then again, how many coaches actually see all these teams play?
I'm not exactly sure how the NSCAA conducts its poll, but I do know that regional consideration and distribution is heavily considered -- hence you see FDU at 12th, Binghamton and Vermont also making the rankings. True, coaches don't see all of the games, but, I would take their opinions (and a variety of them as in the Soccer Times poll) over the one-man shows of College Soccer News and Soccer America -- it's my understanding that that is how those polls are done, I could be wrong. (Definitely not trying to slam those places that do such a good job covering the sport!) And yes, the coaches use an RPI system to select the teams, and have been upset with the NSCAA poll because it has been misleading in respect to some teams thinking they deserve a spot (Well, we're ranked 22nd in the NSCAA poll -- we should be in the field). Maybe we should just screw the polls and try to calculate the RPIs to figure out how the teams stack up. Just my opinion.
check their site and their rankings archive ... I really don't remember a preseason poll from the NSCAA ... however, the "prev" column seems to match up with their final regular season poll from 2004 ... here's the link: NSCAA final 2004 regular season poll ... no big deal anyway ... just clarifying
Wake as a number 1 seed was a joke last year. Also putting UNCG and UCSB as the 8 and 9 seeds were also pretty big jokes. Wake lost at home to UNCG. That right there should keep them from being #1 overall. UNCG and UCSB were two of the best teams in college soccer for most of the year. Not giving them the #5 and #6 seeds overall sends one message. If you don't have the privilege of playing in a larger conference, you don't get to reap the benefits of what you've actually earned, and also teams in larger conferences don't actually have to earn anything, just play their conference schedule. Wake was a good team, but they didn't even win get to the championship game of their own conference tournament. I think they just felt like an ACC team HAD to be there. It makes no sense at all.
I agree with uncg and ucsb's rankings but I think Wake deserved a pretty high seed. I think a lot of it goes with strength of schedule and uncg's certainly wasn't even close to Wakes. I agree the seedings and rankings are very subjective but I guess we just have to deal with it. Uncgfan, unlucky again vs. UNCW, maybe next year
I wasn't saying Wake didn't deserve a high seed, just not #1 overall. Problem is, there are 10-12 teams deserving of the top 7 slots. Somebody is gonna get shafted. Man we lost to N.C. State too (pretty shameful if you ask me). Our first ACC loss in 8 games. UNCG is hurting this year with the loss of Matt Smith, Pat Farrell and Phil Long (to grades and the wacko tobacco). It may take them a while to jel as a team, and that will drop them out of the top 25. Results so far UNCG 1 Duke 0 (standard result against an ACC squad) UNCG 0 NC State 1 (yuck) UNCG 2 UNCW 3 OT (Double yuck) UNCG 4 UNCC 0 better
1) Let me just interject that it's not really possible to be "extremely" wrong. It's a little like being pregnant - either you are or you aren't. 2) It's way too early to be concerned with the polls.
as was said, Missouri State is the former Southwest Missouri State. as for their program, very solid, and has been for quite some time. They have outstanding facilities as well.
The RPI ratings probably have severe distortions in historical seed estimates or overestimated power estimates based on recruiting potential not yet realized on the field. Div. I and II appear to be wild eyed guesses to me to start the season. I agree that the rankings should improve during the season. Soccer polls are not at all like being pregnant, there is no right soccer poll, only probability. The only right answer is who wins on the field.
The teams are ranked on a regional basis 1st (8 of those), by a committee of coaches in that particular region. The national rankings are voted from the regional rankings, by a comittee comprised of the representative from each region, and the national chairman. So the relative order of teams from each region is preserved. In the Great Lakes region, for example, IU, Akron and Notre Dame were 1,2,3 in the region. In the national ranking, they were 1,9 and 17 respectively.