Tuesday 13 February 2007

CIS Top 10 Tuesday

Courtesy of the NABCC (National Association of Basketball Coaches Canada)

NABCC Top Ten
February 13, 2007

LW Votes
-- -----
1. Brandon (39) #1 501 votes
2. Concordia (3) #2 462 votes
3. Carleton #3 420 votes
4. Victoria #4 365 votes
5. UBC #5 341 votes
6. Acadia #7 282 votes
7. Cape Breton #9 238 votes
8. Ottawa #10 172 votes
9. St. Francis Xavier #6 158 votes
10. Windsor #7 146 votes
11. Toronto #12 89 votes
12. Brock #13 34 votes
13. Alberta #14 18 votes
14. York #11 15 votes
15. McMaster NR 2 votes

The fact that St.FX and Windsor remain in the Coach's Top 10 could be a function of the restrictions mandating voters not to place teams more than 3 slots below where they were voted the week prior. Both teams have been mired in slumps that has seen X lose 5 of their last 7 while Windsor just ended a losing streak on Sunday with a win over Western at home. In the case of both St. FX (#6 last week, #9 this week) and Windsor (#7 this week, #10 last week) were dropped the maximum number of slots allowed by the voting criteria.

Currently, 3 Canada West teams are ranked in the Top 5. We've already mentioned that Brandon has only played 7 games all season against teams with better than .500 records but we haven't yet mentioned that the 'Cats are 7-0 in those games: 4 home wins against UBC, Victoria, Alberta and Saskatchewan, a road win at Simon Fraser and 2 neutral court wins against Saskatchewan and Toronto. UBC is 8-4 against teams with better than .500 records (Road Wins at Alberta, Vic, Simon Fraser; home wins Simon Fraser twice, Vic; neutral court wins Queen's & Cape Breton plus 3 road losses at Saskatchewan, Vic and Brandon and a neutral court loss to Concordia at Vic tournament). Victoria has a 7-6 record vs. +.500 teams (Wins: Simon Fraser (3), UBC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Queen's; Losses: UBC (2), at Brandon, Concordia at home, at Carleton and Windsor at Carleton tournament).

The Ottawa Gee-Gees, who have only lost 4 games all season - all to opponents with greater than .500 records, find themselves ranked below two teams with 10 and 8 losses respectively and with arguably fewer "quality" wins:

- Acadia (10 losses total) has 4 out-of-conference wins against teams with a combined league record of 17-56 (Waterloo in OT, Ryerson, RMC and UQAM) and 4 out-of-conferences losses (Ryerson, Trinity Western, Ottawa at home and Laurier)
- Cape Breton (8 losses total) is also 4-4 out-of-conference: wins at Ryerson, vs. Brock, McGill & Western and losses to York 75-60, Carleton, Queen's and UBC.
- Ottawa (4 losses total) is 14-1 in games outside of OUA East and 7-0 in games outside of Ontario with wins at Acadia, at St. Mary's, at Dalhousie, at McGill, Memorial, Dalhousie again (neutral site), Waterloo.

Canada West playoffs begin this weekend with 10 teams remaining to vie for four spots at the Canada West Final Four in two weeks. Both Alberta (Central division regular season champions) and Brandon (Great Plains division regular season champions) have byes into their division championship series this week. The four matchups this weekend are:

Winnipeg at Regina Best-of-3 Great Plains semi-final series
Calgary at Saskatchewan Best-of-3 Central semi-final series
Trinity Western at UBC Best-of-3 Pacific semi-final series
Simon Fraser at Victoria Best-of-3 Pacific semi-final series.

Stay tuned for series previews later this week.

Other articles of interest:

Brock Press (student newspaper) reports on Badgers win over Waterloo on Saturday complete with a series of game photos Badgers win 22nd game of the season (Brock Press)

Another in the series of bi-weekly articles during the season by Jim Thomas of All-Ontario Scouting Service with plenty of CIS and recruiting commentary Jim Thomas Article published on the hoop-la.com

2 comments:

sager said...

Ottawa with 4 losses is ranked below Acadia with 10?? Give me a break.

Not to go off on a rant here, Mark, but this is more proof that the schools and media need to be more like the NCAA in focusing on a team's overall record, not its conference record.

Anonymous said...

Crazy rankings? Maybe -- particularly with X and Windsor still hanging around in the Top Ten. But all the "inter-divsion records" are really old news -- none of these teams are playing now like they were long ago over Christmas break or in the pre-season. Those records are useless to consider.