Marist?

[XU-PA]

Looking over the top 25 from the Ap today, XU still on the "other receiving votes" list, 3rd.
But Marist at #20, are the voters drunk?

Marist has an rpi of 45 at 17-1, with a SOS at 197.
The only top team they've played is Oklahoma and they lost by 26. the best win they have is over St Bonnie at #80, it's the only other top 100 team they've beaten.

wins over Tulsa, Lafayette, Niagra and Rider. wow.

I'll still take the schedule that K-Mac put together, you get better by playing better teams.

[X-band '01]

Hate to break it to you Xu-PA, but Marist does have some recent history to their program. They went to the Sweet 16 a couple of years ago. Even though it was a 26-point loss, it only counts as 1 loss. Their seed may not be as great with their power numbers, but why shouldn't they be ranked at this point?

[Stonebreaker]

Marist: the Utah of hoops.

[XU-PA]

X-Band, I'm looking at this year, they've played no one, it's just odd to see a team with that kind of RPI and SOS being ranked among the top 25 this late in the season.

Success 2 years ago is nice, but I would think rankings this late shouldn't have anything to do with past seasons.

I am much more impressed by a 4 loss team that's played up in the top 20, than an undefeated team that's playing in the bottom half of the RPI, can't see how AP voters can skim over the lack of competition but be enamored with a 17-1 record.
AP has them one spot ahead of Rutgers, very very hard to see how they could stand up to a team as strong as Rutgers.

[cinskyline]

XU-PA, unfortunately the women's polls are extremely biased towards teams that have had recent success in the NCAA Tournament. They always seem to get the benefit of the doubt. It's one of the things I hate about the polls.

[xu_fan]

yea... i just went and viewed their schedule and they literally have played NO ONE.... and when I say no one I mean like not even a decent team except for Oklahoma of course... I'd put money on Xavier beating them by 20 if we played...

[GoMuskies]

Marist: the Utah of hoops.

That would be more apt if they had throttled Oklahoma.

[XU-PA]

Watched Marist Friday, they played Fairfield on ESPN-U

Good shooters, no Defense, rebounding so-so. They lost 73-65 at home, Fairfield is a 166 RPI with a 229 SOS.

My question again. Marist?

Bigger issue is that the sports media still does not take as critical a look at women's sports as they do on the mens side. Now I can excuse that for the NFL beat reports etc, but these people are being asked to vote on the top 25 teams in the country, you'd think they would do more than just watch the ticker at the bottom of the screen on ESPN to see the results of a half dozen WBB games a day. Makes you wonder, who else doesn't belong, or who is mising that is deserving? My impatience over women's sports being treated as highly as they deserve is showing again, daily.

[Bigbluebrotha]

PA - you're correct and it's unfortunate. The disparity between the women's media poll and coach's poll is a bit embarrassing in my mind for the media. How can it be that far off?

As far as coverage, it's obviously not great, but I think ESPN and ESPNU do a pretty good job of covering the sport when the games are on the channels. It would be nice to see a little more SportsCenter coverage. I subscribe to a sports tier on DirecTV. CBS College Sports shows a lot of games as do a lot of the FOX Sports Net affiliates. I was able to catch Kentucky and LSU today, Western Kentucky is on a lot then some of the schools like Marist, Manhattan, etc on the coast. Big Ten Network does the best job so far, they have a women's sports show and always include women's items in their nightly Big Ten report.

So, the TV coverage is much better than the print, but you have to pay a little extra to get it. You'd think some of the esteemed media poll voters would take it seriously and make an effort to watch some of the games.

[XU-PA]

Correct Bigblue'
The announcers that did a woman's game on CBS sports a week did a great job, alot of that comes from info their producers feed them pre game, but it showed that the TV folks at CBS sports do their homework.
I don't have the whole fox package this year, but I recall them doing a fair job last year. I really think the locals do the worst, whether it be print or TV. Expections abound, like up Conn, or in Tennesee where coverage I've see is stellar on womens sport across the board.

Does anyone know, are the voters substantially different between the mens and womens AP poll?

[Bigbluebrotha]

PA - Yes the men's and women's voters are different. Usually it's beat writers for the teams, but the women's teams get shuffled off so often it's hard to maintain consistency.

Locals in Cincy are very lackluster for women's college basketball. Channel 9 still does the best job, Channel 19 probably second, Channel 12 third and the mighty 5 fourth.