On Sunday night, I'll send an email to Keith McShea at the Buffalo News ranking the top ten large and small schools in WNY. I'm just one of ten pollsters who's ballot will get tallied to form the polls for boy's basketball. It's a routine you get into throughout the season, except for the holiday break at the end of December, when the polls take a hiatus for a couple weeks. During this time, I follow the holiday tournaments, key nonleague games, and early league games, then refer back to my previous ballot and make necessary adjustments based on the results during the poll's holiday hiatus.
Since casting my last ballot for the Buffalo News poll published on December 18th, there have been some significant results that could potentially shift the results of the most important area of both polls, the top. In its season opener, Niagara Falls had knocked off Bishop Kearney, 52-47 in overtime, a win that helped the Wolverines secure the top spot in the poll. NFHS received six first place votes, while the Canisius had four votes. Four days later, the Crusaders dropped their opener to Olean, and Falls became a unanimous number one the following Tuesday, receiving all 10 first place votes. Then on Tuesday, December 18th, Canisius defeated Bishop Kearney, 69-50, in a highly anticipated game between two of the top schools in the far west region of New York.
One major difference between the Kings team that Falls faced from the one Canisius saw was the absence of Syracuse bound Chinonso Obokoh. The 6-10 forward manned the paint at the Wolv-Arena, but didn't even make the trip to Canisius due to a foot injury.
Then over the break, an even bigger result made its way to Twitter and then to the Buffalo News Scoreboard page…Nichols defeated Olean, 66-57. The same Huskies team that beat Canisius lost to the number seven small school?
Well, not exactly the same team that beat Canisius.
We quickly learned that Sam Eckstrom, the 6-7 junior who's name is routinely thrown around as a Division I prospect, was out of the lineup for Olean. Eckstrom was still recovering from a shoulder injury originally suffered in the win over Canisius, and then later reaggrevated in a subsequent game.
A situation aimilar to this one occured back in 2010, when unanimous number one and then large school, Nichols, lost a pair of games to Timon and Canisius after losing guard Ron Canestro to injury. That prompted Keith McShea to move Nichols to #3 on the "How The News voted" post that followed, and he offered this explanation for moving them down two spots:
"3. Nichols [10-4] [last week: 1] – Just to make sure everyone realizes this — with Canestro, Nichols wins at Timon (and Canisius, after my ballot was filled out) and is still No. 1 by a full-court shot. Period. But the reality is that they are without Canestro, and despite Regan being an absolute force lately, they are a different team right now."
Canestro later returned to the Vikings and helped lead the team to the Class A Federation Championship after a resounding victory over Dajuan Coleman-led Jamesville-DeWitt in the final.
So now my question for all of you is what to do with this information. Do we assume the games would have gone much differently if the big men with D-I talents played? Do we rank the teams based strictly on the end results? Do we create a double-standard, and say Canisius would have won regardless, but not Nichols? Or vice-versa? Would it be fair to Nichols to rank them behind Olean after they just made a road trip to Cattaraugus County and beat the Huskies at St. Bonaventure? Did the Nichols win make its game against Canisius on February 5th any more intriguing?
Who should be #1 and why? I would love to hear from some of you as to the rationale behind how you would be voting. Or if you are a pollster, you could tell us how you will be voting.
I know how I'll be voting in each poll and when 2013 Poll Ballots – Week 3 is published on Monday morning, you can read the logic I applied to make my decision.
-centercourt
Leave a Reply to More than MMA in WNYCancel reply