Top 25 Ballot Breakdown: Week 2 (2024-25 season)
A look at my Top 25 ballot this week for D3hoops.com, breaking down all 25 teams I voted for and my thoughts on each
Welcome back to the second regular season edition of my Top 25 ballot breakdown! For the first time this season, we’ve submitted Top 25 ballots on consecutive weeks, so the changes within my ballot, as you’ll probably notice, will be less significant week-to-week as compared to going from the preseason to Week 1. My hope is that this helps give you a better idea of my reasoning behind voting for certain teams, what I’m looking for as a voter, and how that process unfolds each week as I put together my ballot. I consider it a great responsibility to be one of the 25 voters for D3hoops.com’s WBB Top 25 poll, and transparency is important to me, especially in doing these rankings where there’s no perfect science on assembling a ballot!
A few quick notes…
Check out the Week 2 D3hoops.com Top 25 poll here.
I mention efficiency ratings a few times in this post. You can find those on D3Datacast.com as they do an excellent job with keeping those updated and easy to navigate.
I posted my complete ballot on X/Twitter yesterday, which you can see here.
NYU (5-0): The Violets remain atop my ballot. NYU didn’t play this past week, so no real update on this front. We do get an interesting matchup between NYU and SUNY-Cobleskill (who received a vote in Monday’s new Top 25 poll) on Friday of this week, followed by a perhaps even more intriguing duel at Tufts on Sunday. Tufts isn’t a team I considered voting for this week, but the Jumbos are playing solid basketball, having taken Scranton down to the wire and beaten Rhode Island College this past week.
Illinois Wesleyan (6-0): Nobody in the country had a better week than IWU. The quality of wins the Titans picked up, all of which were played away from Bloomington, were nothing short of incredible. They went to UW-Whitewater on Tuesday and won, 84-78, then took down DePauw (#27 in Massey), 65-59. And to cap it off, IWU surged in the second half against WashU, winning the Midwest Challenge, 67-59. The depth of this team, the experience, the cohesiveness, are all very much at the forefront of what makes the Titans so tough to beat. I’m not sure anyone in the country has a better collections of wins right now than IWU, who has beaten five Massey Top 100 opponents, four of which are in the Top 30.
UW-Oshkosh (6-0): There wasn’t much debate in my head about moving IWU ahead of Oshkosh after the tremendous week IWU had. But that didn’t change my opinion of Oshkosh, who I’ve already said is a Final Four-type team in my opinion. The Titans have a lengthy break between games, with 23 days separating the win over Wheaton and their next game at home vs Benedictine on Dec. 16. So we still have some time before we see the Titans back on the floor. I like what I’ve seen so far, and the biggest tests are still ahead with Trine and a full WIAC slate coming up.
WashU (5-1): Yes, WashU lost and I still moved them up. This doesn’t happen all that often in my ballot, but in this case, it felt warranted. WashU’s resume has the noteworthy win over Wisconsin Lutheran, and in the Bears’ first big-time test against IWU, I was fairly impressed. They were the better team in the first half, and really executed well on both ends of the floor in those opening two quarters. I’m not sure anyone this season has defended IWU to the level WashU did in the first half. Lexy Harris wasn’t even at full strength, and yet put up 11 points. Jessica Brooks was terrific. I think WashU’s advantage in the post will continue to come into play, especially with the way they attack the boards; the Bears are out-rebounding opponents by a 16.2 margin and Harris is amongst the best back-to-the-basket scorers in the country.
Christopher Newport (7-0): The Captains have taken care of business in the early part of this season, and as I’ve said before, I trust the depth of CNU’s rotation and the defensive emphasis within the program. It’s probably the main reason why I have them three spots higher than the poll. In their lone D3 game of last week, CNU dominated Greensboro (#352 in Massey), but there’s not a ton I took away from that as a voter. With the way IWU and WashU have been playing, I opted to move those two ahead of CNU this week, though the Captains stay in my Top 5.
Wartburg (6-0): Wartburg hasn’t had a big test yet, and because of that, it’s a bit harder to fully evaluate where the Knights are at in comparison to the rest of the country’s top teams. That’s also why I probably have Wartburg just a bit lower than the average voter, as Wartburg ended up No. 2 in the poll. Overall, they’ve put together a solid start, and added a conference win at Luther (#83 Massey), 78-62, on Tuesday. This month, we’ll see Wartburg play six current Massey Top 100 teams, including Mary Hardin-Baylor and UW-Platteville.
Scranton (5-0): The Lady Royals have been strong, as expected, particularly on the defensive end. They’re allowing just 40.5 PPG right now! That’s huge, and if Scranton continues that success, the ceiling seems high. When you look at the last few national champions (and even runner-ups as well), you notice that what they shared was a consistent, disciplined defense that ranked high in scoring defense. Scranton had a bit of a hiccup at Tufts just before Thanksgiving, escaping with a 60-57 win after things went sideways in the fourth quarter. Right now, that remains their highest-quality win, and they’ll have opportunities to add to that with games against Bethel (MN) and Elizabethtown in the next four to five weeks.
Bowdoin (4-0): Bowdoin has steadily climbed in my ballot, though I still have them one spot lower than the poll. I think it’s just me being more conservative with a team that hasn’t beaten an elite team yet. The Polar Bears have just four games and haven’t faced a Massey Top 100 team yet, so there’s only so much analysis you can pull from one-sided wins, which is what they’ve had so far. But we should know lot more about Bowdoin after Thursday, when the Polar Bears host Bates in one of my more anticipated games of the week.
UW-Whitewater (5-1): UWW remains in my Top 10, even with the loss to IWU. It said more about IWU than it did UWW, in my opinion, and the Warhawks’ resume is still very solid, with wins over DePauw and Carroll. As long as Kacie Carollo is scoring, UWW has the ability to stay competitive in just about any game. Carollo is averaging 21.5 PPG and is very much the centerpiece of offense. Once Katie Hildebrandt starts contributing at a higher rate, as she did against Simpson with 15 points, UWW will have a dangerous inside-outside presence that is tough to guard. The next big test for the Warhawks probably won’t come until WIAC play, after they took down Simpson this past Sunday on a neutral court.
Ohio Wesleyan (6-0): We’ll find out soon enough if OWU is too high in my ballot or not. I feel good about where the Battling Bishops are this week, even as they’re a few spots back, at No. 16, in the poll. They won at Ohio Northern by 13 last Tuesday, and that result looks good on their resume even though it wasn’t the prettiest offensive performance for either side. I like how OWU’s season continues to unfold, and we’ll see the Battling Bishops in one more key non-conference test against Rhode Island College in Puerto Rico in late December.
Whitman (7-0): Big jump for Whitman in my ballot, going from No. 19 to No. 11. Watching them more, it was clear the Blues deserved to move up a decent amount, just based on the chemistry I saw on the court and Whitman’s overall confidence level. Things have clicked in ways they didn’t last season, and evidence of that is found in the D3Datacast’s WBB Efficiency Ratings, which have Whitman at No. 4 overall in efficiency and fifth in the country in offensive adjusted efficiency. Korin Baker averages 20.5 PPG, and had 22 this past Saturday in a 73-50 win over Cal Lutheran, who is very much in the SCIAC title hunt. It has been the efficiency and margins of victory over quality teams, like ETBU and CalLu, that prompted me to look further at Whitman and consider moving the Blues into my Top 15.
Gustavus Adolphus (5-0): It was good to finally see the Gusties face someone outside of the WIAC! We saw Gustavus in a quality test against Colorado College on Monday (in a game played after all ballots were submitted), and I may have noted this last week, but I came away with mixed feelings on that result. Colorado College was impressive, and credit to Gustavus for pulling out the win. At the same time, I wasn’t convinced enough by the overall performance to push the Gusties higher on my ballot. So I kept them at No. 12, with another good look coming this Saturday, when they get Concordia (MN) in MIAC play. The one thing I really like about the Gusties is their ability to limit turnovers. They had just nine turnovers against CC, and are averaging just 13.0 per game, both noteworthy numbers, considering Gustavus has battled some top-notch defenses in UW-La Crosse, UW-Stout, and UW-River Falls.
Smith (5-1): I already said it in yesterday’s newsletter, but Smith’s 74-49 win over Trinity (CT) on Sunday was the largest margin of victory over a Massey Top 30 team this season. I think the second half performance said a lot about Smith, just in the Pioneers’ ability to run their offense at their own speed, and more importantly, lock down on the defensive end. With such a strong defensive identity (Smith is No. 4 nationally in defensive adjusted efficiency), very few teams have been able to score with much consistency this season. Now, you may be wondering why Smith is ahead of Mass-Dartmouth, when UMD beat Smith head-to-head just two weeks ago. Here’s a quick version: Last week, that was the case, as I wanted to see UMD and Smith both a bit more. But having now seen Smith against a very good Trinity (CT) squad, and also seeing UMD struggle a bit against Roger Williams in a narrow 77-73 win, Smith’s body of work has warranted them moving up. They may not have been the best team on the floor the night they faced UMD, but one result isn’t going to shape my overall perspective of these teams. Not when we have five other games to also evaluate alongside that one. It was a key win for UMD, no doubt, and is a big reason why they’re in my Top 20. But at this point, I’ve seen enough to tell me Smith is Top 15 caliber, especially with the loss to UMD being such a narrow 63-60 result. It’d be a different story if it had come by double-digits.
Elizabethtown (5-1): I honestly don’t know how Elizabethtown is all the way back at No. 25 in the poll. The Blue Jays’ only loss is to Ohio Wesleyan, who we know is very good, and they also beat Catholic, who is one spot ahead of them in the poll (to that point, head-to-head is still a very valuable data point, but I don’t think it should be the sole or primary data point when the two teams you’re comparing have each played 5+ games). With the senior leadership on the roster, this feels like a breakthrough year for ETown, with one more chance for those seniors to reach the NCAA Tournament, as they did in 2022 and 2023. Certainly, the performance last week against Lebanon Valley, a 72-65 win, wasn’t anything to write home about. But with it being just a few days before Thanksgiving, I think there’s room to give a little bit of grace on those results, especially as it was spread nationwide. Lots of top teams struggled in those games just before the holiday, and I’m even reminded of NYU’s very unconvincing, 54-46 win over Whittier the day before Thanksgiving last year. So anyway, I think ETown is a solid Top 15 team right now, but it might be a little while before they move up by any kind of significant amount.
Washington and Lee (5-0): Believe it or not, this is the first 5-0 start in program history for W&L. Head coach Brittney Kemp has done a stellar job in her first season there, and I opted to move W&L up just a bit this week. The Generals overwhelmed Marymount in a 70-44 win on Sunday, and are getting set for a west coast trip that always presents interesting matchups. We just saw Hardin-Simmons struggle through their three games in the Pacific Northwest, and W&L will certainly hope for better luck in their contests against Pacific and Willamette. I think we’ll learn a lot about W&L in the coming weeks, which should better inform how I rank them with more data and film against quality teams available.
Hope (5-2): Hope doesn’t have a bad loss on its resume, and got past a pair of tough WIAC squads in UW-La Crosse and UW-River Falls last week. Considering how well UWL has played, and the fact that UWRF controlled Concordia (MN) in a win just a few days before, I’d say those are two quality results for the Flying Dutch. This Hope team continues to gel as the season goes on, and that’s been my biggest takeaway so far. For having a decent amount of “new” in the rotation entering this season, the Flying Dutch have impressed me against this tough non-conference slate, battling Illinois Wesleyan and Carroll well. Also, Anna and Leah Richards are both amongst the best freshmen I’ve seen this season, and I won’t be surprised to see both end up with All-MIAA and All-Region honors by the end of the season. To adjust to the speed of the college game the way they have is impressive.
Gettysburg (7-0): I talked about this last week, so I won’t entirely repeat myself again. But it’s been hard to know exactly where to rank Gettysburg with Mackenzie Szlosek out. The Bullets are a different team without her on the floor, but at the same time, having Alayna Arnolie, Shinya Lee, and AB Holsinger helps alleviate some of the impact. I moved Gettysburg down in my ballot this week and will wait and see how things go from here. They got past York (Pa.) at home last Tuesday, 59-44, and the 70-61 win over SUNY Cobleskill also looks good. I think the crucial test will be against 21st-ranked Messiah tomorrow night, as that’ll be Gettysburg’s biggest test since Szlosek went out against Roanoke.
UW-Stout (5-2): This is another team with some notable players out with injury, and one I’m keeping in my ballot for the time being. They fell out of the Top 25 this week, and I can understand it, as Stout dropped its top two non-conference games to Concordia (MN) and Gustavus, and doesn’t really have a win you can point to as validation for keeping them in. BUT, they also have played all but two games without preseason All-American Raegan Sorensen. Once she returns, and the same is true for leading scorer Lexi Wagner (who hasn’t played since the Crown game on Nov. 16), Stout is a team that can easily surge into the Top 15. So me keeping them at No. 18 is more based on having seen Stout last year, and knowing the talent level on that roster when the Blue Devils are at full strength. That’s part of this whole Top 25 voting process. You have to consider injuries and external factors that won’t necessarily show up in a computer model when deciding how to rank and evaluate these teams.
Mass-Dartmouth (5-0): I’m a little lower on Mass-Dartmouth than the poll (who had them at No. 13). I feel really good about the Corsairs as a Top 20 team, and as I already noted when talking about Smith, that win is huge for their resume. This is a squad with a foundation of seniors and experienced returners, which creates for an ideal situation when looking to make a deep tournament run. This team definitely has the capability to do that, and I think we’ll get some great insight on Saturday, when the Corsairs face MASCAC favorite Bridgewater State. Admittedly, the tight game against Roger Williams, which wasn’t bad by any means, but also wasn’t a super convincing win, caused me to just pause a little bit on moving Mass-Dartmouth too far up in my ballot. That said, I think the ceiling is high for the Corsairs this season, and won’t be surprised to see them continue moving up in my ballot and the poll.
Johns Hopkins (4-2): JHU remains in my ballot, because at the end of the day, I still have a confidence in what the Blue Jays have this season. It may not have shown up as prominently as I would’ve expected early on, but with the entire rotation back from a team that went 26-4 last season, I anticipate we’ll see JHU find more of a rhythm as the schedule plays out. The dent in their resume right now is the absence of a top-tier win, having lost in their first two opportunities against CNU and Randolph-Macon. For as much as I don’t want to punish teams for losing to other good teams, there’s also a point where it’s tough to keep a team high in your ballot based on expectations and close losses alone. So I dropped them back to No. 20, and will go from there. Later this month, we’ll see the Blue Jays face Vassar and Denison in Florida, with both of those games being valuable before Centennial Conference play really gets going.
Chicago (7-0): The Maroons make their debut in my ballot this week after an impressive start under first-year head coach Michelle Gardner-Bilek. They’re all the way up to #6 in Massey Ratings, with the 81-70 win over Carroll highlighting last week’s wins. Chicago has four Massey Top 100 wins, with the 66-41 win over Middlebury also standing out within the Maroons’ resume. They shoot the ball well (43.3% from the field this season), and have won the rebounding battle in every game that they’ve played (Avg reb margin of 9.9). I’ve watched Chicago several times this season and the Top 25 attention is justified. We’ll see Chicago in a huge matchup at Illinois Wesleyan on Dec. 17. Mark your calendars for that one!
Catholic (4-1): I think most voters have a similar impression of Catholic. They’re a solid team within the Landmark and their backcourt is one of the most experienced in the nation, but much like last year, they lack the one or two quality wins needed to really push them higher into the poll. The win over Shenandoah on opening weekend was good, and we saw how tough they played ETown. But outside of those two games, we haven’t seen Catholic challenged, and considering their two “quality results” are a four-point loss and a six-point win, there’s just not enough for me to keep Catholic in my Top 20 right now. Opportunities against Vassar and Messiah later this month should be valuable in getting a better feel for where Catholic stands.
Colorado College (6-1): As I watched the Tigers push Gustavus to the brink last Monday, I was pretty sure CC was a team I’d be considering when I started assembling this week’s ballot. Then we got to Friday, and the Tigers shot the lights out from 3 in the first quarter of an 81-58 win over a quality UMHB team, putting up 34 points in the first 10 minutes. CC’s offensive chemistry is exceptional, and in addition to Preseason All-American Zoe Tomlinson at center, Kayla Mackel, Healy Bledsoe, Laura Strenk, and Isa Nelson have all stepped up on that end of the floor. Being as balanced as they are makes CC a tough matchup for opposing defenses, as they shoot 44.8% and are No. 21 nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency. After coming up short in the SCAC Tournament final in each of the last four years, the Tigers are in position to break through and win the league this season.
Carroll (4-3): I debated on whether or not to keep the Pioneers in my ballot. They lost back-to-back games against Chicago and Ripon this past week, yet beat Hope just 10 days ago. You don’t want to overreact to one bad week, which is essentially what happened here. I’m more conservative with actually dropping teams out, especially teams that were No. 11 in my ballot just a week prior. I still trust the talent Carroll has, and I want to see if they can bounce back on Saturday at home against Illinois Wesleyan. That matchup is going to be huge for both teams, with Carroll obviously in need of a victory and IWU looking to avenge last year’s 0-2 record vs the Pioneers.
Carnegie Mellon (7-0): For the first time in my three years as a voter, I put Carnegie Mellon on my ballot. I expected the Tartans might be in for a major step forward after going 11-14 last season, but this 7-0 start has been unexpected. Within those seven wins are some quality results, with a narrow victory over W&J and a 75-58 win at Denison. CMU is averaging 81.4 PPG, which ranks 11th in the country in scoring offense. I am interested to see how they handle the UAA schedule, as that will be the true test, but as of now, CMU is setting itself up for an NCAA Tournament bid.
Dropped out (from my Week 1 ballot) —> Teams out: Concordia (MN) (#22), Trinity (CT) (#23), Vassar (#25)
New teams in that weren’t in my previous ballot —> New Teams in: Chicago (#21), Colorado College (#23), Carnegie Mellon (#25)
Biggest difference from the poll (+ indicates I have them higher, - indicates I have them lower) —> Ohio Wesleyan (+6), WashU (+7), Elizabethtown (+11), Gettysburg (-5), Mass-Dartmouth (-6), W&L (-9)
Teams I ranked but were unranked in the poll —> UW-Stout (#18), Colorado College (#23), Carroll (#24)
Teams that were ranked in the poll that I did not rank —> Hardin-Simmons (#18), Baldwin Wallace (#19), Messiah (#21)