Last week, I unveiled my personal preseason power rankings for 21 teams in the area. Well, it obviously got some attention and two more teams (Yale and Marist) were added for a total of 23. And now we’re adding more voters! I’ve teamed up with eight assorted media members (with more to come!) and team bloggers from around the metro area to get a look at who they think are the top teams around the city. The answers might surprise you.
You can see some comments from a few of the voters and full voter list at the bottom of the post. The results of the polling are:
- Iona
- Rutgers
- Seton Hall
- St. John’s
- Fairfield
- Long Island
- Princeton
- Stony Brook
- Hofstra
- Rider
- Wagner
- Yale
- St. Peter’s
- Columbia
- Fordham
- Manhattan
- Sacred Heart
- Army
- NJIT
- Monmouth
- Marist
- St. Francis (NY)
- Fairleigh Dickinson
Just because I was curious, I ran the standard deviations on all 23 teams to see which ones caused the most disagreement. There were five that really stood out: Stony Brook, Sacred Heart, Wagner, Rider and Fordham. All five are tough cases for one reason or another. For SBU it’s if you really believe they’re an NCAA tournament contender this season and the class of America East. Josh Newman had this to say when he ranked Stony Brook sixth, “Probably too high, but they’re talented enough to contend in the America East.” For Wagner it’s how much do you trust Dan Hurley to keep the rebuilding effort going strong? (One voter had the Seahawks above defending NEC champion Long Island.) In fact, the questions abound for every team after the top 10 or so. I thought Pico Dulce of Rumble in the Garden put it best.
First, let me get out of the way that I am making this up halfway off the top of my head. I checked the preview guides, I checked KenPom, but a lot of these rankings are made from my impressions of the teams and what they were able to do last year, combined with what they have returning. Sometimes, my gut spoke volumes. … I think after Stony Brook/Yale/ Hofstra/Fordham, I can’t really make very accurate ratings because I know the teams less, and there are so many questions about each one.
That sentiment was shared with me by a number of voters in this first iteration, but everyone gave it a strong shot. I really appreciate these fine folks for voting: @AsherFusco, @Joshua_Newman, @princetontigers, @CerasolisGhost, @defiantlydutch, @IonaGuyF, @ECoastBias and @UnrankedAE.
I’m definitely open to having more voters in the future. If you’re a New York City area media member or blogger and would like to vote please let me know. We’ll probably do this again right before the season tips off in November.
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