Created a graph of the D1 Men Top Ten Team’s season. I listed the teams in order of their end-of-season Ranking and put their Ranking after their name. The numbers are imperfect due to normalizing the points so everyone has played the same number of games but… The graph still captures the gist of the season.
0 – Besides for Maryland for the good and Cornell for the bad, the first few games are a jumble. Teams win, teams lose, and neither seems to have a real effect on the team’s season.
0 – Basically, for the entirety of the season, Maryland, Duke, and Yale were at the top of the pile.
1 – Yale‘s finish to the season with wins over UMass, Loyola, Albany, and Duke was impressive.
2 – Duke‘s finish to the season, before losing to Yale, with wins over Boston U, Villanova, JHU, and UMD was impressive.
4 – Albany‘s loss to Yale in the middle of the season wasn’t good. But very similar to many other teams. Albany’s loss to UMBC (Game 8) really wasn’t good. After these two losses, Albany slowly re-surged with wins over Hartford, Mass-Lowell, Vermont, and Richmond. And their win over Denver was their first real points after their two losses… and then they lost to Yale. With Albany’s schedule, they cannot lose to UMBC.
5 – The key to Loyola‘s strong #5 finish in the rankings was their end of season win streak before losing to Yale: Colgate, Lehigh, Georgetown, Boston U, Army, Boston U, Lehigh, and UVA.
6 – JHU had a roller coaster of a season.
7 – Cornell‘s early season was awful and their win over Yale helped them a lot.
8 – Denver‘s season was pretty close to a straight line which speaks more to their schedule than their performance. With this said, they had losses to Duke, Notre Dame, and Georgetown that knocked them down off their straight line and, without their win over Notre Dame at the end of the season, they would’ve had a less-than-stellar season.
9 – At mid-season, Bucknell did not look good. But with wins over Yale, Loyola, and some middle-tier teams, they turned their season around. (Despite their loss to BU, they should’ve been in the tournament.)
10 – Notre Dame‘s low-point at game 11 after losing to UNC was one of the lowest points for any Top Ten team. Their win over Duke immediately afterwards was critical.
Lastly, as an observation, for the Top Teams, in general, you’re going to end your season with a loss. Where your Points were before the loss dictates where you’ll finish overall. The exception this season was Bucknell. Since they lost to BU, a lower ranked team, they dropped more than the others. Before their loss, they were even with Cornell and ahead of Denver. After the loss, they fell below both (but still ahead of Notre Dame). Every other team dropped after their loss, but not below the teams they were ahead of in Points before the loss.
