Paul Woody doesn't have a clue
- Thread starter localspider
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Just heard that Sweet Briar is closing. We should rank them higher just for the sake of ranking them. Reminds me of the College top 5 they used to do on the NFL pre-game shows back in the 70's. They used to put some rinky-dink school at number 5 just because they won 100-0 or something.
That list can be debated but for the love of Pete, Tech at #3??? The possibilities for this are:
He's publishing this to be a lightning rod
He's pandering to the largest state schools
He doesn't have TV. The Internet, or the ability to read
Good grief.
Once again, I stand by my statement that Woody is not a bad sportswriter.
Also the Times-Dispatch is a pretty good paper overall, and, yes I am one of those dinosaurs that enjoys getting the paper in the morning and actually reading it through and through. I guess that's not really the cool thing to do these days, but many of you don't know what you are missing by not taking the time to have a cup of coffee and read the actual print version of a newspaper.
And, of course, Woody is a liberal. Are you kidding me? How could anyone reading some of his columns and his cause celebres not realize this? The T-D is still a somewhat conservative paper by editorial standards, but it is definitely more to the center now than it once was.
Also the Times-Dispatch is a pretty good paper overall, and, yes I am one of those dinosaurs that enjoys getting the paper in the morning and actually reading it through and through. I guess that's not really the cool thing to do these days, but many of you don't know what you are missing by not taking the time to have a cup of coffee and read the actual print version of a newspaper.
And, of course, Woody is a liberal. Are you kidding me? How could anyone reading some of his columns and his cause celebres not realize this? The T-D is still a somewhat conservative paper by editorial standards, but it is definitely more to the center now than it once was.
center, you must not read the big, front-page story every sunday morning. for years, since their transformation to liberal, a huge "violin" story every sunday morning, the red flag which told me that the switch had taken place years before to mirror the national media.
I know they are a D3 school, but R-MC may actually disserve recognition and discussion as one of the best college teams in VA. They went undefeated in their conference this year, won their tournament, and got a high seed in the D3 NCAAs.
I recall back in the 80's when VUU was a national D2 powerhouse, none of the state D1 schools would play exhibition or OOC games with them. VUU was too good, and the D1 schools had nothing to gain and everything to lose by playing them.
I recall back in the 80's when VUU was a national D2 powerhouse, none of the state D1 schools would play exhibition or OOC games with them. VUU was too good, and the D1 schools had nothing to gain and everything to lose by playing them.
No legitimate discussion as to WM over UR. They have too many bad losses, including losing to 300+ team. Would put us perhaps tied for third behind Hoos and ODU. If in tie for third would be with vcu due to their other wins, even though we beat them twice.
Oh I agree 72, we beat W&M and no way W&M has the record they do in the A-10, but someone can at least put out a argument about W&M. They finished first in the CAA, they played us to a 1 point game at our place. It's an argument, not a good one. No such argument can be made for Tech. They are terrible.
I would have us fourth behind, UVA, VCU, ODU. Yeah, we beat VCU twice, they still have a better body of work than we do. That is how you should rank these things.
I would have us fourth behind, UVA, VCU, ODU. Yeah, we beat VCU twice, they still have a better body of work than we do. That is how you should rank these things.
This to me is so silly! Are we so insecure as a fan base that we take as a major affront and a sign of disrespect some meaningless ranking by a sportswriter? It is not going to affect one iota whether we get a post season bid. What counts is this 1) we beat VCU twice in the same season for the first time in 14 years 2) With a strong finish we get a post season bid.
Outside of our posters, no one in the basketball universe takes Michael Phillips poll seriously!
Outside of our posters, no one in the basketball universe takes Michael Phillips poll seriously!
I don't consider it an affront to our program but I find it unusual when the RTD is trying to be relevant as a place to get quality local and state sports news, that they publish a basketball poll, that a 3rd grader would find ridiculous.
And your final statement is exactly my point, Michael Phillips job is write about state college basketball and you can't take him seriously. Why should I take anything else they write in their paper or on-line seriously when I take one look at the state ranking of teams and laugh out loud?
9Legs, agree with 97. I don't take offense to where UR is in this thing, hence my comment that it's debateable. What's kooky is that VT ranking. As noted, it's just out of left field, and while I would excuse it being a one-time mistake, to continue to rank them there suggests he really thinks that. It's comical, that's all.
maybe the td is like the college coaches poll, he assigns his vote to some admin person. maybe phillips has some stripper interning with him and she is a former tech student. could be that simple
Maybe so Spinner. What's kind of alarming though is that I think he has a vote in the AP poll. At least I got that impression reading some other blogposts about him voting for Indiana earlier this year when they were still 8-0. If so, the translation is that someone who thinks Tech is third ranked in Virginia also is allowed to vote on the AP Top 25. Yikes.
Yes no one is losing sleep over those rankings by Phillips but it does diminish further the ability to take the sports reporting of the RTD seriously. And besides that how do you think Radford University fans feel?- you may not care, but Radford did beat the mighty number 3 in the state Hokies according to Phillips for the first time in umpteen years by the score of 68-66 in Blacksburg on Pearl Harbor day 2014.
Michael Phillips does not get a vote in the AP Poll. If he's indicated in blog posts that he does, then we may be able to add lying to his list of journalistic offenses.
Below is a list of the 64 AP poll voters. 3 voters are from Virginia, none from the RTD. Maybe they agree with our assessment of the RTD's expertise. Interestingly, their list of voters does seem to bias to "BCS" locations -- the 3 Virginia voters hail from the Daily Progress (UVA), the Roanoke Times (Tech), and the Freelance Star (Fredericksburg - the only one without a dog in the hunt)....
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/specials/interactives/_sports/top25_basketball/voters/men.html?SITE=AP
This post was edited on 3/4 4:50 PM by Spiderbymarriage
Phillips justified his rankings on Twitter by saying that if UR and VT played right now, Tech would be favored and they would win. (??) Also said that Richmond has been playing well lately but before that, not so much, and that if we continued to play well, we would move up. Left unsaid: How well Tech has been playing for the entire season, I suppose?!?
Interestingly, we were actually ranked by Phillips 5th in the state when we were 9-7, two spots ahead of Tech, which was 8-7 at the time. Since then, we have gone 8-5, while Tech has gone 2-13 -- yet he felt they deserved to move up while we moved down.
It's really absurd that he gets paid for this stuff.
Jan 12 rankings
Interestingly, we were actually ranked by Phillips 5th in the state when we were 9-7, two spots ahead of Tech, which was 8-7 at the time. Since then, we have gone 8-5, while Tech has gone 2-13 -- yet he felt they deserved to move up while we moved down.
It's really absurd that he gets paid for this stuff.
Jan 12 rankings
Really my only point for bringing this up. is the absurdity of the rankings and then he is actually out trying to defend this on Twitter. What an absolute joke.
