The South voters were asked to rank their top five teams in the region following the Scottish Highland Games. Seven voters participated in the poll. Points were allocated in the following manner: Five points for a first place vote, four points for a second place vote, three points for a third place vote, etc. The votes have been tabulated and listed below in order of total votes. The number in parentheses indicates how many first place votes a team received. A “+” or “-” indicates a change from the last poll, with a plus indicating if a team is more highly ranked and a minus indicating is a team is lower ranked. An “x” indicates a team’s standing from the last poll is unchanged.
South Coaches Poll Results
1. Florida’s Finest (FF) – (6) 34 (x)
2. University of Miami (UM) – (1) 29 (x)
3. Tie: RCQC (+1) and University of Florida (UF) (-1) – 17
5. University of South Florida Quidditch (USF) – 6 (x)
Also receiving votes: College of Charleston – 2
Voters Explain Their Decisions
“1. Florida's Finest – The record speaks for itself. One overtime loss out of 15(?) games and a whole lot of points along the way. Not much else to say.
2. University of Miami – FF's one overtime loss was courtesy of UM and its tight defense. UM’s beater play is unrivaled, and it has a tough physicality to go with it. The more I watch UM play, the less sense its W-L record makes.
3. RCQC – This one's a little harder to defend since I haven't been able to see the team at full strength, but placing third in a two-day tournament speaks pretty loudly, especially when half the starters are missing and everyone else is injured.
4. University of Florida (UF) – The most recent tournament is not great for drawing conclusions, as all its games were unofficial, and as a result it was missing more than a few starters. But when comparing each team's incomplete squads, RCQC's team play puts it up a notch over UF.
5. University of South Florida – Probably the only team that can boast snitch-range games with both UM and Florida International University, USF is a good but inconsistent team. It has the skills to compete with any of the higher-ranked teams, but for whatever reason (inexperience, communication, etc), it is only successful intermittently. It probably has the most potential to improve before World Cup, though.”
“1) Floridas Finest: The showing at the Highland Games had pretty depleted chaser and keeper lines, but the team still managed to win the tournament at the end of the day. With a 14-1 record, plus still beating other top teams in the region while not at full strength, gets the number one ranking.
2) Miami: Its record doesn't make much sense. When this team takes the field it displays dominance, physicality, athleticism, and finesse. Matching up against FF, with a 1-2 record against it and one of those losses being out of snitch range, the number two spot just makes sense.
3) RCQC: Consistently gives FF and Miami close matchups. But depth is this team’s Achilles heel as games slip away from it in the closing minutes of games. I rank it higher than UF due to it bringing a more consistent roster to tournaments and repeatedly giving the top two teams in the region a run for their money. RCQC is just a couple of pieces away from being that legitimate dark horse kind of team.
4) UF: The lack of roster since last semester limits how high I think this team should go. At full strength, this team can compete with anyone, but “inconsistent” isn't even exactly the word to describe it. I look forward to seeing this team rise up the standings with more dedication.
5) USF: Lack of depth continues to eat away at this team. Too many times has it been able to pull off a huge upset like overtime against Miami at Highland Games, but the lack of skill players in certain positions keeps this team from top region contention.”
“1) Miami – I may be a little too hyped from the weekend, but I think it shows that Miami just got off to a slow start this year.
2) Finest – While obviously it had a great performance at Highland Games, it was nowhere near as dominating as at earlier tournaments this season.
3) RCQC – This team came out explosive and hard-hitting. It gave both Miami and FF a run for their money this weekend.
4) UF
5) USF”
Observations
The Scottish Highland Games were helpful to Miami and RCQC but slightly hurt Florida’s Finest and the University of Florida’s standing. One individual who had previously voted felt incapable of voting because they were not present at Highland Games, while the more northern voters in the region were still uncomfortable not having seen many of the Florida teams. The voter who had previously placed Tennessee Tech in their top five did not vote in this week’s poll, while the one who placed the College of Charleston fourth did not vote in the previous poll. While this is regrettable from a sampling perspective, there is only so much we can do and these changes should not have any sort of macro impact on the polling as the large majority of voters remains consistent.
Florida’s Finest suffered its first loss of the year, falling to Miami, causing one voter to place Miami on top (see explanation above). Previously, Florida’s Finest had been a unanimous number one team. Miami had previously split votes with UF for second, but on the back of its win over Florida’s Finest at the Highland Games and an otherwise strong tournament, no voter placed Miami lower than second. RCQC impressed our voters tremendously, taking 4 of 7 third place votes; in the last poll only one voter had placed RCQC that high. UF garnered the remaining third place votes and also took 4 fourth place votes, tying RCQC and UF for third. Once again, USF took every fifth place vote.
Although the Old Money Classic is this happening this weekend, we will not have a poll until the week before the South Regional Championship due to team inactivity over the next month.
No comments:
Post a Comment