Still Searching for a Win ...

[MNSnowman]

SelectionSunday noted that 18 teams are undefeated this year. Unfortunately, there's also 27 teams that have gone without a Division I win this season. (Including, of course, NJIT which also went winless last year.) There are some teams that I'll admit I was surprised to see (e.g. Chattanooga, Fairleigh Dickenson, UMass, and Fordham) given their past history. And, there are some teams that are new (or relatively new) to Division I (e.g NCCU, NJIT, Houston Baptist).

Weakest conference clearly is the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) with seven teams on this list. As a whole, the conference is 3-59 (.048) against Division I teams and 4-4 against Division II teams.

Here's the list of teams still searching for their first Division I win (listed in order of today's RPI per CollegeRPI.com).

Chattanooga 0-5 (RPI of 170) - Southern Conference
UA - Pine Bluff 0-7 (191) - SWAC
Mississippi Valley State 0-10 (234) - SWAC
Fairleigh Dickenson 0-6 (256) - Northeast
SC Upstate 0-6 (269) - Atlantic Sun
Texas Southern 0-8 (270) - SWAC
Loyola Marymount 0-8 (277) - West Coast
Coppin State 0-4 (290) - MEAC
Winthrop 0-7 (293) - Big South
UMass 0-6 (300) - Atlantic 10
Youngstown State 0-6 (303) - Horizon
Prairie View A&M 0-5 (305) - SWAC
Alabama A&M 0-1 (309) - SWAC
CS Northridge 0-6 (311) - Big West
Fordham 0-6 (313) - Atlantic 10
Pepperdine 0-7 (316) - West Coast
Alcorn State 0-6 (320) - SWAC
Furman 0-6 (323) - Southern
Eastern Michigan 0-6 (326) - MAC
Wright State (0-6) (327) - Horizon
Houston Baptist 0-8 (331) - Independent (No Conference)
UNC Greensboro 0-5 (333) - Southern
North Florida 0-7 (335) - Atlantic Sun
South Carolina State 0-3 (338) - MEAC
Southern U 0-4 (340) - SWAC
NJIT 0-7 (341) - Independent (No Conference)
NCCU 0-9 (342) - Independent (No Conference)
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BTW, even though neither NJIT nor NCCU have won yet, the team with the lowest RPI is Eastern Illinois which has a 1-5 record (beat Tennesee State).

 

[Gopherholefan]

Kind of surprised to see Winthrop on the list...have they lost a lot from the last couple of years?? or have they just play a really tough schedule so far??

 

[youngstowngopher]

Youngstown State has blown 10 plus point leads in 3 of their 6 D-1 losses, and minus a blow out to Maryland were in every game, including only four down to almost ranked Butler with three minutes remaining in the game, talk about not playing 40 minutes!!!

 

[MNSnowman]

Kind of surprised to see Winthrop on the list...have they lost a lot from the last couple of years?? or have they just play a really tough schedule so far??

Davidson, South Carolina, North Carolina State are tougher ... but they just lost to Radford by 21 for Radford's first win. Radford??? Winthrop's next chance to redeem themselves isn't until 12/20 against Old Dominion. But then they face some other tougher teams: Charleston, Florida and Liberty. If they don't win one by then, they face High Point on 1/7/09.

 

[MNSnowman]

Fordham & Fairleigh Dickinson off the list

Fairleigh Dickinson is now 1-7, beating Monmouth 71-67 there
Fordham is now 1-6, defeating Lafayette 79-58 at home

 

[coolhandgopher]

Snowman, an update please?

I think I've seen SC State, UMass, and Winthrop enter the win column, but I could be incorrect (or counting wins against D-II teams)

Also surprising to see Pepperdine on this list, they've usually had a solid program out there-the fallout from the short lived Vance Wahlberg era was severe, it appears.

 

[MNSnowman]

2 of your 3 are off the list

Cool,

Three more teams have left the list:

• UMass (288 RPI) beat visiting Holy Cross last night, 73-59. They're now 1-6. (Holy Cross is 3-7; 308)
• South Carolina State (325) got their first win at home vs Idaho (66-59). They're now 1-3 in Div I competition having played four Div II schools (all wins) earlier this year. (Idaho is 3-5; 159) so that's a solid victory for them.
• CS Northridge (294) are also 1-6 defeating Denver Tuesday at CSN. Denver isn't very good either (1-6; 337).

Unfortunately Winthrop is still on the list until at least 12/20 when they're next scheduled to play. (Their last opponent was Radford as noted earlier -- they lost by 21 points so it may be long time for them before they get off the list.)

I'll publish a new list on Monday next week after the weekend games are in. But since a number of schools are in basketball hiatus due to exams, etc it's possible that only the RPIs will change

One positive thing to report is that Eastern Illinois is no longer last in the RPI, despite their away loss to Evansville last night. Instead, Southern University is sitting in the RPI basement for now. NJIT and NCCU are both contenders for the lowest RPI though.

 

[MNSnowman]

Re Pepperdine

Also surprising to see Pepperdine on this list, they've usually had a solid program out there-the fallout from the short lived Vance Wahlberg era was severe, it appears.

I was surprised as well at first. Then I looked a bit closer and found that their problems started before Walberg got there (he started in the 2006-7 season).

Pepperdine last appeared in the NCAAs in 2002 when they were 21-8 (RPI of 49). Since then, there's been a steady decline that actually preceded Walberg's association with the school:

2002-03: 15-13 (RPI of 138) - 4th in conference
2003-04: 15-16 (129) - tied 2nd in conference
2004-05: 16-14 (125) - tied 5th in conference
2005-06: 7-20 (248) - last in conference (8th)
2006-07: 8-22 (263) - tied for last in conference (Walberg's first year)
2007-08: 10-21 (204) - 6th in conference (Walberg resigned 01/08)
2008 to date: 0-7 (319)
​

From this year's Blue Ribbon analysis:

Tom Asbury has returned to Pepperdine in an attempt to restore order to a program that has gone off the rails since he left in 1994. The Waves burned through seven head coaches in the next 14 years, and it left a bad taste in the mouth of the coach who led Pepperdine to three NCAA Tournaments and two NIT appearances in his six years there.

"There's just been no continuity, and there hasn't been a great deal of success, and I just got kind of disappointed in seeing this program where it was, to be honest," said the 62-year-old Asbury...

Asbury succeeds Vance Walberg, who resigned last January in the middle of his second season as the Waves' head coach. Walberg's innovative dribble-drive motion offense, which John Calipari has used so successfully at Memphis, never quite caught on with the Waves, who won only 14-of-49 games under Walberg and were 6-12 last year when he resigned under the cloud of accusations that he had verbally abused his players.

... Asbury -- who left Pepperdine for the head job at Kansas State and also served as an assistant at Alabama -- was lured back to Malibu to get the program back on track.

The task will be a challenge ... the roster was decimated when eight players decided to transfer during or after last season, and a couple of highly regarded recruits who had signed under Walberg decided to head elsewhere. But Asbury indicated that most of the decisions were mutual, based either on the players' academic deficiencies or an inability or willingness to play in Asbury's more conservative system.
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