Ricky Nelson’s Top 25

My leader, Ricky Nelson, has published his Top 25, which is a must see event. I make it a point to get my Top 25 out before his and I know he doesn’t care a lick about my thoughts when doing his list. So, although these Top 25 lists were created independently, they are pretty similar. How similar?

We agree on the 2019 national champion, for one.

We have the same Top 5 teams although in a different order.

We have the same 20 teams in our Top 25, differing on only 5 schools.

Focusing on the differences, Ricky has Bowdoin, Hope, Carnegie Mellon, Franklin & Marshall and Johns Hopkins in his Top 25. Of those five teams, I probably had Carnegie Mellon as the lowest but all of them were contenders for my Top 25. The five teams I have that Ricky doesn’t are UW-Stevens Point, Birmingham-Southern, Trinity, DePauw and Babson. Three of those teams he indicated were in his next 5 teams. My biggest worry would be UW-Stevens Point since Ricky knows the WIAC much better than I do.

A bit of information that came in too late for my Top 25 is that 2018 senior Katie Vondra (565 points) will be returning as a graduate student and using her 4th year of eligibility. Vondra is a HUGE impact player and that news would move Aurora up into my Top 15 if not the Top 10.

Overall, I feel pretty good that our lists are similar.

Ricky has also published his predictions as to who wins each of the 43 NCAA DIII conferences. Another great post to skim through.