Bard: Best of the Winless Teams
February 2, 2009
While Bard's remains winless on the season to date,
anyone who believes this proves that the Raptors are
anything less than a victim of injuries and
circumstances simply isn't paying attention.
While Bard is one of four winless teams in Division
III, notice that they have far more close losses than
CCNY, Medgar Evers or Crown:

      Losses by 1-5 points  Losses by 1-10 points
Bard         4                                 7
CCNY      1                                 5  
M Evers   3                                 6
Crown     0                                 0

Of those close losses, CCNY has three to teams with
.500 or better records, Bard two, Medgar Evers one.
And another Medgar Evers close loss came to
Galludet-a school for the deaf. Bard hasn't stooped to
padding its schedule with schools for the
disabled-with the exception of local rival Vassar.
In fact, Bard's schedule is ranked tougher than
FIFTEEN other teams by the Massey Ratings,
including SUNY-Purchase, Johnson State, and Green
Mountain College- all of whom have winning records
from a slate of games filled with nursery schools.
And not the prestigious ones, either. The glorified
day-care ones.
Of course, as Raptormania! has noted before, the
true Bard ranking is probably much higher, given the
Massey Ratings bias against liberal arts schools.
Unfortunately, it appears that another year has gone
by without Kenneth Massey correcting the obvious
limitations of having computers determine the
strength of a school whose best features can't be
quantified. Notice that both "creativity" and
"ingenuity" don't even enter the soulless Massey
equation. For shame, Mr. Massey.