It might have been a very light week in terms of the amount of games played, but there were enough upsets to make the RTC Top 25 more interesting than it has been throughout most of December. QnD analysis after the jump…
QnD Analysis.
- Big East Reign Continues. The Big East is once again a frequent representative at the top of our rankings. The premier conference in the land makes up half of the top 10 — Syracuse at #4, Connecticut at #5, Pittsburgh at #7, Villanova at #8 and Georgetown at #9. Also representing the Big East is #19 Notre Dame, who moved up four spots in the polls. Other than Villanova, these squads have already piled up quality wins before the Big East slate. Syracuse and Connecticut have both scalped Michigan State (the Huskies also have a win over Kentucky in Maui), while Georgetown has wins against Missouri, Old Dominion and Utah State and Pittsburgh has knocked off Texas, a victory that looks better after the Longhorns beat North Carolina in Greensboro.
- Teams That Impressed. Not many high jumpers in the polls this week. Texas A&M has made an impression in the last few weeks following wins over Washington and last Saturday against Arkansas. San Diego State also continues to chug along with an unblemished record and wins over Gonzaga, Wichita State, Saint Mary’s and California. Steve Fisher’s team has climbed to an astounding #5 ranking in this week’s poll.
- Teams That Regressed. Last week’s most impressive program — Tennessee –– sustained the biggest fall this week. Stunning back-to-back defeats at the hands of Oakland and Charlotte dropped the Vols to #4 to #17, leaving their momentum following a thrashing of Pittsburgh in the dust. Also flopping nine spots is Kansas State, whose offensive woes contributed to an ugly loss to Florida over the weekend.
- Variance. There’s some disagreement among our pollsters where to rank Wisconsin. The Badgers have two losses at UNLV and against Notre Dame on a neutral floor and have captured wins over NC State, Boston College (neutral) and at Marquette. Wisconsin is placed anywhere from #16 to unranked in this week’s edition. Also up for debate is just how far to penalize Tennessee. With a fourteen spot gap among the voters, there was some variance over how much to factor in the Pittsburgh and Villanova wins relative to the Oakland and Charlotte losses.
- Conference Call. Big East (6), Big Ten (6), Big 12 (6), SEC (3), Mountain West (2), ACC (1), CUSA (1).
View Comments (7)
How about the Big 12 with half of its teams in the top 25? Percentage-wise, that's better than the Big East (although the Big East is a bit better at the top).
Big 12 did deserve a shout out. League is almost toe-to-toe with the Big East in the early going.
For all of my complaining in the past few weeks, you guys have certainly done a better job than Andy Glockner over at SI. That bracket is a disaster in too many ways to even discuss. Still see UConn/Minny as being too high and the missing Zona/Washington as a disappointment but I'm happy to see KSt, Tenn, and Baylor all falling in line. Still too much stock in an early season tournament on neutral courts to be hiking teams well above preseason projections but it just is what it is I guess.
Can I ask zhay why Wisky is missing from his/her list? Quality win at Marquette; win against BC on neutral; tough loss to UNLV on the road; and one L to ND. Playing great D, hitting 3's, and being led by Leuer puts this team around 14 or 15 IMO.
I put together a Top 25 but not many will put any stock into a list with UConn in the 20's and missing Minny/Tenn but I use my list as more of a look into the future than just a recap of what's happened so far.
Duke
Kansas
OSU
Pitt
Gtown
SDSU
Cuse
Kentucky
BYU
Baylor
Purdue
Wisky
Washington
Florida
Vandy
Louisville
WVU
UConn
Mich St.
Nova
Zona
Kansas St.
Texas
Illini
Texas A&M
Dan--
Why Arizona? What makes anyone think that team is any good? The win at NC State is okay, but in the only other games they've played against quality competition, they got absolutely drilled by BYU and they were just okay against Kansas. Williams has been great, but beyond that there are just a whole lot of inconsistent unproven performers there. I don't get the love. Frankly I'd put Washington State, UCLA and maybe even USC ahead of Zona at this point.
For that matter, why would anyone think Washington is a top 15 team? There's less talent there than there was last year, and last year they finished third in a terrible Pac-10. What have they done to earn top 15 status?
Andrew
Mainly (for both teams)... it's the numbers man. I'll go out and trust a guy like Ken Pomeroy and his statistical analysis over my own emotions and my eyes. U-Dub is playing with the 7th best offense in the nation and 15th ranked defense and lost a very close game to A&M on the road. The MSU and Kentucky losses don't weigh all that heavily in my mind at Washington played well, were out in Hawaii, and played both in a set of back-to-back-to-back games. They take care of the ball very well, create turnovers, are effective from 3PT range, and hit the offensive glass well. These are all key to future success even if they haven't been fully realized quite yet. Mainly, I think if Washington played the teams below them (or MSU again) that they'd win. Simple as that.
Again - I don't use a Top 25 poll to tell people what has already happened... anyone can see all of that by clicking through some box scores; the point of a poll is to mesh together what has happened with what will happen (just as any preseason poll does).
Zona is a tougher case and much more of a personal choice for me. I actually slipped them down quite a few spots after the loss to BYU and a tougher than expected game against N. Arizona. This is again another team that is efficient on both offense and defense by the numbers, hits the off. boards hard, can get you with the 3, and sink their FT's. I won't say they really have earned the spot in the poll that I have them at quite yet but they'll end up as a better team than they look right now.
Dan, I'm with you on Arizona. I don't think they're top 25 caliber at this time but They're the #2 or #3 in the Pac 10 in my opinion. They very well may be there in the end. I also agree with your general philosophy on polls. I don't see them as a snapshot necessarily, more of a trend over the season where you take in the total body of work and combine it with what you see. For instance, I saw a solid Washington team lose close games to three tough opponents. While they didn't win, they played like a top 25 team to me and I'll reward them for that. At some point they do have to win a game against a good team but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
My view on polls is they're a balancing act between what teams have done, what you see and what your gut tells you. A perfect example was Tennessee. I don't have a vote in this particular poll but in my own rankings I didn't overreact and rank them in the top 5 or 10 for beating Villanova because I thought they were playing way over their heads. I did cave in after they beat Pitt and rewarded them with a #9 ranking (still lower than almost everyone else) but it seems my gut was right considering what they did (or didn't do) this past week. The same applies to Connecticut. I think they're very overrated but you can't deny what they've accomplished so far. Two great wins in Maui plus a third against a decent Wichita State team. I do think they'll come back to earth at some point but I have to put them in the top 10 now regrettably.
Here's what I've got this week (through Sunday's games):
1. Duke
2. Ohio State
3. Kansas
4. Pittsburgh
5. San Diego State
6. Georgetown
7. Syracuse
8. Villanova
9. Connecticut
10. Kansas State
11. Missouri
12. Purdue
13. Michigan State
14. Baylor
15. Kentucky
16. Wisconsin
17. Washington
18. Tennessee
19. Florida
20. BYU
21. Illinois
22. Texas
23. Minnesota
24. Temple
25. Vanderbilt
I'm just getting to this, but I wanted to add that I love Pomeroy, Sagarin and all of the numbers-based metrics. But you have to keep in mind that the numbers at this early point in the season only tell part of the story. As I mentioned earlier, Texas was #1 or #2 in Pomeroy at this point last season. But once they saw their own blood in January, they were a shell of their former selves. So was it that Texas was actually that good early in the season and fell later, or where they always overrated by the numbers based on some favorable early matchups and so forth? I prefer to think it was the latter.
If Washington is still in the top ten in the computer rankings in February, then I'll become a believer in the Huskies. But as I said before, they've done nothing this year (or any recent year, actually) to prove to me that they're well-coached or disciplined enough to win close games against good teams. They can hammer mediocre teams all week long with their superior athleticism, but do they really know how to play elite basketball? I don't think they do. My opinion goes well beyond what Pomeroy's numbers are saying b/c I've tracked that team specifically for a number of seasons now and watched them continually implode when faced with an equal or better opponent.
Fwiw, Washington is more talented than Arizona, but Sean Miller is a better coach than Lorenzo Romar, so it'll be interesting to me to see how those two teams fare relative to e/o in the Pac-10 this year. I didn't rank either in my T25, b/c I've yet to see a reason to believe in either team with the resumes they're sporting so far (and frankly, Pac-10 teams have to prove themselves to me more than other leagues).