With all the ranked teams losing over the weekend, there was quite a bit of movement after the top six teams in this week’s poll. QnD analysis after the jump…
(ed. note: we revised the original Top 25 after a data entry error surfaced)
QnD Analysis.
- The Top Six Remain Steady. Duke, Ohio State, Kansas, Syracuse, Pitt and San Diego State remained steady at the top of the poll, with only a single loss among the six of them all season long. Pitt plays reeling Georgetown in Washington later this week, and SDSU hosts UNLV, but other than that, there are no imminent major matchups involving these teams.
- High Risers and Big Droppers. This week’s biggest riser was Notre Dame (+6) by virtue of its wins over UConn and St. John’s last week. A host of other teams — UConn, BYU, Washington, Temple — all rose four spots in the poll. The eastern Huskies are interesting in that they actually went 1-1 last week, but the superb out-of-conference road win at Texas must have turned some heads among the pollsters. This week’s biggest loser was Georgetown (-8), who managed to to lose to both St. John’s’ and West Virginia last week, with Michigan State (-6) nipping on the Hoyas’ heels. The Spartans lost at Penn State over the weekend, putting another loss on its vastly underwhelming 2010-11 resume thus far.
- Pollster Variance. The top nine teams are pretty consistent across the pollsters, but #10 Notre Dame and #11 BYU are two of the most controversial selections, ranging between #9-#16 and #8-#18, respectively. #19 Georgetown remains a matter of discussion, as two pollsters failed to rank the Hoyas at all, while several others had John Thompson’s team ranked in the high teens (#17 and #18). #23 Vanderbilt also created dissent, as the ‘Dores were only placed on two ballots, but one pollster had them as high as #17 and the other at #20.
- Others Receiving Votes. Perhaps exhibiting how difficult it is to rank the bottom five teams this week, we had the most teams in the “Others Receiving Votes” category than we’ve had all season, with eight teams getting at least one vote on one ballot. The biggest surprise was perhaps 15-1 Cincinnati falling completely out of the poll despite having lost to top ten Villanova for its only defeat of the year thus far.
- Conference Call. Big Ten (6), Big East (6), Big 12 (4), MWC (3), SEC (3), A-10 (1), ACC (1), Pac-10 (1).