Sunday, January 23, 2011

First college hoops rankings

So I havent really paid any attention to college hoops this season. I've probably seen the ending of like 5 games. But basically I came to this today with an utterly clean slate. I have an idea who the top 5 or so teams are in the rankings, but I know very little. And I made myself make this entire rankings without checking out the national rankings, even now as I type this I still don't know. I know very little about what expectations were going into the year or even who is on what team, so I'm going almost entirely off of empirical data. So here are my rankings and then a comment, esp if it turns out that my ranking is far off from national perception.

1. Pittsburgh - Only one loss, a solid one, and 3 giant wins over Texas, UConn, and Cuse. Easy #1.
2. UConn - Two giant wins over Nova and @Texas plus also wins against UK, Tenn, and Michigan State. And the leader in the player of the year race. Heck of a profile. No idea how this team is only #8 in the polls.
3. Texas - Only #10 in the polls but two of the three losses are to my #1 and #2 teams. No one in the nation has a better pair of road wins, at Kansas and at Michigan State.
4. Nova - Two good losses and the monster win at Syracuse this weekend.
5. Cuse - A little overrated, just because they haven't done much yet. No road tests and home wins against NDame and Cincy only get you so far. And yes, 4 of my 5 teams are Big East.

6. Duke - Poor Michigan St has lost to 4 of my top 6 teams including Duke. But the other "big" wins are against teams who were more highly regarded then than now, and the ACC is incredibly weak, so jury's still a little bit out.
7. Kansas - No win yet against a sure tourney team, though probably Arizona or UCLA make it. Still, the 2nd half disaster at home against Texas leaves some question marks.
8. SD St - Not a lot of big name wins, but wins against Wichita and St Mary's and at Gonzaga are very strong. We'll see how they play on the road in Provo this week.
9. Ohio St - Yeah... not my #1. Sorry nation. They haven't lost, but have they played anyone? They have road wins against Illinois and both Florida state schools. Solid, but I'm unconvinced. I'm much lower on all the Big Ten teams than the rest of the country.
10. BYU - Like SD St, a surprisingly strong profile. Both these teams are going to finish up with 3-4 losses and seeds in the same range in March.

11. Notre Dame - Only 16th nationally and they do have some losses they shouldn't, but man they have a lot of good wins. Wisc, Gonz, Gtown, Cincy, Marq, and UConn are a nice slate to throw up there. Need to bone up on the road in a bad way though.
12. Kentucky - Not overrated. Not underrated. Just rated.
13. Texas A&M - Nice wins against Washington and Mizzou, but like ND, need to win on the road.
14. Mich St - Probably will be barely in the national top 25, but can't we just ignore the losses to UConn, Texas, Cuse, and Duke? I mean, come on, schedule maker! Take those four away and this is still the 2nd best Big 10 team.
15. Washington - Pac 10 is not as bad as the nation thinks. Good for you JJ. Washington has a solid profile and good road conference wins too. They could compile a pretty strong record.

16. Tennessee - Not surprisingly, this team is nowhere near the national rankings. They didn't even receive any votes, which means technically they are at best #49 in the nation's ranks. And yeah, there are some ugly looking losses... but don't those offset pretty well two wins against Pitt and Nova?! As good as any pair of wins in the country plus a loaded slate of underrated nonconference games including good wins against Belmont twice, VCU, and Memphis and losses that aren't so terrible to Oakland and Charleston. Still this team's margin of error is zero for making the tournament.
17. Gtown - Pretty big pair of road wins in Memphis and Mizzou. Not a great Big East start but plenty of time still to see what they've got. Underrated nationally.
18. Mizzou
19. Cincy - Neither of those two teams have really proven a lot for better or worse yet. Why is Mizzou ranked 12 spots higher?
20. Florida - A couple really ugly losses, but nice road wins in Xavier, Tennessee, and FSU.

21. West Va
22. Purdue
23. Wisc - Big Ten is very overrated. These teams have beaten no one.
24. Fla St - On the strength of the Duke win.
25. Vandy - Yep, four SEC teams in the top 25. I was surprised.

Public perception has Big 10 as a strong 2nd best conference behind Big East. I have them about equal to the "struggling" SEC overall. Big 12 is definitely 2nd best for me so far.

Games to keep an eye on this week... Rankings mine. I have Marquette as a big mover this week. Possibly two huge home wins and could jump from NR to #15 range:

M - 11 ND @ 1 Pitt
T - 2 UConn @ Marq... 21 Pur @ 9 Oh St
W - 8 SD St @ 10 BYU... 21 WVa @ Lville
R - St Mary @ Gonz... UCLA @ Ari
S - 2 Syr @ Marq... 17 Gtown @ 4 Nova... 18 Mizz @ 3 Tex... 21 WVa @ 19 Cin... Xav @ Rich

1 comment:

  1. New rankings out today. SD St has stupidly risen to #4 in the nation, so we can all be "shocked" when they are "upset" by BYU in two days.

    Texas, Nova, Cuse are my 3/4/5 and are 7/8/9 nationally. Underrated.

    Big 10 still way overrated. Minn at 16 and Ill at 20, neither have done anything to deserve a ranking. Funny that the one team I do give great credit to is MSU, who is #25 nationally compared to my #14.

    Nice to see Tennessee got 3 votes this week. LOL

    ReplyDelete