Coaches Poll:
1. Michigan State (22)
2. Louisville (8)
3. Kansas (2)
4. Arizona
5. Kentucky
6. Duke
7. Syracuse
8. Ohio State
9. Oklahoma State
10. Virginia Commonwealth
11. Memphis
12. Gonzaga
13. Michigan
14. Florida
15. Wisconsin
16. Wichita State
17. Oregon
18. UConn
19. North Carolina
20. New Mexico
21. Baylor
22. Indiana
23. Creighton
24. UCLA
25. Iowa
Cincinnati didn't get a single vote in the Coaches' Poll after manhandling NC State, which shows you how impressive that victory is.
It's still very early and what the poll looks like now isn't what it will look like after there is a larger body of work for all these programs.
Looking at the above list, there's probably little separation between teams 9-25 and UConn could land atop that group or settle anywhere within as the season goes on. I'm still not sure what to make of our team. Their inability to rebound and generate easy post-up points in the paint has me a tad concerned as far as how high their ceiling might be.
I think they have a legit chance to land somewhere in the 9 to 12 range by the time the NCAA tourney starts. To achieve that, they need to take care of business and beat just about all the teams they should and win most of the games against their ranked opponents. I think that's achievable, but most years I feel that way and they go out and lose some early conference games against teams they shouldn't be losing to.
Now keep in mind that most of last year's team is intact and up until they got banged up badly at the end of the season, they won most of the games they should have and lost only to teams that were either as or more talented than they. Their losses were to: New Mexico, NC State, Marquette, UL, Pitt through January. They lost to St. Johns on 2/6. I don't remember if there were some significant injuries at that time or if that was a bad loss or not. SJU was 15-6 (5-4) at the time and might have been a pretty good team...I can't remember how they looked back then. UConn hit a bad spell when they began losing some players (Bazz was real banged up down the stretch). Their losses after SJU were Nova, Georgetown, Cincy and USF. Nova was surprisingly 17-7 (7-5) at the time. I think they took a huge late nose dive from that point on last season, but I might be wrong on that. The losses to #7 ranked GU in 2OT and to Cinci were legit Ls. USF...hum...not so much.
My point here is that if this team stays relatively healthy and they continue to improve as the season goes on, especially the young players, this team has the chance of racking up a ton of Ws along the way, getting a high ranking and doing some major damage in March.
