AP Poll - Week 3

[karstenkibbe]

Never be content with a loss. If you are, you are a loser

Really bro. Hyperbole much?

 

[ucp990411]

Really bro. Hyperbole much?

Nah. Just a former coach who despised losing. One reason I am a former coach.

 

[Hoophound]

Gotta love irrational optimism. We need to beat a top 10 team before saying things like that.

Yeah. Not really. I think we have a large collection of talent and size across all positions. Not only that, our freshman appear to be ready to go out the gate. Our collection of players stacks up well against any in the country. That’s all rankings are based on at this point. We look loaded on paper and on the court so far.

 

[uchusky32]

We need to play a top team. Get our chance in a couple days. That said we handled our business like pros. Big difference compared to previous years. Put teams away and then crushed them.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

Ummm did you see what happened vs Maryland and New Mexico State? Conference play is different. Also, Auburn wasn't an inferior team. They were as good as us, if not better. Oregon is not better than us in any stature. That was my whole point. If we were playing UNC or Alabama on Thursday, different situation.

Polly hit 6 threes against Auburn if he did that every game we would have won the Big East regular season, the tourney ,and got to the FF . Unfortunately for us it was not to be.

 

[CTBasketball]

Oregon is down a few key backcourt players, we 100% need to beat them. I don’t care what has to happen or how ugly it can be, it just needs to happen.

 

[tomtom80]

AP #20
Coaches #22

 

[Scrutineer]

I mean look at teams like UK, Michigan State, Duke, Kansas, etc. They schedule awesome OOC schedules. Granted, teams line up to play them, but we should reliably be able to schedule a better OOC home slate than what we currently have. 5 cupcake games is way too much. Play 3 of them and then fill the other 2 spots with a good P5 name like Indiana, Texas, Michigan, Purdue. Those teams would definitely do a H/H with us.

Resign yourself to the fact we'll never be able to put together awesome schedules like this year's at Kentucky, or even Duke:
Kentucky:
Howard
Duquesne
South Carolina St
North Florida
Bellarmine
Yale
Florida A&M

Duke:
Jacksonville
USC Upstate
Delaware
Bellarmine
Maryland Eastern Shore

 

[aburks41]

Resign yourself to the fact we'll never be able to put together awesome schedules like this year's at Kentucky, or even Duke:
Kentucky:
Howard
Duquesne
South Carolina St
North Florida
Bellarmine
Yale
Florida A&M

Duke:
Jacksonville
USC Upstate
Delaware
Bellarmine
Maryland Eastern Shore

Why'd you leave you that Kansas visits Rupp this year, and Ohio State visits Cameron Indoor as well?

 

[Kolumbo]

Might as well put this right here

 

[HuskyHawk]

Why'd you leave you that Kansas visits Rupp this year, and Ohio State visits Cameron Indoor as well?

And Kansas already played Duke, and UK played Gonzaga, Michigan State and is about to play Michigan. All OOC. Duke also has a game with Iowa. Kansas has Duke, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky and Harvard.

UConn is really only one extra tough game shy, and one cupcake should be a team more like Harvard. Perhaps that should have been Buffalo.

 

[aburks41]

And Kansas already played Duke, and UK played Gonzaga, Michigan State and is about to play Michigan. All OOC. Duke also has a game with Iowa. Kansas has Duke, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky and Harvard.

UConn is really only one extra tough game shy, and one cupcake should be a team more like Harvard. Perhaps that should have been Buffalo.

Buffalo is normally a pretty solid mid major to play. But yeah they should really just have 2 cupcakes (one can be HBCU since Hurley wants to always schedule one), and the others need to be Yale/Harvard or even a UMass level A10 school. The entire OOC home slate being sub 300 kenpom teams + OK ST is a joke. We can schedule much better than that

 

[navery12]

Buffalo is normally a pretty solid mid major to play. But yeah they should really just have 2 cupcakes (one can be HBCU since Hurley wants to always schedule one), and the others need to be Yale/Harvard or even a UMass level A10 school. The entire OOC home slate being sub 300 kenpom teams + OK ST is a joke. We can schedule much better than that

Buffalo and UNC Wilmington are both right around 200 in KenPom. Those games are fine, even with Buffalo being down this year

 

[CTBasketball]

Buffalo and UNC Wilmington are both right around 200 in KenPom. Those games are fine, even with Buffalo being down this year

Need to stop playing the Delaware St’s of the world. Lobby to get us in the Big 10/Big East Challenge and/or get us a marquee OOC game in January.

That should be the bar. Nothing less.

 

[Palatine]

After the next five games the BY will be complaining our schedule is too hard. OSU is KenPom #40

 

[RayIsTheGOAT]

Nah. Just a former coach who despised losing. One reason I am a former coach.

Had to sneak in the “former coach” bit somehow

 

[navery12]

Need to stop playing the Delaware St’s of the world. Lobby to get us in the Big 10/Big East Challenge and/or get us a marquee OOC game in January.

That should be the bar. Nothing less.

Agreed, those are the kinds of games we need to be replacing and limiting to 1 or 2. We need more games like UNC Wilmington and Buffalo, not less. Make those the cupcakes and add in some P5 teams

 

[Scrutineer]

Why'd you leave you that Kansas visits Rupp this year, and Ohio State visits Cameron Indoor as well?

Several reasons, but for simplicity's sake I'll focus on Kentucky.

Basically, your initial statement seemed to imply UConn plays no games of consequence relative to the schedules of the media darlings you listed, so I thought it apropos to list the really weak teams two of those powerhouses play this year.

First, we play 20 league games while Kentucky plays 18. The difference is what gives them the opportunity to play two H/H series more per year than us, one of which could be a "name" opponent at home.

Secondly, in spite of our limited scheduling flexibility, the quality of our "buy" games looks better than theirs and is much better than what it's been the past few years. You schedule to give your team wins and as our roster has been upgraded so has the schedule.

Kentucky plays 7 of these weaker opponents while we play 6. Do you believe the following list of teams they play is tougher than our schedule and their fans are thrilled with these games?
Kentucky:
Howard
Duquesne
South Carolina St
North Florida
Bellarmine
Yale
Florida A&M

UConn:
Stonehill
Boston University
Buffalo
UNC Wilmington
Delaware State
LIU

Thirdly, with the state of our Athletic Department's finances, they're not likely to give up a home game in order to schedule a H/H with more than one or two schools outside the conference.

Florida is it this year and we also have the PK tournament which only counts as one game but gives us potentially three highly regarded opponents. Oklahoma State is a home game but it's one of the NBE/Big12 games if I recall correctly.

Finally, every school has made for TV games. UConn at Florida and Oklahoma State at home, for example. UConn's game in the PKI only counts as one game but we face Oregon on essentially their home court and, depending on how the brackets evolve, could face highly ranked Michigan State and number one North Carolina.

Kentucky, Duke and Kansas aren't in the field in Portland and I don't think they're in any other major early season tournament so they have more freedom to schedule another better opponent or two.

Lots of issues, but in our situation it's probably the finances that primarily drive the decisions.

 

[Get a Job]

Kentucky, Duke and Kansas aren't in the field in Portland and I don't think they're in any other major early season tournament so they have more freedom to schedule another better opponent or two.

Lots of issues, but in our situation it's probably the finances that primarily drive the decisions.

Point of correction: Duke is in the field in Portland (Phil Knight Legacy bracket). Also, I'm too lazy to check, but I'd bet you a dollar that Kentucky and Kansas are in major MTEs.

 

[auror]

Point of correction: Duke is in the field in Portland (Phil Knight Legacy bracket). Also, I'm too lazy to check, but I'd bet you a dollar that Kentucky and Kansas are in major MTEs.

Kentucky is randomly playing Michigan in London, so I think that's standing in for one.
Kansas is in the Battle 4 Atlantis.

 

[B1GEast]

Michigan state beats a weak Kentucjy team and jumps 14 spots up into the rankings while Uconn only moves up 5 spots while easily dominating every team on the schedule

 

[navery12]

Michigan state beats a weak Kentucjy team and jumps 14 spots up into the rankings while Uconn only moves up 5 spots while easily dominating every team on the schedule

Because a weak Kentucky team is still about 10x better than anyone we beat

 

[RayRay]

Michigan state beats a weak Kentucjy team and jumps 14 spots up into the rankings while Uconn only moves up 5 spots while easily dominating every team on the schedule

One of my very good friends is a diehard MSU fan, so naturally we are constant talking trash and comparing our teams. To his defense, MSU deserves to make a huge jump in the rankings. They lost by 2 to Gonzaga, then beat Kentucky and Villanova. Pretty solid 3 game set. Unfortunately all we did was blast cupcakes, and we still moved up 5 spots at least. Just hard to compare the two results especially in the eyes of the national media.

 

[Scrutineer]

Agreed, those are the kinds of games we need to be replacing and limiting to 1 or 2. We need more games like UNC Wilmington and Buffalo, not less. Make those the cupcakes and add in some P5 teams

Don't forget the financial side to scheduling.

With a 20 game league schedule, we only have room for 6 OOC games. Put two P5 games on the schedule and we're down to 5 home games. There's no way the AD can afford to lose more $ and two good OOC opponents will bring in more revenue than one P5 opponent.

The best move today is more games with the likes of UNC Wilmington or UMass/URI for local interest.

 

[REB1094]

Honestly us going up 5 spots isn't because we blasted our cupcakes, it was pretty situational because a lot of teams ahead of us lost. If #15-24 all went undefeated last week we would probably still be sitting at #25

We have a chance this weekend to jump into the top 15 with a few solid wins