AP Week 14 vs. Preseason Rankings

[DefenseBB]

While chatting with an unnamed but yet esteemed BY colleague, they mentioned the lofty (and misguided) preseason ranking of #5 Tennessee. I decided to review and compare the two sets of Rankings to see where I can pinpoint where the voters went wrong and maybe why.

Preseason Top 10-SC, Stanford, Texas (20), Iowa, Tennessee (unranked), UConn, Louisville (unranked), Iowa State (21), ND, NC State (22)
Week 14-SC, Indiana (11), LSU (16), UConn, Iowa, Stanford, Utah (Unranked), Maryland (17), Duke (unranked), ND

The voters clearly placed too high a premium on certain portal transfers (Texas/Tennessee) without regard to chemistry or early season games against veteran teams. Here's where Kim Mulkey's early season easy schedule benefited LSU to get the chemistry working. Texas is slowly clawing its way back but not sure they will achieve Final Four expectations or even Top 8 status. Tennessee, with another loss last night, now is 17-9 with SC and the SEC Tourney looming. That's a probable 11 losses before the NCAAT. While I was gobsmacked that the Lady Vol faithful were delirious with the "Portal Champion" moniker, I felt they were still only a top 16 team. Heck now they are pressed to be a top 32 team.

Louisville finally looks like a good team though maybe still not top 25 and does make me wonder why the AP voters thought so highly of them.
NC State at #10 also had me curious at the beginning of the season considering they lost Cunnane, Perez, Crutchfield and Jones. Of concern now for NC State is the active Top 25 consecutive week appearances as they are in jeopardy of falling out and need two resounding wins Thurs and Sun.

AP Preseason 11-20: Indiana, NC, Viriginia Tech, tOSU, Oklahoma, LSU, Maryland, Baylor (unranked), Arizona and Oregon (unranked).
AP week 14 11-20: VaTech, Mich (25), tOSU, NC, Villanova (unranked), Oklahoma, Arizona, UCLA (unranked), Florida State (unranked), Texas

While tOSU had early season success, the loss of Greene for the season and Jace Sheldon for most of the season finally caught up to them the past two weeks. Indiana was probably underrated early on and is overrated now at #2. Though #5 or 6 seems about right.
Baylor is at best, a fringe top 25 team and will earn an NCAA bid but man, the attendance is cratering and the program is losing esteem.
Oregon, despite its current NET of 19, has a 14-9 record, is projected to finish 16-13 and as an 8 seed in the PAC-12 Tourney and in my mind in serious danger of not qualifying for the NCAA Tournament at that point.

AP Preseason 21-25: Creighton (unranked), Nebraska (unranked), S.Dakota State (unranked), Princeton (unranked) and Michigan (12)
AP Week 14: Iowa State (8), NC State (10), Gonzaga (unranked), So.Florida (unranked) and Colorado (unranked).
Creighton has disappointed but should still make the NCAAT, same for Nebraska and SDSU. Will Princeton win the Ivy's or is their resume strong enough to make it (NET-42)?
Colorado will be interesting to watch over the next few weeks.
Here are the two polls side by side. Week 14 is on left, Preseason on right.

 

[triaddukefan]

I tried to tell ya about Duke in the preseason

One of these years yall are gonna listen to me.

 

[UcMiami]

Thanks for posting this.
We all knew the preseason polls are fairly bogus in years past, but with fifth year seniors and the portal free transfer explosion the continuity of teams year to year has been exploded. And just as we see GMs in pro sports make bad trades and bad free agent signings, the transfer portal is a mixed bag and team chemistry can be a real issue when consistency in freshman to senior growth is disrupted by talent being helicoptered into a team. Sometimes it works really well, sometimes it blows up in everyone's face.

I think the most surprising aspects are the top 5 teams. There has always been a large turnover of 21-25 as teams appear and disappear from rankings weekly, and a fair amount of churn in the 15-20 as teams surprise or disappoint, as well as movement around the 6-15 teams. But to have teams go from top 5 to unranked without catastrophic injuries is shocking as both TX and TN have done. TX has crept back in, but ...

 

[visitingcock]

I think pollsters will be much less receptive to Instant Portal Powerhouses next preseason.

 

[Gamecockfan77]

If Harmon had not been injured would Texas's ranking be that off?

 

[UcMiami]

If Harmon had not been injured would Texas's ranking be that off?

She missed five games, of which they lost three, but they also lost to USF, OKS, and Tx Tech of which only USF has started to be ranked. I think they lose to Uconn even if Harmon was playing. I think they may have stayed in the polls if they had beaten Louisville and Marquette, but they would probably be mid teens which is still a fall. But then ... don't talk to me about injuries!

 

[Gamecockfan77]

She missed five games, of which they lost three, but they also lost to USF, OKS, and Tx Tech of which only USF has started to be ranked. I think they lose to Uconn even if Harmon was playing. I think they may have stayed in the polls if they had beaten Louisville and Marquette, but they would probably be mid teens which is still a fall. But then ... don't talk to me about injuries!

They really don't have a bad loss - especially considering they lost three in a row early without her? I think?

 

[ConwayGmck]

I think the pre-season AP polls are always thought of as a starting point reference for the rest of the season. I don't think even the poll voters think highly of their pre-season polls, and that they would look remotely familiar with the final polls.

Also, what happened to the 29th and 30th first-place voters? It's gone from 30 voters to 28. Did the other two get banned from the poll?