Interesting little factoid from Sagarin

[UcMiami]

I was just checking Sagarin and noticed of the his top 38 teams Duke Notre Dame is the only one who has yet to play a top 25 team in his rankings. They are 4-0 against teams 26-50, but no games yet against top 10.
So for those who are saying ... ND hasn't done anything yet, I have to agree. I think they are a very good team, but all they have done so far is beat up on chumps, and had a few less than stellar outings against said chumps.

ON Edit I typed Duke when I mean to type ND

 

[sarals24]

What? They played UConn!

 

[sarals24]

Did you mean Notre Dame hasn't played anyone?

 

[nimzovich]

I was just checking Sagarin and noticed of the his top 38 teams Duke ND is the only one who has yet to play a top 25 team in his rankings. They are 4-0 against teams 26-50, but no games yet against top 10.
So for those who are saying ... ND hasn't done anything yet, I have to agree. I think they are a very good team, but all they have done so far is beat up on chumps, and had a few less than stellar outings against said chumps.

the OP accidentally substituted Duke for ND in the first reference..

 

[UcMiami]

Whoops! apologies to Traid and other Duke visitors I did indeed mess up the OP!

 

[UcMiami]

And just some further numbers - You have to go to his #19 FL State before you find a team that has only played 1 top 25 team and of the top 10 teams only Maryland and Baylor have still only played 2 and TN leads with 5 though they are also the only team with 2 losses against top 25.

 

[triaddukefan]

Whoops! apologies to Traid and other Duke visitors I did indeed mess up the OP!

Just needed an excuse to post this gif... its one of my all time favorites

 

[mrmojack]

The Irish had their hands full today with powerhouse Virginia(8-8) and
pulled out a 79-72 win. Go Irish!!!

 

[DobbsRover2]

Right, but in the next month and a half ND will play likely 7 ranked teams, then a couple more in the ACC tournament, and likely go to double digits by the end of the NCAA tournament. Look, we might not love ND and it's fine to say that their SOS could be higher (it's #18 in Massey and #25 in Sagarin), but it's really quite a decent slate of games. I can see comments about Baylor's schedule maybe slurping on lemons up to now, but ragging on ND's schedule makes you look lame and a little Volish.

 

[UcMiami]

Right, but in the next month and a half ND will play likely 7 ranked teams, then a couple more in the ACC tournament, and likely go to double digits by the end of the NCAA tournament. Look, we might not love ND and it's fine to say that their SOS could be higher (it's #18 in Massey and #25 in Sagarin), but it's really quite a decent slate of games. I can see comments about Baylor's schedule maybe slurping on lemons up to now, but ragging on ND's schedule makes you look lame and a little Volish.

Not ragging on it, just pointing out that they haven't actually played anyone that might give them a tough time. There are two teams that are undefeated at this point in time, and we are all assuming that ND is the #2 team, but for example Stanford, Duke, Iowa State, South Carolina, and Baylor all have 1 defeat, but in all cases it was to another ranked team and two lost to the #1 team (as they would be expected to.) Meanwhile ND remains undefeated but has yet to play a single game against a Sagarin ranked team. I agree that their conference schedule and their remaining OOC game will be tougher, and by the end of the year they will have a very good SOS. I was just pointing out that just like a number of other schools, the OOC that they have played is lacking in top teams based on Sagarin which I tend to respect a little more than voters in the polls. That said Sagarin still has them as the #3 ranked team.

 

[Icebear]

Many campuses still closed and many strange things going on.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Not ragging on it, just pointing out that they haven't actually played anyone that might give them a tough time. There are two teams that are undefeated at this point in time, and we are all assuming that ND is the #2 team, but for example Stanford, Duke, Iowa State, South Carolina, and Baylor all have 1 defeat, but in all cases it was to another ranked team and two lost to the #1 team (as they would be expected to.) Meanwhile ND remains undefeated but has yet to play a single game against a Sagarin ranked team. I agree that their conference schedule and their remaining OOC game will be tougher, and by the end of the year they will have a very good SOS. I was just pointing out that just like a number of other schools, the OOC that they have played is lacking in top teams based on Sagarin which I tend to respect a little more than voters in the polls. That said Sagarin still has them as the #3 ranked team.

Yeah, I get all that, but it still doesn't seem like the best thing to get hung up on, when by the end of the season ND's SOS will be rated far ahead of UConn's in almost all of the ratings indexes, and right now UConn is at #34 while ND is at #25 in the Sagarin SOS. So it just seems silly to snit a team like that even if UConn has played top 10 and top 25 teams and ND hasn't. Two of ND's previously played opponents are at #26 and #28, so that #25 border is kind of relative. And true, a team like Texas has played 5 top 25 games, but they've lost 4 of them, and just playing these games doesn't mean a whole lot if you're losing just about all of them.

I just wouldn't give Irish fans any fodder to work with later in the season.

 

[Phil]

And just some further numbers - You have to go to his #19 FL State before you find a team that has only played 1 top 25 team and of the top 10 teams only Maryland and Baylor have still only played 2 and TN leads with 5 though they are also the only team with 2 losses against top 25.

When Sagarin updates. Tennessee will be the only team,currently in the top ten, to have three no losses against 1-50. No other team has more than one. They do have three wins against top 25 teams, but I think that will drop to 2. Middle Tennessee is holding on to #25, but I think Michigan State will bump them down.

 

[Phil]

I didn't interpret the remarks by UcMiami as "ND, how embarrassing that you haven't played anyone" but "let's be cautious about proclaiming ND so strong, they haven't yet had a chance to prove it against real competition".

 

[DobbsRover2]

I didn't interpret the remarks by UcMiami as "ND, how embarrassing that you haven't played anyone" but "let's be cautious about proclaiming ND so strong, they haven't yet had a chance to prove it against real competition".

Sure, as long as we're all careful to keep the "no T25 teams" stigma in context. Two of the teams ND has played were ranked in the top 20 in the preseason polls, and those two MSU and PSU teams along with DePaul were ranked when ND played them. DePaul has since tumbled back, but both MSU and PSU have shown signs of life recently with wins over ranked teams despite PSU's loss yesterday to Purdue, and both teams are close to that prized T25 border.

Who are they other #2 team candidates? Duke is probably the main choice and it has the Sagarin #1 SOS compared to ND's #25, but the Blue Devils best win is over a KY team that I have been informed recently is not any good, and the next best win is from a group of teams called Syracuse-Cal-GTech-Vandy that are decent enough but don's scream out crazy good win. The other big candidate seems to be a Stanford team that got a home win over UTenn, which may or may not be a great accomplishment, and I guess Gonzaga is the Card's next best win unless anyone wants to take #36 Sags team Colorado as a serious threat to Stanford.

The question will continue to simmer for a week or so, but it will be interesting to see what stellar credentials anyone can dig up for all of the other top teams.

 

[UcMiami]

Sure, as long as we're all careful to keep the "no T25 teams" stigma in context. Two of the teams ND has played were ranked in the top 20 in the preseason polls, and those two MSU and PSU teams along with DePaul were ranked when ND played them. DePaul has since tumbled back, but both MSU and PSU have shown signs of life recently with wins over ranked teams despite PSU's loss yesterday to Purdue, and both teams are close to that prized T25 border.

Who are they other #2 team candidates? Duke is probably the main choice and it has the Sagarin #1 SOS compared to ND's #25, but the Blue Devils best win is over a KY team that I have been informed recently is not any good, and the next best win is from a group of teams called Syracuse-Cal-GTech-Vandy that are decent enough but don's scream out crazy good win. The other big candidate seems to be a Stanford team that got a home win over UTenn, which may or may not be a great accomplishment, and I guess Gonzaga is the Card's next best win unless anyone wants to take #36 Sags team Colorado as a serious threat to Stanford.

The question will continue to simmer for a week or so, but it will be interesting to see what stellar credentials anyone can dig up for all of the other top teams.

Dobbs - it really wasn't a diss on ND, just an observation that jumped out when I looked at Sagarin - it is pretty startling that of Sagarin's top 38 teams at the time I checked, the ONLY team to have not played one of the top 25 teams was ND. And I did not say they were playing chopped liver, and we all thought PSU was going to be pretty good when we beat them but then they started playing ranked teams and middling teams and continued losing. I didn't say ND set out to play no ranked teams as clearly they had three that have dropped since the start of the year.
And I am constantly checking how Uconn's numbers top 25/top 50 in Sagarin fair week to week and then check which opponents have dropped out of his buckets or risen into them. For example PSU's drop has changed Uconn's top 25 wind from 4 to 3, but OSU has no risen into the top 50 so that win is looking a little better.
All I was saying is based on competition to date and not having watched any games ND has played, their claim to be #2 vs Duke or anyone else is purely opinion as top five teams should have easily dispatched their schedule to date (which they have done.)