I don't give anyone a pass for being stupid or showing ridiculous favoritism but if there ever was a year where slotting the top 25 week to week would be a complete crap shoot, this one is it.
Now I'm going by the eye test and having seen about 2/3rds to 3/4th of the top 25 teams play this season, SU is the only one that really scares me and so far has that undefeated record, an RPI (1) and SOS (2) to back up what the eye sees. They're very talented, scary deep and play the ridiculously tough 2-3 zone that's hard to crack, especially if you haven't seen it before. It's funny that they're not the only team out there that plays that type of zone, but you have to give Jimmy B some credit for recruiting the right mix of players and getting them to play that zone like maestros, but I digress.
After SU, seriously! What about the resumes of any of the top 24 teams can you justify where they belong? As much as many here don't like UK, they have as talented a top 5 to 7 players there is, but their youth can't be ignored. Surprisingly, at least to me, the top 9 are identical in both polls. But from 10 to 25 the order is quite jumbled between the two polls.
Put yourself in the shoes of one of the voters. You see a team like UNC that has a lot of talented players and a coach that usually gets them playing top 10 ball by season's end, and you simply struggle to slot them too far down below a bunch of teams that don't seem as talented. Same goes for Dook, though they don't nearly have the talent that UNC has, but do have an impressive RPI (2) and SOS (1). With the ACC again not looking all that strong, we're going to see these 2 teams ranked higher than we think is warranted, as they feed on ACC guppies. Even if UNC and/or Dook lose big at FSU or at Virginia which seem to be solid teams, that probably won't take much of a bite from their ranking and we'll likely see them both get higher seeds (1s or 2s) than maybe they deserve. Of course one or both will bow out early in the NCAAs even with their decidedly advantaged home state NCAA tournament court. This will happen again and again, and the committee will again and again ignore this year after year and reward these two programs undeservedly...but again I further digress.
Baylor has a chance to justify their ranking if they can win at KU and beat Mizzu at home this week. Imagine if they lose both of those games. I think some of the voter's head will explode.
KU has a chance to really move up, since they can make a big statement by beating Baylor and the fact that their losses came early in the season against top teams.
MSU has had a similar road with most (all?) of their losses coming early in the season with them off to a very hot conference start.
One other interesting observation is that there are 5 non-BCs programs in the top 25 with the surprisingly undefeated Murray State leading that group, ranked #12 in the AP and 10 in the Coaches poll. Note that they are ranked 29th in the RPI and have a whopping 218 RPI. I don't know who they've played, nor have I seen them play. I'm guessing many of the voters have seen them play and feel they have a talented team. Expect them to drop like lead if they lose a game or two. A team like Creighton who's ranked (18 & 19) that has a 19 RPI and 79 SOS might be a mid-major to keep an eye on or even an unranked Zags team which is 14-3, #8 RPI and 11 SOS.
Now where should UConn fit in this mix. Their RPI and SOS are extremely high at #4 in each category. But the eye test on them changes not just game by game, but moment by moment within a game. Imagine if you were a voter and happen to watch the first half of the past 4 games. You'd come away quite underwhelmed by what you saw. But if you happen to catch the last 8 minutes of the WVU game and entire 2nd half of the ND game, you'd be bumping their ranking back up to the top 10. Unless to go on a big winning streak or some uneven stretch of winning some and losing some, a ranking that hovers around either side of 10 sounds about right.
The more I peel back the onion, the more I scratch my head as how these voters are going to make much sense out of this field and slot their top 25. Other than not over-rewarding UNC for the talent they have on paper, I don't think I could do all that much better picking a top 25.
, your hard-on for NC is starting to approach Syracuse/STB intensity.
