Rankings Revisited

[Fairfield Fan]

Not many upsets- as usual. But I think two teams should see the end of their runs on the Top 25:

Virginia Tech- They've lost five of their past six games, including a total blow-out by unranked Virginia. Their one win during that six-game stretch was by two points to wobbly Wake Forest. Though Tech is ranked 19th, they should drop out.

NC State- They just lost to 13-9 UNC, and by a convincing margin. NC State now has six losses, including some bad ones. I think they deserve, for their six losses and their inconsistency, to go home.

Who goes in? Perhaps Syracuse returns. Due to its weak schedule, I don't believe Temple, despite their record, deserves to emerge. For the same reason, I would not vote for Green Bay to be in the Top 25 either.

Otherwise, not much in the way of shifts in the rankings IMHO.

Thoughts?

 

[hussybulldog]

I agree that those two aforementioned teams should not be ranked, and the top 25 list should be reduced to maybe top 20 list

 

[triaddukefan]

NC State is 11-4 since December... 7-3 in their last 10 games. Thats hardly what i call inconsistent. Inconsistent would be win one, lose one, win one, lose another. They have better wins on their record than Maryland does. I wouldnt penalize them THAT much for losing to UNC. If you knew anything about rivalries... then you wouldnt be that shocked at the result.

Kick out South Florida, VPI,

 

[Fairfield Fan]

NC State is 11-4 since December... 7-3 in their last 10 games. Thats hardly what i call inconsistent. Inconsistent would be win one, lose one, win one, lose another. They have better wins on their record than Maryland does. I wouldnt penalize them THAT much for losing to UNC. If you knew anything about rivalries... then you wouldnt be that shocked at the result.

Kick out South Florida, VPI,

NC State has lost to 3 unranked teams in their last 11 games. Does that sound like a Top 25'er?

 

[Fairfield Fan]

Perhaps LSU now deserves to go in. They have six losses, but five are to ranked teams: K-State, UConn, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Texas A&M, and Kentucky. Only Kentucky is a bit suspect.

 

[triaddukefan]

NC State has lost to 3 unranked teams in their last 11 games. Does that sound like a Top 25'er?

Over South Florida it certainly does.

They lost to Miami, Syracuse, and their most hated rival. Miami was ranked at the time.... Syracuse was ranked last week.

Perhaps LSU now deserves to go in. They have six losses, but five are to ranked teams: K-State, UConn, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Texas A&M, and Kentucky. Only Kentucky is a bit suspect.

I guess you have Kentucky back in your top 25.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

Hold the phone! Looks as though USC will take down 16th ranked Arizona State. That team should take a big tumble down. They've played almost no one of quality outside of the Pac-12. But I don't see them exiting the rankings.

 

[triaddukefan]

The desert devils need to be kicked out

 

[Fairfield Fan]

Who deserves to come in? It's foggy. But what is abundantly clear is that the top six teams in the rankings are solid as granite. They've earned the top billings.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

The desert devils need to be kicked out

The mercurial Sadie Edwards nee of UConn decided to show up for this game, and is top scorer for USC with 17 points.

 

[Plebe]

Not many upsets- as usual. But I think two teams should see the end of their runs on the Top 25:

Virginia Tech- They've lost five of their past six games, including a total blow-out by unranked Virginia. Their one win during that six-game stretch was by two points to wobbly Wake Forest. Though Tech is ranked 19th, they should drop out.

NC State- They just lost to 13-9 UNC, and by a convincing margin. NC State now has six losses, including some bad ones. I think they deserve, for their six losses and their inconsistency, to go home.

Who goes in? Perhaps Syracuse returns. Due to its weak schedule, I don't believe Temple, despite their record, deserves to emerge. For the same reason, I would not vote for Green Bay to be in the Top 25 either.

Otherwise, not much in the way of shifts in the rankings IMHO.

Thoughts?

"Go home"? This isn't the playoffs yet.

Is this about predicting the changes in the rankings, or advocating for how we think the rankings should change?

 

[Fairfield Fan]

"Go home"? This isn't the playoffs yet.

Is this about predicting the changes in the rankings, or advocating for how we think the rankings should change?

Should

 

[Plebe]

NC State is 11-4 since December... 7-3 in their last 10 games. Thats hardly what i call inconsistent. Inconsistent would be win one, lose one, win one, lose another. They have better wins on their record than Maryland does. I wouldnt penalize them THAT much for losing to UNC. If you knew anything about rivalries... then you wouldnt be that shocked at the result.

I don't think anyone in the country other than UConn has 3 better wins than NCSt's trifecta over ND, FSU, and Duke.

 

[triaddukefan]

I don't think anyone in the country other than UConn has 3 better wins than NCSt's trifecta over ND, FSU, and Duke.

What about South Carolina? UCLA, Louisville, and Mississippi State.

 

[Plebe]

What about South Carolina? UCLA, Louisville, and Mississippi State.

Very close but not quite.
FSU, ND, Duke = #5, #7, #11 in committee's reveal
MSU, UL, UCLA = #4, #13, #14

ETA: By AP rankings it would be a virtual tie.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

What about South Carolina? UCLA, Louisville, and Mississippi State.

South Carolina is in the top six. But Louisville? Don't know. UCLA is one of those questionable Pac-12 teams. Mississippi State is in there.

But after those six, I don't see granite.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

Very close but not quite.
FSU, ND, Duke = #5, #7, #11 in committee's reveal
MSU, UL, UCLA = #4, #13, #14

ETA: By AP rankings it would be a virtual tie.

I see a lot of daylight between FSU, Mississippi State and the rest. Though the rankings show closeness between #6 and 7 and 8, etc., I think there is a vast divide after #6.

 

[Plebe]

In terms of teams dropping out or entering the AP top 25, it's pretty clear that Syracuse (who was already 26th in the voting) will enter and Virginia Tech (having lost to Virginia so badly and then today to Syracuse) will drop out.

NC State will drop from #18 into the 20s but will still be ranked. Very rare for a team to drop more than 7 spots on one loss.

ASU will drop a few spots, but a loss at USC isn't embarrassing. USC is a tough team when Kristen Simon is playing.

 

[ochoopsfan]

The desert devils need to be kicked out

Your membership to the "fiery down under" could be revoked for that statement.

 

[UcMiami]

The reality is there are three types of ranked teams - the top 5 (or 6 or 8, wherever you want to draw a line) that are pretty clearly superior even if they have played fairly weak schedules (MD), the next ten or so that clearly deserve to be ranked but have both decent wins and decent losses and a few WTF losses scattered in, and then the next 15 with some ranked some unranked that rotate up and down based on their last decent win or poor loss - whether they are ranked #20 or listed in the also receiving votes varies from week to week.
The GBs and USFs, etc. may not have much of a resume of good wins, but they also haven't laid eggs either, while the TNs, VaTechs, and NCStates have better wins on their resumes plus some really bad losses, and the bad losses tend to be more recent so they weigh more heavily in voters minds.

 

[triaddukefan]

The reality is there are three types of ranked teams - the top 5 (or 6 or 8, wherever you want to draw a line) that are pretty clearly superior even if they have played fairly weak schedules (MD), the next ten or so that clearly deserve to be ranked but have both decent wins and decent losses and a few WTF losses scattered in, and then the next 15 with some ranked some unranked that rotate up and down based on their last decent win or poor loss - whether they are ranked #20 or listed in the also receiving votes varies from week to week.
The GBs and USFs, etc. may not have much of a resume of good wins, but they also haven't laid eggs either, while the TNs, VaTechs, and NCStates have better wins on their resumes plus some really bad losses, and the bad losses tend to be more recent so they weigh more heavily in voters minds.

Ok.... lemme come to the defense of NC State once again. They have a neutral site loss to Kansas State, a neutral site loss by 1 pt to LSU, a road loss to Tulane, and a road loss to Syracuse. They held double digit leads at the beginning of the 4th quarter in their losses to LSU, Tulane, and Syracuse. They also have a home loss to Miami by 3... and a loss yesterday to UNC. So you can argue that they have ONE bad loss..... but you have to take into some consideration that 1) it was on the road 2) it was against their most hated, bitter, rival. If there is one team that the players, coaches and fans of UNC get pumped up for more than Duke.. its without question NC State. I'll cut them a bit of slack for that loss.

I cant defend VPI though Im hoping they can get to 8-8 in the ACC, but im not sure they can.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

The reality is there are three types of ranked teams - the top 5 (or 6 or 8, wherever you want to draw a line) that are pretty clearly superior even if they have played fairly weak schedules (MD), the next ten or so that clearly deserve to be ranked but have both decent wins and decent losses and a few WTF losses scattered in, and then the next 15 with some ranked some unranked that rotate up and down based on their last decent win or poor loss - whether they are ranked #20 or listed in the also receiving votes varies from week to week.
The GBs and USFs, etc. may not have much of a resume of good wins, but they also haven't laid eggs either, while the TNs, VaTechs, and NCStates have better wins on their resumes plus some really bad losses, and the bad losses tend to be more recent so they weigh more heavily in voters minds.

I agree. The top six are the ones that should breeze into the Elite Eight. There are another half a dozen or so that should vie for the remaining two EE spots. Then there are probably two dozen teams that could be interchangeable. I would add in currently unranked teams, such as Michigan, LSU, Kentucky, Marquette, Cal, Harvard, and the like. Difficult to tell whether one or the other should be ranked 16th or 25th or 30th.

So I look for a lot of upsets for "ranked" teams in the tournament, as well as in the conference tournaments. But in the end, I would be surprised if less than five of the top teams make it to the Elite Eight.

In that respect, I think there is a lot less quality in the mid-ranked teams than in years past. Gonzaga was very strong at one point, as was Marist with Rachel Fitz, and some Big East teams, such as Rutgers and others.

 

[UcMiami]

Ok.... lemme come to the defense of NC State once again. They have a neutral site loss to Kansas State, a neutral site loss by 1 pt to LSU, a road loss to Tulane, and a road loss to Syracuse. They held double digit leads at the beginning of the 4th quarter in their losses to LSU, Tulane, and Syracuse. They also have a home loss to Miami by 3... and a loss yesterday to UNC. So you can argue that they have ONE bad loss..... but you have to take into some consideration that 1) it was on the road 2) it was against their most hated, bitter, rival. If there is one team that the players, coaches and fans of UNC get pumped up for more than Duke.. its without question NC State. I'll cut them a bit of slack for that loss.

I cant defend VPI though Im hoping they can get to 8-8 in the ACC, but im not sure they can.

No need to defend them to me but when NCState is a team's best win, that suggests it was a bad loss for NCState and I would say Tulane, LSU and UNC all fall into that category.

Fairfield - I'll grant you the top 6 into the sweet16 but the E8 as last year will prove to be a step too far for more than one. There are enough teams like TN and Syracuse that can get hot for a couple of games in a row and bury a top team that takes them for granted.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

VPI and ASWho stand out as the teams that are slip-sliding away - fast. Don't look now, but the Arizona Normal School is 5 - 5 in the PAC, I think (course, that remains much better than my Wildcats, sadly).

Don't know what the problem is with the school up north here in AZ, but for the Techies of Va I think it is just a case of needing better horses. Which should come under the new coach. This wasn't the first year they did better out of conference than in the ACC.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

Arizona State drops seven places. Kentucky returns. Syracuse returns. Incredibly, NC State drops just one place!

Virginia Tech leaves the rankings.