UConn #13 in latest AP poll

[Plebe]

Are people new to this poll thing?

When a team beats a higher-ranked team, they move up. It's quite predictable. It's nothing against the teams that get “jumped” after holding serve against unranked or lower-ranked teams. It doesn't mean Kansas State or UConn fell from the voters' good graces, and it's nothing to get our knickers in a twist over.

(I wonder if the K-State fans are this outraged?)

 

[TheFarmFan]

If it makes people feel better, UConn is #4 in the latest net rankings, which matter more than the polls.

DI Women's Basketball Rankings - NCAA Women's Basketball NET Rankings | NCAA.com

Get NCAA women's college basketball rankings from the Associated Press, USA Today/WBCA and NCAA committee.

www.ncaa.com

FWIW, other than Stanford (which I would not rank as high as #2), the Net very closely tracks which teams I'd be least excited to be facing in March. And setting Stanford aside, UConn is quite rightly third among the teams I'd least want to face.

 

[HopJim]

As I have posted previously, this early in the season, my experience is that few of the voters have spent much time watching the games. Unlike UConn, most of the teams play easy non-conference schedules, the voters don't bother with these games and see UConn with 3 losses and lots of injuries. Most writers also have limited current knowledge and are posting click bait. The more "noise" they hear from us, the more "stuff" we will continue to see posted.

 

[BRS24]

I would hope that voters are only looking at the prior week, as UConn beat Marquette, then Creighton, in which the Aubrey thing happened, then dominated G'town. Yeah, we had an injury, however it didn't impact the team last week. Let's see how this week goes before making any assumptions. Then again, I'm not a BB writer, so maybe I think differently, or maybe I think too much.

 

[Pharos]

Looking at AP rankings and the NET... I'm puzzled by Utah.

 

[WiseWillie]

Boneyarders, please, it is not disrespect that UConn is ranked where it is. Pollsters are giving other teams the chance to be ranked probably higher than they should be because it helps in reinforcing the argument about college WBB - and MBB - that ESPN and others seem to have latched onto. Turn on any of the talking heads about college basketball and you'll hear what the transfer portal has done, etc. in creating "parity". It's kinda what professional sports is like with players being traded from one team to another in the off season. It's also great for the media so why shouldn't they push it?

But that's not the important thing. The important thing is Geno, the coaches and the players themselves don't pay attention to rankings. UConn's focus right now is as it should be on the next game and the game after that and after that culminating in the BE regular season and championship. Of course, one or two wins in the upcoming games with ND and SC will certainly help to change things a lot.

Rankings right now are insignificant except maybe for setting betting lines and the prognostications of the prognosticators. UConn should simply concentrate on winning and the rest will take care of itself.

 

[Bone Dog]

We only play one team ranked higher than us the rest of the season. By this logic, #13 is our ceiling.

Other teams’ ranking could drop because of things not involving UConn. I suspect that late February early March the NET rankings will loom larger in the voters’ thinking. If we end up with only 4 losses and only a few teams have less than 5, the ranking will adjust.

 

[hoopsnloops32]

Other teams’ ranking could drop because of things not involving UConn. I suspect that late February early March the NET rankings will loom larger in the voters’ thinking. If we end up with only 4 losses and only a few teams have less than 5, the ranking will adjust.

And other teams will rise because of things not involving UConn. It's just a BIT preposterous that AP voters aren't expected to watch games and vote accordingly and instead just move teams up and down based on looking at win loss columns. It's lazy and not actually what they are paid to do.

 

[Bone Dog]

It's lazy and not actually what they are paid to do.

The AP pays the voters?

 

[oldude]

In the words of Bobby Boucher, the AP voters have provided the Huskies with, “Tackling Fuel!”

 

[Huskie837]

What I get out of this if we defeat ND and SC we will move up. If we run the table in the Big East we’ll be in the top 12-16 depending on other team’s performances. If we lose to an unranked BE team we’ll tumble.
Thought for sure we’d be top 10 going into this poll…

 

[CL82]

Pollsters are giving other teams the chance to be ranked probably higher than they should be because it helps in reinforcing the argument about college WBB - and MBB - that ESPN and others seem to have latched onto

 

[MSGRET]

The coaches poll will be even worse. But at this point, UCONN is very close to, if not in, as a 2 seed. Keep taking care of business and we should solidly be a 2 seed when the season ends.

The AP or Coaches poll doesn't have any merit when it comes to seeding, that is the NET which UConn is currently #4. They would most likely be a 1 seed if it was selection committee time.

 

[Bone Dog]

The AP or Coaches poll doesn't have any merit when it comes to seeding, that is the NET which UConn is currently #4. They would most likely be a 1 seed if it was selection committee time.

This seems a bit optimistic to me. Even with a NET rank of 4 two months from now -- which would probably mean we'd had a great conference season and defeated ND decisively and had no worse than a close loss to SC -- I suspect we'd end up just a bit further down the S curve, maybe in the 5-8 range, that is we'd be a 2 seed. This also assumes that other teams took a few losses in conference, which seems almost inevitable. For example, if we end up 27-4, I suspect Iowa would have to be 25-5 or worse for us to edge them out of a 1 seed. Same for Texas LSU and NC St. My guess is the 1 seeds will end up being SC, Stanford, UCLA and one of those teams, and we'll be somewhere below them.

And frankly, looking at Iowa's schedule (just as an example) I wonder where those 4 losses are going to come from. The likeliest candidates are IU and tOSU who both play them twice. But other than a surprising upset, I don't see any other strong challenges on their schedule. Same for LSU. They'll probably take a big loss to SC, and maybe a second one in the SEC tournament, but beyond that I don't see two obvious challenges -- maybe Tennessee???? NC St is the likeliest of this lot to lose 4 more games since they play several ranked teams in conference: Va Tech, Duke, UNC, Louisville, and ND. Texas maybe losses to Baylor again, and K St, but it would take a loss to Iowa St to get them 5 losses.

 

[hoopsnloops32]

The AP pays the voters?

AP votes are paid by their publications, of of the roles in their jobs as writers for those publications is that they vote in the AP poll. So while they aren't paid by the AP, they are in fact paid to vote.

 

[REB1094]

How do you drop a spot after blasting a ranked team on the road by 40, and then blasting the next team on the road by 30?

 

[hoopsnloops32]

This seems a bit optimistic to me. Even with a NET rank of 4 two months from now -- which would probably mean we'd had a great conference season and defeated ND decisively and had no worse than a close loss to SC -- I suspect we'd end up just a bit further down the S curve, maybe in the 5-8 range, that is we'd be a 2 seed. This also assumes that other teams took a few losses in conference, which seems almost inevitable. For example, if we end up 27-4, I suspect Iowa would have to be 25-5 or worse for us to edge them out of a 1 seed. Same for Texas LSU and NC St. My guess is the 1 seeds will end up being SC, Stanford, UCLA and one of those teams, and we'll be somewhere below them.

Stanford will be interesting to watch in the Pac 12. At the beginning of the season i had them top 5 in the country but now I am not so sure. Their backcourt gives me a lot of pause. I could see them pick up 3-4 pac 12 losses which would have that Gonzaga loss loom large during seeding time. They only play UCLA once this season though which is probably a boon to them.

Too early to talk about seeding with this team though, especially with Aubrey out. Too much can happen in two months, not just to us but to the rest of the country. Two weeks ago Texas looked like a final four favorite but you see how quickly fortunes can turn on a dime in this this sport so its not really worth thinking about yet imo.

 

[visitingcock]

Well, the bracketology of the week will be interesting

 

[triaddukefan]

Well, the bracketology of the week will be interesting

If this thread is any indication, bring the popcorn just in case.

 

[Rowdy831]

We're not going anywhere until we start beating some name brands. That's basically it. Beat ND by 30 in a couple of weeks and that'll get some attention. Beat South Carolina and that'll really get a lot of attention.

They better be happy with any win over ND or South Carolina. Both those teams will be a match up challenge with decent guard play. Ranking don't really matter for another month and as it stands I think that UConn will be at least a 3 seed which is about where they should be based on the early results.

 

[Zarathustra]

Aubrey being out doesn’t help us with the voters.

Oh... but that involves having knowledgeable voters.... if true, the drop of
one makes some sense. (IMO)

 

[oldhusky]

Bingo

Maybe we are getting treated like Florida State in football when their quarterback went down!

 

[Rowdy831]

Here's my ranking. It's based on a forecasting method and it's very UConn-centric in the sense that I asked myself who I thought the Huskies could conceivably defeat in March on the basis of what we're seeing now. Teams above I think UConn more likely than not wouldn't beat, and those below they would beat (more likely than not). There's lots of room for upsets here, and some teams, like ND, probably deserve a higher ranking but for injuries that may not be season long. That is, if Citron, Prosper and Westbeld are up to speed in a few weeks, they probably belong much higher. Net rankings in parentheses.

1. SC (1)
2. UCLA (5)
3. Stanford (2)
4. LSU (16)
5. Texas (3)
6. NC St (10)
7. Va Tech (15)
8. UConn (4)
9. IU (11)
10. Iowa (7)
11. Baylor (8)
12. USC (13)
13. K St (9)
14. Colorado (19)
15. Michigan St (14)
16. tOSU (17)
17. Utah (6)
18. Gonzaga (18)
19. ND (12)
20. Ore St. (21)

And a side note, I put NC St and Texas above UConn because they've already won games against UConn. But one might argue that they wouldn't repeat.

Baylor at 11 is too low. They have size and good guard play and owns a win against Texas and blew out an undefeated TCU team. I think you have UConn where they most likely will finish if they can find a way to beat ND and play SC kind of close.

 

[Plebe]

Maybe we are getting treated like Florida State in football when their quarterback went down!

No we are not. Virginia Tech beat the #3 team and this bumped them up. This happens with any team that beats a higher ranked team. It’s as predictable as the sunrise. Notice that Kansas State was also jumped by VT, so this wasn’t about us.

As @DefenseBB pointed out above, UConn’s point total actually went up over last week. If it had been us beating a higher ranked team then we too would have jumped other teams that had done nothing wrong or bad.

If this thread is any indication, bring the popcorn just in case.

Popcorn for some, Valium for others

 

[CB360]

Aubrey being out doesn’t help us with the voters.

That's what I'm thinking. I thinking they are ranking them based on what might happen due to injuries vs What is and has happened last week in actual games played.