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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh... but that involves having knowledgeable voters.... if true, the drop of
Maybe we are getting treated like Florida State in football when their quarterback went down!
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.
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.
Popcorn for some, Valium for others
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.
Yes, leave the pearl clutching and hand wringing to us "professionals".
Not sure UCONN is beating Iowa, Baylor, Colorado, Kansas State. That's a tough sell in my opinion.
I doubt we'd have to play all of them, no matter how bad a seeding we got. Could we beat any one of them? I think so. Colorado may be the toughest matchup for us, though I think of their team as structured roughly similarly to Louisville and we beat them handily.
No, the logic IS that at this point in the season you don't move up just by beating teams beneath you. However, teams above us can (and probably will) lose some games to lower ranked teams and we then could move up. If you look at the teams ranked above us, #13 is about right at the moment.
Quick, aggressive opposing guards is pretty much our kryptonite. KK and Ashlynn may end up being the antidote however.
We still play Notre Dame and South Carolina.
On that note, Virginia Tech's next 3 games are Miami, FSU and Duke. Remember that ACC teams are contractually obligated to hand out “quality wins” to each other like it's a Sunday potluck. That's the only thing that can explain NC State's abysmal 4th quarter collapse and nonexistent defense on the winning playJust give Virginia Tech a week or so and they'll be due for their next egg casserole dish.
Meh knowing Notre Dame Miles will be back for that game. But I do think a player like Hidalgo will be a problem for us, similar to Harmon and UCLA’s guards. We will see.
We will be able to out rebound them and get a lot of 2nd chance points.
Some really interesting notes you provided. On Tennessee, they're not getting AP votes but curiously they are #30 in Massey. Their NET ranking tanked in early December but has risen steadily from #96 to #67 in the past month.
