A too long screed on rankings and whether they gauge accomplishment, potential or competitiveness.
Teams shouldn't move down merely because they lose to a higher ranked team, unless there's other factors like the MoV or home/away, etc. Losing to a lower ranked team should result in some downward movement, but how much? Whatever we think of them, if the rankings mean they should have won, then they move down.
In UConn's case, they beat a lower ranked team, which by itself doesn't have to mean they should move at all. We might conclude that the rankings got it right. However, the dominance of the win might suggest they should move up a bit. I mean, a lot of these ranked teams haven't really shown much against other ranked teams, built reputations on cupcake schedules, etc.
Take Iowa, for example. They got a good win against VPI and split the series with K St. Other than those games, the rest of their schedule is teams they should have beaten by 20+ points. This tells me they're being ranked not on accomplishment but on potential. That ranking may be a fair assessment of potential, or it may not be. When I glance at their schedule, what I see is 2 possible losses to tOSU and another to IU, and maybe one more to MD. If they end up with 5 losses, either we think that's about right for the #4 ranking, or we ought to conclude that potential-based ranking is inapt.
If I look at UConn's schedule, they have 2 possible losses against SC and ND, which would put them at 5 losses. But they have no losses to teams they should have beaten and they have really good wins against ranked teams. Does that mean they're equivalent to Iowa? Should they then also be ranked #4. Maybe not, but I'd like to see the reasoning behind the difference.
Or take USCw for example. Ranked #6, they've got a good win and a not-bad loss. But looking at their conference schedule, I see 6 more possible losses to UCLA Stanford Utah and Colorado. If this goes according to my expectation and they end up with one good win and 7 losses (albeit to ranked teams), where do we think they should have been ranked all along, just going by potential? Their potential is to lose 7 games. On the other hand, ranking them on accomplishment now, they probably belong in the bottom half of the top-20.
Or take Stanford, at #9. They have good wins against IU and FSU, an ot squeaker against Duke that exposed some weaknesses and a bad loss against Gonzaga. The rest of their schedule is cupcakes. If we're going by potential here, I see possible losses to UCLA UTAH Colorado and even USC. With 5 losses against an unimpressive schedule, their potential puts them around 15 in my view.
#10 Utah has 3 losses and could lose as many as 5 more in conference. Their potential should place them somewhere at the bottom of the top-25.
I don't think UConn has earned a high ranking. #15 maybe a touch low but perhaps not by much... yet. But if we win out in conference and beat ND but lose to SC, we'll end the season with 4 losses. Everyone on the boneyard knows an NC is a long shot for this team, and maybe the ranking should reflect this. If we have to beat UCLA or SC, or both, to get the title, the odds are heavily against us. But that's the same boat a lot of the current top-10 is in, and our chances may be better than theirs. On the other hand, if we take rankings to be comparative odds of beating other ranked teams in March, in other words of competitiveness, then I'd say we're definitely competitive right now or three months from now, with Iowa, USC, LSU, Colorado, Stanford, Baylor, K St, Utah, ND and VPI. We could win (or lose) against any of them.
