The Bat Cave

Last week’s rankings in brackets:

TOP 25

1. Duke (6-0): Duke survived it’s first tests of the season edging a possible tourney team from Marquette and easily handling #4 Kansas State. [1]

2. Ohio State (5-0): Looking forward to seeing what these guys can do against a stretch of good teams. [3]

3. Pittsburgh (7-0): Panthers still cruising after a good start to the season. [4]

4. Kansas (6-0): The Jayhawks got their first test of the season and beat a good Arizona team, plus Josh Selby is eligible soon, so these guys are just going to get better. [6]

5. Kansas State (5-1): KSU took a pretty bad loss against Duke, but hey, that’s the number one team in the nation and Kansas State already has a couple good wins under their belt (Gonzaga, Virginia Tech). [4]

6. Connecticut (5-0): Talk about a statement. UCONN headed into last week unranked by everyone and projected to finish in the bottom half of the Big East by most publications. Apparently, Kemba Walker and Alex Oriachi disagreed; UCONN toppled a good Wichita State team, #2 Michigan State, and #9 Kentucky en route to winning the Maui Invitational and Walker looked like the most dominant player in the nation. I’ve never heard of an unranked team jumping this far up the rankings, but I can’t see how you can rank them lower. They are #1 in the RPI rankings, #1 in strength of schedule, and they’re still undefeated. I could see an argument for them being in the top 5. I can’t wait to see what the AP does with them tomorrow. [Unranked]

7. Michigan State (5-1): It’s interesting how these rankings work. Michigan State lost to unranked UCONN, which is going to plummet them from the #2 spot. But… starting tomorrow, losing to Connecticut isn’t going to be so bad. Go figure. The Spartans did bounce back by edging PAC-10 favorite Washington. [2]

8. Syracuse (6-0): Still waiting for this team to play someone good. I doubt this is a top 10 team. They’re playing very tight games against some mediocre schools. [8]

9. Florida (5-1): Gators jump up a few spots and got a decent win under their belt today (vs. Florida State). [12]

10. Memphis (5-0): Hmmm… is Memphis really a top 10 team? Hard to say, but they’ve beat two teams from major conferences and play Kansas, Georgetown, and Tennessee before entering conference play, so we’ll know for sure after that stretch. [13]

11. Kentucky (4-1): Like Michigan State, the Wildcats fell victim to The Kemba Walker Show this past week. However, also like Michigan State, they notched a win over Washington. Plus, Terrence Jones looks damn good… there was hype around him in the preseason, but he could wind up being an All-American and top 3 draft pick this year. [7]

12. Baylor (4-0): Undefeated, but untested. [14]

13. Illinois (6-1): Easy week for the Illini. [15]

14. Georgetown (6-0): Same for the Hoyas. [17]

15. Tennessee (5-0): I hate on the Volunteers every year and they consistently prove me wrong. I was hoping to drop them out of the Top 25 this week; instead they had the best week of any team not named Connecticut. The Vols are #2 in RPI rankings and #7 in strength of schedule. The AP had them #24 last week, but they should be right around here now. I was tempted to rank them even higher than this. [18]

16. Minnesota (6-0): Minnesota maintains after a surprisingly strong start. [19]

17. Villanova (5-1): Just when I bite the bullet and bump Villanova up my rankings, they get upset by Tennessee. [10]

18. Purdue (5-1): I wanted to believe that Purdue could survive as a top ten team without Robbie Hummel, but I felt an impending sense of doom surrounding this team. They hadn’t played anybody special and I thought Richmond might upset them and they did exactly that. Richmond’s a good team, but that’s a game Purdue needs to win. [9]

19. Gonzaga (3-2): The Zags took another loss, but salvaged their top 25 spot with a win over Marquette. [16]

20. Washington (3-2): As a Huskies fan, this was a heartbreaking week. After absolutely demolishing Virginia, the Huskies played a mediocre game against Kentucky and still hung in there until the last couple minutes. They followed that up with a solid showing against Michigan State and barely lost that one. Even though UW took two tough losses, they still showed they are a team to be reckoned with. They’ll climb back up these rankings soon enough. I hope! [11]

21. San Diego State (6-0): Maintaining… [23]

22. Missouri (5-0): I’m waiting for Missouri to lose a game so I can say “Ha!” but it hasn’t happened. Still, I refuse to move a team I don’t really believe in up the rankings until they beat someone worth talking about. [22]

23. Texas (5-1): The Longhorns nearly lost to Rice this weekend, but knuckled up for the win to hold their top 25 spot. [24]

24. BYU (6-0): BYU fell out of my rankings last week, but made it back after going 3-0 this week with wins over South Florida and a St. Mary’s team that I wanted to put here. [Unranked]

25. UNLV (6-0): UNLV has officially played their way onto the national radar with big wins over Wisconsin and Virginia Tech. [Unranked]

DROPPED OUT

Butler
North Carolina
Virginia Tech

NOTES

*Temple, a team that was in the top 25 in both the AP and ESPN polls, took two losses this week. They’ll be unranked tomorrow and I feel kind of smart.

*North Carolina won both their games this week, but they still drop out because they haven’t beaten anyone good, lost to two unranked teams, and, after last year, it’s time to show and prove for UNC.

*I wouldn’t be shocked to see Notre Dame ranked tomorrow. They have a pretty impressive early resume for a team no one was talking about, notching wins over California, Georgia, and Wisconsin already.