The Bat Cave

Last week’s rankings in brackets:

TOP 25

1. Duke (10-0): Duke took the week off, but is still unanimously the best team in the country. [1]

2. Ohio State (10-0): Freshman Jared Sullinger has asserted himself as possibly the best player in the nation, going off for 30 points and 19 rebounds on Saturday. [2]

3. Kansas (10-0): Great debut for Josh Selby: 21 points, 5 rebounds, 5 3-pointers… but Kansas nearly got upset by an unpredictable USC team. [3]

4. Connecticut (8-0): UCONN took the week off as well and should have two blowout wins before Big East play begins on Dec. 27th. [5]

5. Syracuse (11-0): Is this team really a borderline #1 seed in the NCAA tournament? I’m leaning towards no. [6]

6. Georgetown (11-1): Georgetown plummeted in the national rankings (to #15) last week because of a loss to Temple. I held them strong at #9 because a) Temple is tough and b) they’ve already secured four wins over teams likely to make the NCAA tournament. It’ll be interesting to see where the Hoyas end up on Monday after a week of upsets for a lot of ranked teams. They won’t be this high, but they are #1 in RPI and #3 in strength of schedule. I’m going to go out on a limb and say this team is slightly underrated right now. [9]

7. Pittsburgh (10-1): Pitt jumps slightly up the rankings. [8]

8. Kansas State (9-2): I still think KSU is one of the better teams in the country but that loss to Florida on Saturday was pretty brutal. 44 points? Really? If anyone’s wondering, that’s over 30 points less than they’ve been averaging a game. [4]

9. San Diego State (12-0): Consider me impressed. SDSU cracks the top ten and it’s not like they’ve played a cheese schedule. I think it’s safe to say they’ve claimed the title of best team on the west coast. [12]

10. Villanova (9-1): Villanova hasn’t exactly played the toughest schedule (118th in SoS), but here they are, the 5th team from the Big East to crack my top 10. [13]

11. Kentucky (8-2): The Wildcats take advantage of major shuffles in the middle of the rankings. It’s worth nothing KU is #7 in both the RPI and strength of schedule. [14]

12. Memphis (8-1): Last week I say Memphis could be unranked within four weeks, this week they jump up three spots. Go figure. I still think they’re slightly unproven and I see trouble in the future. [15]

13. Purdue (10-1): We still don’t really know what this team is made of. They rank 48th in the RPI and 176 in SoS. [16]

14. Minnesota (10-1): After Kentucky, I had a real tough time deciding where to put teams 12 through 19. Minnesota is still one of the few teams that has four wins over possible tournament teams. [17]

15. Missouri (10-1): Missouri will probably crack the top ten in most of the national polls, but I wasn’t huge on them in the preseason, so they’re having a harder time climbing up these rankings. I think they’re better than I anticipated, but they’ve still played a relatively easy schedule (157th in SoS). Dropping 116 points on anyone is impressive though. [19]

16. Illinois (10-2): The Illini played one game this week and took a bad loss to… Illinois Chicago? Yuck. I didn’t see the game, but Illinois shot .327 from the field and any team is going to have a hard time winning when they shoot that bad. [10]

17. Tennessee (7-2): Wow, what a difference a week makes. Last week, Tennessee soared up the rankings to #7 and looked like one of toughest teams in the nation after destroying Pittsburgh on the road. This week they took the two worst losses any ranked team has compiled so far. They’re still one of the more impressive teams as far as RPI is concerned, however, losing to Oakland was bad and losing to Charlotte was brutal. [7]

18. BYU (10-1): BYU lost to UCLA badly yesterday, but hold at #18 in my rankings because it’s hard to say anyone below them has been more impressive. [18]

19. Baylor (7-1): When a team has serious questions surrounding their ranking because of a weak schedule and lack of games played and then lose to the first halfway decent team they play (Gonzaga), it raises an eyebrow; a struggling Gonzaga team that had Stephen Gray on their bench for the entire second half no less. [11]

20. Michigan State (8-3): MSU will continue to add fuel to the fire that there’s an east coast bias by climbing to #11 in the national polls on Monday. Look at it from the perspective of a Washington Huskies fan: MSU is 8-3 and rank 66th in the RPI and 66th in SoS, while Washington is 7-3 and ranked 51st in the RPI and 37th in SoS. No way a team with three losses deserves to be that high… I don’t care how good they really are. [20]

21. Notre Dame (9-1): I’m sure The Fighting Irish will hold off Stony Brook today and climb slightly in the rankings. Notre Dame opens Big East play next week with a brutal stretch: their first three games are against Georgetown, Syracuse, and Connecticut. [22]

22. Texas (9-2): Texas held off UNC yesterday and climb up the rankings. [25]

23. Texas A&M (10-1): The Aggies add another decent win to their resume by holding off Arkansas. [24]

24. Florida (8-2): I had a real hard time deciding who to put in my last two spots. Florida has to get some serious credit for what they did to Kansas State yesterday. Plus, they were highly touted in the preseason and have a solid record. [Unranked]

23. West Virginia (8-2): This spot was even harder to fill. I’m giving WVU the edge over some of the teams below simply because I like their resume the most so far. They have a win over Vanderbilt, were the first team to knock off Cleveland State, and also beat decent Oakland and VMI teams. It’s a tough call though and I think there’s a legitimate argument for about five other teams that could be ranked here. [Unranked]

DROPPED OUT

21. Louisville (9-1): A loss to Drexel might not drop Louisville out of the rankings, but I thought they were the least talented ranked team last week, so that loss was enough for me to drop them.

23. UNLV (10-2): I really like UNLV and they’ll have a chance to get back into the top 25 soon enough.

BUBBLE

Boston College (8-2)
Old Dominion (8-2)
Temple (8-2)

On The Radar

Arizona (9-2)
Cincinnati (10-0)
Cleveland State (12-1)
Florida State (9-2)
North Carolina (7-4)
Northwestern (7-0)
Oklahoma State (10-1)
Richmond (8-3)
St. Mary’s (9-2)
UCF (10-0)
Vanderbilt (8-2)
Washington (7-3)
Washington State (7-1)
Wisconsin (9-2)