Basketball Rankings
Fortunately, basketball rankings are virtually irrelevant. Other than the possible influence they can have on seeding for the NCAA tournament, once the tourney itself begins, they are moot.
The current top 5 in the Coaches’ Poll is as follows -
The current top 5 in the Coaches’ Poll is as follows -
I have no problem, practical or otherwise, with Florida falling to 3rd after losing on the road to Vanderbilt.
But as for Ohio State being ranked number 1, huh?
Two of “Number 1” Ohio State’s losses were –
December 23, 2006 – Florida 86 – Ohio State 60
January 9, 2007 – Wisconsin 72 – Ohio State 69
As I said, the rankings now are irrelevant, especially with Wisconsin and Ohio State facing off this Sunday. But wouldn’t it make more sense to have Wisconsin ranked number 1 right now?
Mentioned in Austin Murphy's book 
5 comments:
Gee, the same arguments that applied to Football and bias in the polls and the media pundits applies here as well. At least, Basketball has a playoff.
Given the fact that we beat tOSU in basketball, it would make sense to rank Wisconsin first right now. So much for these so-called "coaches polls"........
In the AOL FanHouse Power Poll, which I participate in as one of six voters (link at http://ncaa-basketball-blogpoll.aolsportsblog.com/) Florida was ranked at #1 again despite losing to Vandy. UF received two #1 votes, and, ironically, neither of them were from me. My ballot had Wisconsin first, Florida second, and Ohio State third.
Ohio State is getting leeway for a couple of reasons. One, they lost to UNC without Oden and the losses to UF and Wisconsin were with only a partially functional Oden. Nonetheless, Florida destroyed them as you no doubt remember. The other reason is that they haven't lost for a long time. But look at their schedule! Penn State (who took a game-winning shot at the buzzer, which missed by about an inch, after trailing by as much as 42-19), Michigan, Iowa, Northwestern... it's a roll call for college basketball's worst "big conference" teams.
So I couldn't rank them #1. I left them at #3, in fact, which I think is generous considering their only win over a ranked team was #20 Tennessee at home (and the Bucks barely won that one, too.) Buck apologists will point out that OSU has three highly respectable losses. My response is that respectable losses have to be tempered with quality wins. And OSU has precious few.
Wisconsin should be ranked #1 in my opinion and my ballot reflects that.
So much for Wisconsin being #1 in the polls; they were beaten by Mich. State last night.
If we beat So. Carolina tonight, let's see what happens next week.
Wisconsin was a victim of the "Mergz Curse".
Basically if I say something nice about you, watch out.
If I bet on you, really watch out.
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