Conference play arrived with a bang, and the reverberations were felt throughout my top 25 ballot. Last week’s games gave me the chance to shake things up, not only due to wins but how teams played even while winning. As a result, some of the biggest brands in college basketball no longer have numbers next to their names. That’s what happens when the calendar turns and rubber hits the road.
Once again, I have relied on three diverse metrics rankings to help me assemble my ballot: KenPom (a predictive metric which includes data from last season); BartTorvik (sorted to include games from this season only); and BartTorvik’s Wins Above Bubble, a purely results-based metric. Those three rankings appear in order beside each team’s name. The number in parentheses reflects where each team was ranked on my ballot last week.
Here, then, is the (correct) order of the top 25 teams in men’s basketball, as filed to the Associated Press Sunday evening.
DROPPED OUT: Florida (18), Kentucky (19), St. John’s (24)
ALMOST FAMOUS: Villanova (21-34-14), Indiana (28-16-60), Utah State (29-28-23), Saint Mary’s (30-26-21), Clemson (35-27-24), LSU (37-32-33), Miami (38-36-38), Saint Louis (41-31-35), Seton Hall (46-39-31)
Notes on the Votes
• There’s an interesting conversation to be had about my choice for No. 1, but this this week I feel compelled to start at the bottom. Florida (which was ranked No. 4 on my preseason ballot), Kentucky (No. 12) and St. John’s (No. 3) are now unranked in this space. I wouldn’t have anticipated that being the case two weeks ago, much less two months ago, but that’s college basketball for ya.
I normally wouldn’t punish a team for losing a conference road game by two points, as the Gators did at Missouri on Saturday, and I’ve been giving this team the benefit of the doubt because it was losing close games to good teams. But at some point you have to win a quality game. Florida’s best wins to date are over Miami, George Washington and Providence on neutral courts. Not to mention that Missouri lost its previous game to Illinois by 43 points. The Gators host Georgia and Tennessee next week. They’ll probably have to win both to get back in my good graces.
Not only has St. John’s fallen off my top 25 ballot, but they dropped completely out of Brad Wachtel’s projected NCAA Tournament bracket. Ouch! It’s remarkable that this is the same team that came within a point of beating Iowa State at the Players Era Festival in November. As it stands, the Red Storm’s best wins are over Baylor and Ole Miss. They lost to a Kentucky squad that got drilled at Alabama, and on Saturday they fell in Madison Square Garden to a Providence squad that had been really struggling. That dropped them to No. 70 in Wins Above Bubble. Leaving the Johnnies off my ballot was an easy decision.
St. John’s loss to Providence took much of the shine off of Kentucky’s win over the Red Storm in Atlanta on Dec. 20. When they were losing games, I gave the Wildcats a half-mulligan because they did not have their full complement of players. Now they do, and they still looked like they didn’t belong for most of that game in Tuscaloosa. Granted, Alabama is going to make a lot of teams look bad, but if I had any inclination to rank Kentucky, the metrics slammed the door on that. Check out that No. 54 rank in Wins Above Bubble.
• As for my choice at No. 1, once again I thought long and hard about moving Michigan up following the Wolverines’ evisceration of USC, their third straight win by 30 points or more and their eighth this season. But it’s not like Arizona has played a bunch of squeakers, either. They romped Utah 97-78 romp on Saturday, three weeks after they beat Auburn and Alabama by a combined 50 points. Michigan has a very slight edge in the metrics, but Arizona has been my No. 1 team the last three weeks. I’m not in the habit of moving a team off the top line when they’re winning games by large margins.
• Nebraska has been ranked in the top 10 of the AP poll for exactly four weeks in its history, and they were all late in the 1965-66 season. I don’t know where my fellow AP voters will land, but given that I had Michigan State at No. 8 last week, I thought the Huskers deserved to be moved up more than Michigan State deserved to be moved down following the big win in Lincoln. Remember, the Huskers also have a win at Illinois, one of the most impressive road wins that any team has had this season. They also embarrassed Creighton and Wisconsin by a combined 51 points. Throw in a top-10 WAB ranking and Nebraska is legit.
• I’m not a big margin-of-victory guy, but despite Gonzaga’s stellar metrics, I had to take into account the fact that the Zags followed up their close call at San Diego (No. 213 on KenPom) with an even closer call in overtime at home against Seattle (No. 111). I’ll be interested to see if they can regroup against a sneaky good Santa Clara team on Wednesday in Spokane.
• The metrics have loved Vanderbilt all season, and yet the Commodores still don’t have a signature win. They will finally get their chance Wednesday night when they host a surging Alabama squad in Nashville. What do you think, first one to 110 wins? Do I hear 120? Vandy also hosts LSU on Saturday, another team that has a gaudy record, healthy metrics and no signature wins.
• Kansas probably deserved to be dropped more than four spots for losing at UCF, but the three teams I have ranked below all lost last week as well. I don’t even know what to make of the Darryn Peterson situation anymore. It’s good that he’s playing again, but this hamstring/cramping issue clearly isn’t going away. The best news for the Jayhawks is that the NCAA Tournament is still two months away, but it is dispiriting that this problem isn’t going away.
• As for UCF, the Knights’ win vaulted them onto my ballot for the first time all season, although they’ve been in my Almost Famous group for a while. UCF’s only loss was by 12 points at home to Vanderbilt, a loss that looks a lot better than it did on Nov. 8. UCF has a chance to win its next three games heading into a Jan. 17 game at home against Arizona.
• Iowa has been knocking on the door of my top 25 for several weeks, and the Hawkeyes finally burst through with their 13-point win at home over UCLA. Iowa’s only two losses this season came on the road two top-10 teams, Michigan State (by 19 points) and Iowa State (by four).
• SMU also played its way in by drilling North Carolina by 14 points in Dallas on Saturday. We’ll really find out what the Mustangs are made of when they play at Clemson and Duke this week.·
• I’ve got three midmajor teams in my Almost Famous group this week, including Saint Louis, which is one crazy buzzer beater against Stanford from being undefeated. Robbie Avila is intent on making his final season in college season a memorable one. And I slid Miami of Ohio in despite its low KenPom and BartTorvik rankings. That WAB number is impressive, and besides, when it’s early January and you’re one of six remaining unbeatens, you deserve a little love.
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