No home cooking this week, Notre Dame moves down a spot with two nice wins.
Team Rankings-
- Louisville- Three losses (vs. Cincy, @ Seton Hall, @ UCONN) by a total of 13 points. Wins over Georgetown and Marquette put them on top.
- Georgetown- Still a half game lead in the conference.
- Notre Dame- Big win @ Seton Hall gives confidence on the road, avoiding comeback against #16 Marquette provides some more national credibility.
- Connecticut- Won seven straight, including 80-68 victory over Notre Dame opponent Georgia Tech. Game against the Irish on Wednesday will help shake out top 4.
- Pittsburgh- Only win this week a 55-54 affair against West Virginia at home. Move up on account of losses by higher ranked squads.
- Marquette- Looked bad in home loss to Louisville, more potent in near-comeback against Notre Dame. Need to bounce back well Tuesday @ Seton Hall.
- Syracuse- Only game last week was a close loss at home to UCONN.
- West Virginia- Lost three of their last four, but nearly knocked off Pitt on the road last week.
- Seton Hall- Three straight losses. Blown out at home by Notre Dame, nearly beat 'Nova on the road.
- Cincinnati- Taken to overtime by Rutgers. Home games against St. John's and South Florida should help get back on track.
- Villanova- Win over Seton Hall by 2 at home does not make up for five straight losses. Lost by 12 at Rutgers and 22 at St. Joseph's. Road games at Georgetown and St. John's not looking too promising next week.
- St. John's- Beat Providence, lost at home to DePaul earlier. Only team near the bottom playing well, with a three game winning streak.
- Providence- Beat DePaul by 14 at home, but lost at St. John's. Dropped 5 of last 6.
- DePaul- Home win against South Florida does little to soften hurt of four game losing skid.
- Rutgers- Nearly upset Cincy in overtime, still riding four game losing streak.
- South Florida- Just plain bad. 10 straight losses after defeating Rutgers at home.
Freshman of the Week- Johnny Flynn- Syracuse
Pains me to give that no talent hack an award this week, but the other candidates (Gransberry, Paul Harris, etc.) couldn't provide wins for their teams. In fairness, Thabeet had an incredible game yesterday with career highs in points and rebounds. Hopefully he cannot repeat the performance on Wednesday. His game against Syracuse was less impressive offensively, but did block seven shots. Most importantly, the team won both games.
Flynn scored 20 against UCONN, adding 5 rebounds and 6 assists with just one turnover and four steals.
3 comments:
We disagree this week, but for different reasons. There is no shame in GT losing AT Louisville, and to 'punish' them by dropping them to #2 (despite still leading the conference AND being in the Top 10) AND giving LV a quantum leap over 2 thems seems like a bit of an overreaction to a big LV win.
If you WERE gonna give someone the 'leap', again, I would have picked UConn. So let's hope the Irish win Wed and I can drop that argument.
I mean, not for anything, but who is Louisville's big OCC win? Kentucky?
You could make a case that ND's Much-maligned OCC schedule is VERY similiar to LV's AND ND has that win over KSU. And LV doesn't have really as impressive a win as UConn's one over Indiana.
In general, I don't think you give too much weight to road losses and too much to home wins. Giving the rough competetion of the BE, it would almost be EXPECTED for LV (a good team) to beat GT at home. It's the same argument in that if ND can win at Uconn Wed, that loss by Uconn should carry more weight b/c it was at home.
So I would have gone with GT, Uconn, ND, and then LV again.
That's understandable, but I try to give teams credit for head-to-head wins. When they only have played once, it is hard to account for home vs. road games (Marquette destroyed ND at home, but lost a close one on the road... does that mean the teams are even or that Marquette has a slight edge?). Likewise with Louisville and Georgetown, I gave the Cards credit for a win against a team that blew out ND at home (the Irish will not get a shot at Georgetown in South Bend, so we will never know how those two teams match up in the Joyce Center).
Here's my logic-
Louisville- No "bad" losses (all in top 75 of RPI and by an average of under 5 points), beat #36 RPI UNLV on the road, #43 West Virginia, #31 Marquette twice, and #8 Georgetown.
Georgetown- Three losses to top 20 teams by an average of 10 points (better opponents, less competitive... understandable). Quality wins- #10 UCONN, #27 ND, #45 Syracuse, @ #43 West Virginia, #61 Seton Hall. No home losses, only one good road win.
Notre Dame- Losses to top 75 RPI teams, two close and two road blowouts. Beat neutral #32 Kansas St, #43 West Virginia, #10 Connecticut, #73 Cincy, @ #67 Nova, #83 Providence, @ #61 Seton Hall, #31 Marquette. No home losses, two good road wins.
UCONN- Five losses, two home or semi-home, to top 100 teams. Average margin of losses- 7. Wins- @ #61 Seton Hall, #31 Marquette, @ #73 Cincy, @ #29 Indiana, #17 Louisville, #15 Pitt, @ #45 Syracuse, #68 Georgia Tech. Three good road wins, two home losses.
Ok, that's way too much information. Head-to-head Louisville beat G'Town (at home), G'Town beat ND and UCONN (both at home), ND beat UCONN (at home), and UCONN beat Louisville (at home). All at home, so if you discount home wins, it's all a wash. I take them into account and ranked Louisville>G'Town>ND>UCONN.
So if you actually spent the time to read all that (apologies, I'm a little stat-heavy today), it's pretty apparent that the differences between the four teams are razor thin right now. That's why I'm banking on head-to-head results. Until one of the four can pull off a road win, it is nearly impossible to distinguish between them.
Post a Comment