AP
9
Coaches
9
KenPom
4
RPI
8
Sagarin
7
The BTT is once again important for Matty's squad unless they plan to land at 4 or 5 once again. To me, it seems a two seed makes the likelihood of this team taking the next step much more likely.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Poll Dancing 3/7/11: Still work to be done
I'm still hoping a two is a possibility for the dance, and according to the computers, it looks like Purdue is right in the thick of that discussion...but the humans have us just out of that position.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
I mentioned this on the H&R site, but its just stupid how high UNC jumped after only beating Duke and a mediocre FSU team on a last second jumper. 7 spots in the AP poll? Purdue moved up 3 spots the week they beat the #3 and #10 teams. Tell me how the voters think Syracue is 12th and UNC is 13th last week, and Syracuse wins its only conference game by 48 points, and suddenly is 5 spots worse in the polls than UNC. It is absurd.
I mentioned this over in the comments at H&R, but still need to vent. How the hell did UNC move up to 6th in the AP poll from 13th? They needed a last second game winner to beat FSU, and then got Duke at home. The week Purdue beat the #10 and #3 teams in the country, we move up 3 spots and don't pass any teams that didn't lose. UNC passed 2 teams that didn't lose, including a Syracuse team that won a conference game by 48 points, and SDSU who won its two games by a combined 45. Am I missing something here? Absurd how big of a crush the media has on UNC and Duke.
Bracketology 101 still has Purdue as a 2 and UNC as a 3. I'd take their projections over Lunardi's.
Fortunately, the polls carry just about the weight they deserve in the selection committee's eyes (meaning none) ... and anyway, the Boilers can take care of most of their business themselves. A win over Wisconsin in the semis would probably keep them a solid 2 (hopefully it's Michigan State and not Iowa in the quarters; MSU is still on the bubble and would be a semi-quality win).
Unfortunately, even if they do beat Ohio State in the finals (assuming both teams get there), that probably won't be enough given the time of the game and the position of the Buckeyes. If OSU were a weaker 1, it's possible the committee would put "Big Ten winner" as the last #1 and "Big Ten runner-up" as the first #2, but I think it's more likely they'll just seed Purdue as a 2 and then apologize. (And the Big Ten should move the title game to noon. Give the committee a chance to evaluate the results.)
David S,
In my opinion, UNC is the hottest team in the country; sure the jump is pretty crazy, but they're 12-1 in the last 13 games and just won the ACC. I think Purdue at #9 is pretty generous after watching the game on Saturday. If we win a couple games in the BTT, we'll jump back up to a 2.
Yeah, but look at their schedule during that time. UNC's second-best win is over #43 Boston College; two of their wins are against 100+ RPI teams, one of which was against #255 Wake. (255???)
Purdue's third best win is better than that (against #38 Illinois). The one problem, of course, is the loss to Iowa, but then that matches North Carolina's earlier loss at #160 Georgia Tech.
Purdue also fares well against common opponents: 4-1 against Illinois, Minnesota, and Virginia Tech, where UNC is just 1-2.
Tournament play favors the Boilers as well: the ACC is top-heavy (woo woo!), with only Duke and UNC in the top 20 RPI, and of course they wouldn't meet until the final, if then. Barring upsets, Purdue can knock out two more wins against top-20 opponents (unfortunately Illinois is on the other side of the bracket and can't provide a top-40 win unless they knock out OSU).
I agree with Bloomington Boiler in that #9 in both polls is very generous after the Iowa game. We tend to be very critical of pollsters, but come on guys... not very many teams are getting the respect we are. If I'm not mistaken, we were the highest ranked team with three losses, then the highest ranked team with four losses, then the highest ranked team with five losses. Ok, so UNC also has six losses and they are ranked ahead of us, but they just beat Duke and we just lost to Iowa. #9 in both polls show HUGE respect for Purdue.
I think the human polls have been pretty fair to the good guys this year.
I think the polls have been pretty fair also, but I definitely noticed the same thing DavidS did with UNC's huge jump being better than Purdue's jump after beating OSU. It's absolutely based on their school name and the name of the school they beat.
OK, he must be getting it. Seth Davis voted us #6 this week in the AP poll. Insane.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/external/onlinenews.ap.org/top25_basketball/men/index.php?SITE=AP&name=DAVIS
Yeah my point wasn't regarding Purdue's current place in the polls. I am fine with being #9 after a loss to Iowa. My point was about the crazy jump that UNC took. If they can pass teams like Syracuse who crushed a conference opponent by 48 last week just by beating unranked FSU and #4 Duke, why didn't Purdue jump teams that didn't lose the week it beat #3 and #10? Is Syracue not just as hot as UNC? They have won 5 in a row, including 3 against top 30 RPI teams (2 of those on the road). During UNC's current 7-game winning streak, they have beaten one team in the top 40 and that was Duke at home. How do the pollsters think Syracuse is better last week, and now they are 5 spots worse? You can't use the "they are hot" defense, because Syracuse is hot too. It is just because they beat a team with Duke on their jerseys and their jerseys say North Carolina.
UNC passed SDSU as well, who won two games by a combined 45. Why didn't the Boilers pass SDSU that week when they won two games by a combined 18 points?
I'm not saying the polls have been unfair to the Boilers. I agree that their ranking has been pretty solid all year. I am saying that they are not consistent in how they move teams around from week to week.
Post a Comment