The College Basketball Mafia Strikes Again!
I hardly have time for this post, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to vent. Once again, the college basketball mafia has nominated an undeserving Duke to #1 in the polls.
Let’s review the situation from this past week:
- UConn defeats #20 Villanova
- UConn also defeats #19 Notre Dame (who had previously won 45 games in a row at home)
- UConn plays in the Big East, a conference largely considered to be the strongest division in college basketball*
- UConn has more wins against ranked opponents than any other team in college basketball
- Duke defeats unranked NC State
- Duke defeats unranked Maryland
- Duke plays in the ACC, a conference largely considered to be inferior to the Big East*
In spite of the facts, Duke gets a #1 ranking.
Can someone explain the logic to me?
*An unbiased Coach K begs to differ.
because duke was ranked higher during the week, they have a higher rpi, and they uconn hasn’t done anything to convince the voters that they are better than duke. they may have had better wins last week, but the week before duke had better wins. the one true comparison is playing georgetown at home, and uconn lost to them and duke beat them.
matt,
if you want to go that route, you would have to acknowledge that uconn has defeated more ranked teams than any other team in college basketball. uconn’s only loss was against georgetown (who was a top 10 team at the time) and duke’s only loss was against unranked michigan.
my point here is that duke should have never been ranked higher in the first place. they have less wins against ranked opponents, and their loss to michigan was substantially more embarrassing than a loss to georgetown.