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Monday, February 1, 2010

My Top 25, Sporcle's Top 73

Here's the Top 25 I submitted last night:

1. Kansas
2. Syracuse
3. Villanova
4. Kentucky
5. Michigan State
6. West Virginia
7. Purdue
8. Georgetown
9. Kansas State
10. Texas
11. Brigham Young
12. Duke
13. New Mexico
14. Georgia Tech
15. Tennessee
16. Gonzaga
17. Ohio State
18. Wisconsin
19. UAB
20. Temple
21. Baylor
22. Northern Iowa
23. St. Mary’s
24. Butler
25. Xavier

And here's a good Sporcle quiz from yesterday. I only got 39, thought I'd do better (though at least I got all 16 Big East coaches, and spelled Mike Krzyzewski's name right). And no, George Blaney is not an acceptable answer. Interesting that Jim Calhoun is only the second best-known Big East coach on this quiz, after Marquette's Buzz Williams. But there's a reason: people who typed in "Williams" for Roy or Gary also automatically get Buzz.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 2, 2010 at 11:19 AM

    Hey Dave,

    How much does SOS and Strength of Conference factor into your view of the rankings? I understand the point of rankings and that they are an important part of the game, but it always upsets me when you see teams in extremely weak conference that play soft schedules attain such high rankings. In your top 25 for example take BYU, NM, UNI, or St. Mary's; put them in the Big East/Big Ten and where do you think they would be standing right now? I am thinking the likes of Cincy taking on Florida in the '10 Sugar Bowl for some of them. I am in no way saying UConn deserves a top 25 ranking, but I think teams in the power conferences with less flashy records a la Va tech, FSU, Maryland, Mizzou, Cincy deserve a little more credit. What are your thoughts?

    ReplyDelete
  2. David BorgesFebruary 2, 2010 at 11:55 AM

    That's a fair argument. I think BYU could hold its own in most major conferences. UNI, St. Mary's? It would be a struggle to compete night-in, night-out. But there's no doubt in my mind that at home or on a neutral court, either of those teams could beat just about any Big East team on any given night.

    More to the point, college basketball is as wide-open and filled with parity as every this season, I think we'd all agree. With that in mind, and figuring there will be more than a few Cinderellas come Sweet 16 time, I have no problem rewarding some 19-2 teams from lesser conferences than middle-of-the pack teams from bigger ones.

    I do regret leaving Pitt out of this week's poll, though. But it has lost 3 of its last 4. And Vanderbilt, too (though I think the SEC stinks).

    ReplyDelete