On UConn, Syracuse and My AP Top 25

Greetings ... how've you been? Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Yes, I've been away from the blog and Twitter lately. Sorry, not going to post about a tournament I wasn't covering. Certainly wasn't my choice not to be there, either. Moving forward, hopefully I'll be able to chronicle most if not all of UConn's remaining games.

As for the Huskies, I'll simply say this: the loss to UCF wasn't the worst thing in the world. In fact, it might be a good thing for UConn, for a variety of reasons: knocks them down a peg, makes them realize they're not invincible, cements the idea that Kemba's not around to bail them out anymore. I think the loss could serve as a motivating factor for the team. I think somewhere deep, deep in Jim Calhoun's mind -- despite his absolute hatred of losing of any kind -- Calhoun may even agree.

And that Ryan Boatright's got a little moxy, eh?

I'm not punishing the Huskies too much for the loss on my AP Top 25 ballot. Dropping them two spots to No. 6. Considered moving Baylor ahead of them, too, but stopped short.

Duke had a great week, beating Tennessee, Michigan and Kansas, so I'm moving them up from No. 3 to No. 6. Considered moving them to No. 2, but Ohio State did nothing to deserve being jumped over.

I drop North Carolina from No. 1 to No. 4 after its loss to UNLV. My big jumpers are Missouri (which beat California by 39 points), San Diego State (I was one of the few who had them ranked last week, before they won at Arizona) and, obviously, UNLV.

Oh, and you've read that correctly: Harvard, the Battle 4 Atlantis champion, checks in at No. 25. Crimson will be a good test for UConn in a little over a week.

1. Kentucky
2. Ohio State
3. Duke
4. North Carolina
5. Syracuse
6. UConn
7. Baylor
8. Louisville
9. Florida
10. Wisconsin
11. Xavier
12. Alabama (contingent on 'Bama beating VCU tonight)
13. Memphis
14. San Diego State
15. Missouri
16. Marquette
17. Pittsburgh
18. Kansas
19. Michigan
20. Vanderbilt
21. UNLV
22. Gonzaga
23. Mississippi State
24. Michigan State
25. Harvard

Oh, and here's my deal on Syracuse: I don't believe Jim Boeheim was as criminally negligent as Joe Paterno (as Jim will tell you himself). I don't know this to be true, of course, but I'd tend not to believe he was. But I believe Boeheim put his job on the line when he vehemently called Bobby Davis a liar and strongly insinuated he was making his accusations for the money. If it turns out that Davis was not lying, Boeheim should be fired or simply resign. You don't say such vicious things about an alleged victim and suffer no serious consequences. Defending your friend of 50 years is one thing; calling a child-rape victim a lying gold-digger is quite another.