Walking down the rankings is always interesting as teams ebb and flow. Some win, some lose, and the upsets always produce more teams that are getting ranked and getting a name for themselves. You could say that this doesn’t mean much because the tournament takes more than 25 teams and that anyone can win, but the rankings still help to determine the teams that will get the easiest route to a national title come March.
UNC, Kentucky, Ohio State, UCONN, Syracuse. The top five isn’t changing and it may not change until we have some act of God occur to move one of them. Honestly, I’m waiting for conference play to move these teams around. However, are we not impressed that the top five represents three conferences?
Duke, Louisville, Memphis, Baylor, Florida. I’m still very impressed that Memphis is able to stay in the top ten even after they have spent time without John Calipari. Baylor is looking incredible under Coach Drew (and I have to say that I am STILL loving the fact that Baylor athletics doesn’t suck eggs anymore. I love their teams.) And there’s Billy Donovan just stalking and waiting for the chance to move even higher up.
Wisconsin, Xavier, Alabama, Kansas, and Michigan. These teams round out the top 15 and I like the way Michigan is surging. Xavier’s always right there along with Wisconsin, but I don’t trust Alabama. They’re going to have to show me more.
Near the bottom we even have Creighton in the top 25, and that means that we’re starting to see teams peak their heads out and make their presence known. How much longer before we start to hear from the mid-majors? As soon as we get to conference play, the mid-majors without enough votes (Cleveland State, George Mason, St. Louis) will start to make some noise along with Gonzaga and Marquette. It’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?
photo credit: David Jones
