Rankings Monday January 17

Well the new polls came out and the Hoyas still find themselves in both of them.  To be perfectly honest, I find that pretty shocking.  I thought there was a slight chance that they might cling to the bottom of the Coaches Poll but that they would definitely be in the "others receiving votes" part of the AP Poll.  I was way off as they comfortably made both.  They are #23 in the AP and Coaches Polls.

Are they playing like one of the top 25 teams in the country right now?  No.  Do they have still have one of the best resumes in the country?  Yes.

I think that their current ranking is more about the rest of the teams around them also struggling than it is about them standing out due to their own good play.  In other words, the other teams around them didn't do enough to leap frog the Hoyas.  They could have probably stopped this week's poll at 15 and it would have been very appropriate as the teams at the bottom just didn't seem to want it.

Whenever anybody says something like Team X shouldn't be in the tournament or shouldn't be in the Top whatever, I always ask them who should take their spot.  You don't always get an answer.

So when the Polls come out I do three things.

1.  Find the Hoyas
2.  Find the rest of the Big East
3.  Look at the bottom of the "others receiving votes" section and try and guess which schools were on Feinstein's ballot

We already have our answer to #1 above. 

There are 7 Big East teams in the Coaches Poll and 9 in the AP. I think there is a real chance of 10 BE teams making the NCAA Tournament.  That's sick.

Feinstein was very, very predictable this week.  It wasn't even a challenge.  I saw James Madison and Coastal Carolina at the bottom of the AP Poll and they had Junior written all over them.  What's funny is that he wasn't the only one with JMU on their ballot.  Even funnier is that JMU has more votes than UNC this week.

I know I give Feinstein crap for having such a crazy ballot but at least he isn't a mindless voter.  For example, I hate it when a team ranked 17th loses a close game to a team and the Top 5 and then subsequently falls in the rankings just because they lost.  If they are going to move at all after that loss, they should probably move up a little but the Polls don't work that way.  

Luckily there is a tournament at the end of the College Basketball season so these Polls are really just something to talk about amongst nerds.

Peace brah