Poll: What Will 9-0 MU be Ranked On Monday?

[muhs03]

Here is Seth Davis's ballot:

1. Ohio St 2. Syr 3. UK 4. UNC 5. Duke 6. Fla 7. Baylot 8. Lou 9. Xav 10. Mizzou 11. Kan 12. UConn 13. Marq 14. Gtown 15. Wisc 16. Vandy 17. Miss St 18. Mich St 19. IU 20. Pitt 21. Illinois 22. UNLV 23. Gonz 24. Harvard 25. Creighton

http://twitter.com/SethDavisHoops

[tower912]

Is UNLV rated higher than UNC.   Was Chaminade rated higher than Virginia 30 years ago (I know, they are (D3)?    Was DePaul better than us two years ago?   Voters vote on body of work.   HUGE win for IU and they should be proud, but Kentucky is still the better team.

[wadesworld]

Is UNLV rated higher than UNC.   Was Chaminade rated higher than Virginia 30 years ago (I know, they are (D3)?    Was DePaul better than us two years ago?   Voters vote on body of work.   HUGE win for IU and they should be proud, but Kentucky is still the better team.

That is my exact point.  No, UNLV is not rated higher because in their body of work they also have losses to Wichita State and to Wisconsin.  Chaminade had losses 30 years ago that Virginia did not.  DePaul won 1 game in the Big East 2 years ago.  The body of work of those teams are not the same as Indiana's.  Indiana's body of work is they are undefeated and beat the #1 team in the country.  There is no way to justify keeping Kentucky above them, or saying that "Kentucky is still the better team."  All we know is that Indiana and Kentucky have played once, and Indiana won the game.  Indiana also does not have a loss.  So their body of work makes it so that they should be ranked higher.  There is no other way to interpret their body of work.  Show me something in their body of work that suggests they should be ranked lower than Kentucky.  The win against Kentucky?  The loss that they don't have?

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

That is my exact point.  No, UNLV is not rated higher because in their body of work they also have losses to Wichita State and to Wisconsin.  Chaminade had losses 30 years ago that Virginia did not.  DePaul won 1 game in the Big East 2 years ago.  The body of work of those teams are not the same as Indiana's.  Indiana's body of work is they are undefeated and beat the #1 team in the country.  There is no way to justify keeping Kentucky above them, or saying that "Kentucky is still the better team."  All we know is that Indiana and Kentucky have played once, and Indiana won the game.  Indiana also does not have a loss.  So their body of work makes it so that they should be ranked higher.  There is no other way to interpret their body of work.  Show me something in their body of work that suggests they should be ranked lower than Kentucky.  The win against Kentucky?  The loss that they don't have?

That they weren't expected to be any good, and they have won like 8 Big Ten games in the past three years.

Rankings are an average of what 30+ writers/coaches think. They don't mean much...and IU will not be in the Top 10 next week. And they shouldn't be.

[brewcity77]

That is my exact point.  No, UNLV is not rated higher because in their body of work they also have losses to Wichita State and to Wisconsin.  Chaminade had losses 30 years ago that Virginia did not.  DePaul won 1 game in the Big East 2 years ago.  The body of work of those teams are not the same as Indiana's.  Indiana's body of work is they are undefeated and beat the #1 team in the country.  There is no way to justify keeping Kentucky above them, or saying that "Kentucky is still the better team."  All we know is that Indiana and Kentucky have played once, and Indiana won the game.  Indiana also does not have a loss.  So their body of work makes it so that they should be ranked higher.  There is no other way to interpret their body of work.  Show me something in their body of work that suggests they should be ranked lower than Kentucky.  The win against Kentucky?  The loss that they don't have?

Okay, for starters, strength of schedule. IU's opponents have a winning percentage of .438 and they have only beaten two teams all year with a winning record, including Kentucky. Meanwhile, UK's opponents have a winning percentage of .548 and they have beaten 4 teams with winning records, including two that are top-15 teams (Kansas and UNC).

In addition, home court is considered to add 3 points. On a neutral court, UK would be considered (based on the IU 1-point win) to be a 2-point winner, and a 5-point winner at home. Quite simply, winning at home is never as impressive as winning on a neutral site or on the road.

And quite simply, when it comes to voting, a single game never defines a season. IU had a massive win, but thus far, UK has still had a more impressive season. Six of IU's wins come against teams that have 3 wins or less. By contrast, UK has only played 2 such teams. It's not just about winning, but who you are winning against. Yes, IU has one great win, but other than that, they've pretty much done squat. And no matter how great one day may be, it's not as important as overall body of work.

[wadesworld]

That they weren't expected to be any good, and they have won like 8 Big Ten games in the past three years.

Rankings are an average of what 30+ writers/coaches think. They don't mean much...and IU will not be in the Top 10 next week. And they shouldn't be.

The past 3 years mean nothing for this year.  If that was the case, then why wasn't Butler ranked in the top 2 of the preseason polls?  They've made it to the National Championship each of the past 2 seasons.  New year.  New roster.

I know what polls are and what they mean.  If you truly believe that IU SHOULD not be (I know they WILL not be) in the top 10 next week, then you have to believe that Kentucky should not either.  There is no way to justify saying that Kentucky SHOULD be ranked higher than IU in next week's poll.  Now, if IU loses to University of (enter whatever no name school they play next week here) next week, then yes, you can make that argument because they lost to somebody.  But until they have a loss, I do not understand how one could justify ranking a team with 1 loss higher than a team that they lost to, who also has 0 losses for the year.

Okay, for starters, strength of schedule. IU's opponents have a winning percentage of .438 and they have only beaten two teams all year with a winning record, including Kentucky. Meanwhile, UK's opponents have a winning percentage of .548 and they have beaten 4 teams with winning records, including two that are top-15 teams (Kansas and UNC).

In addition, home court is considered to add 3 points. On a neutral court, UK would be considered (based on the IU 1-point win) to be a 2-point winner, and a 5-point winner at home. Quite simply, winning at home is never as impressive as winning on a neutral site or on the road.

And quite simply, when it comes to voting, a single game never defines a season. IU had a massive win, but thus far, UK has still had a more impressive season. Six of IU's wins come against teams that have 3 wins or less. By contrast, UK has only played 2 such teams. It's not just about winning, but who you are winning against. Yes, IU has one great win, but other than that, they've pretty much done squat. And no matter how great one day may be, it's not as important as overall body of work.

That's all great.  The fact of the matter is that Indiana has beaten everybody on their schedule.  We can not guess as to whether or not Indiana would be undefeated or not if they played Kentucky's schedule, because they don't.  And you can't try to discredit a team for getting a big win at home rather than on the road.  You provide Kentucky's win over UNC, yet that was a 1 point win at home.  So should we discredit that win?  Should UNC then be ranked higher than Kentucky?  They started the year ranked higher and lost on the road by 1, why should Kentucky have leaped them in that week's poll?

And you are right, a single game doesn't define a season.  But again, the Hoosiers have ZERO losses.  There is nothing that you can look at on IU's schedule and say "well, they lost this game, so they clearly just had a great game against Kentucky, got lucky, and their season is not good."  There is absolutely no way that anyone can possibly justify having an undefeated team ranked lower than a team that it just beat.  Again, if they had a loss to a different team, 4 losses on the year, I get that.  But they don't.  They haven't lost.  So these are the 2 things in Indiana's body of work vs. Kentukcky's body of work that SHOULD (I know it's not how it really goes) matter:

- Indiana: 0 loses - Kentucky: 1 loss - Indiana has the advantage here, but OK, their schedule isn't as tough so based solely on that you can't reason that Indiana should be ranked higher.  But here is where you HAVE to reason that they should:
- INDIANA BEAT KENTUCKY.  With Kentucky having a loss and Indiana being undefeated with a win over Kentucky, you cannot possibly reason Kentucky should be ranked higher.  Again, point out some kind of loss in Indiana's body of work, and we can talk.  Until then, there is no reason ranking a 1 loss Kentucky team ahead of an undefeated Indiana team that just beat them, regardless of who else has been on their schedule so far.

[Warrior of Law]

Indiana played a great game, but I don't think you'll see too many teams shoot 60% (9-15) from 3 point range.  In the second half, it seemed they never missed.

[karavotsos]

Personally, there are a number of things from the game on Sat that would cause me to vote Kentucky over IU if I had a vote.  First, at the end of the game IU's point guard was simply unable to guard Teague, and IU did not come up with an answer for that.  If that's the best defense that IU can play on a penetrating guard, that spells trouble down the road.  It seemed like Calipari spent the first 32 minutes or so waiting for Terrence Jones to show up and when he didn't, Calipari went somewhere else and it went pretty well.  Davis missed a lot of time and when he played his defense was compromised due to foul trouble.  That changed the game quite a bit.  Also, IU was not comfortable offensively down the stretch.  A lot of empty possessions.

Clearly, IU did things well.  IU scored at a higher rate than teams normally do against Kentucky.  Watford and Oladipo both looked pretty good.  Zeller looked like an underutilized asset that could improve the team if IU learns how to use him.

I just look at it as if I had to bet about which team would go further in the NCAA tournament based on what I've seen of the teams, I would bet on Kentucky to go probably 2 rounds further.  That's why I would vote them higher.

That being said, I could care less if a voter voted IU #1 and Kentucky #25, and another voter voted Kentucky #1 and IU #25.    It's not college football.  It doesn't matter.  Thank god.

[brewcity77]

All of the voters have their own criteria, but if I were a voter I would rank UK ahead of IU for one simple reason: I believe they are a better team. I know IU won, and that's a great win, but I still believe on a nightly basis Kentucky is a better team than Indiana. In my opinion, the ranking is about more than individual games. If it weren't, then every undefeated team would have to be ranked ahead of every team with one loss.

The rankings are based on the whole of the NCAA, not just individual comparisons. Maybe IU is Kentucky's kryptonite, but does that mean they'd perform as well against the rest of the top-25? For me, the rankings should be about who's generally the best team in the country and would win most often against the rest of the teams. Despite one night in December, I still think UK passes that criteria better than IU.

[bamamarquettefan]

I expected a little more of a bump last week, Huggins week I'm more worried about kansas jumping us after beating OSU, but hopefully not since sullinger was out.  The one thing helping us will bebthebwisconsin win looking better and better every week.

[AlienWarrior]

Still 11th in Coaches poll