Vitale's Preseason 40...

[Pardner]

Dookie V has us at #12 in nation, 5th in BE.  Getting to be that time

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/dickvitale/news/story?id=3544438

[NCMUFan]

Seven BEAST teams in top 16!

[Daniel]

The BEast will be a huge Beast this year - every game will be a challenge.  Wow - 12th in the nation - that is a pretty high pre-season ranking, with our post so uncertain.

Nice to see

[Marquette84]

I think it's going to be impossible for the BE to maintain 5 teams in the top 12--

Last season's final ranking had no more than 2 teams from one conference in the top 12.

B12:  2
CUSA: 1
ACC:  1
P10: 2
BE: 2
SEC: 1
A10 1
B10 1
Southern: 1

The conference losses that the 3rd, 4th and 5th place BE teams will wind up with will probably make them look worse than the 2nd place teams in the B10, P10, SEC, ACC and B12, and the 1st place team in the A10.    Throw in teams like Memphis, Gonzaga, Butler and Davidson who could run the table in their conference, and it's going to be mighty hard  for the BE to have 5 teams in the top 12 at the end of the season.

Even if all five teams run the table on #6 through #16, There will by definition be a minimum of 14 losses from head-to-head games scattered across UL, MU, UConn, ND, and Pitt. 

And teams 6, 7 and 8 are good enough that they're going to take one or two games each versus the top five.  That puts the loss total up to 20--someone is going to have five or six conference losses--they'l be passed by someone like Davidson or Xavier, who will run the table on a weak conference slate and move ahead week by week when any of the BE top 5 loses.

[Nukem2]

I think it's going to be impossible for the BE to maintain 5 teams in the top 12--

Last season's final ranking had no more than 2 teams from one conference in the top 12.

B12:  2
CUSA: 1
ACC:  1
P10: 2
BE: 2
SEC: 1
A10 1
B10 1
Southern: 1

The conference losses that the 3rd, 4th and 5th place BE teams will wind up with will probably make them look worse than the 2nd place teams in the B10, P10, SEC, ACC and B12, and the 1st place team in the A10.    Throw in teams like Memphis, Gonzaga, Butler and Davidson who could run the table in their conference, and it's going to be mighty hard  for the BE to have 5 teams in the top 12 at the end of the season.

Even if all five teams run the table on #6 through #16, There will by definition be a minimum of 14 losses from head-to-head games scattered across UL, MU, UConn, ND, and Pitt. 

And teams 6, 7 and 8 are good enough that they're going to take one or two games each versus the top five.  That puts the loss total up to 20--someone is going to have five or six conference losses--they'l be passed by someone like Davidson or Xavier, who will run the table on a weak conference slate and move ahead week by week when any of the BE top 5 loses.

Yes, the sheer numbers do make it hard to have multiple teams in the upper tier of the rankings.  One of the negatives of a large conference with many good teams.

[ecompt]

The teams will be knocking each other off too much. I figure we'll end up with at least five in the Top 25.

[WashDCWarrior]

Seven BEAST teams in top 16!

And over half the BEast teams (9 of 16) in the top 28. Yikes.

[Mayor McCheese]

Duke at #9... what a joke Dukie V!

Knew he couldn't keep them out of the top 10.

Nice to see Marquette starting at 12, although it really doesn't mean much, and just proves how tough the Big East will be this year.