Well here it is the last regular season poll...and it was not the easiest to put together.
Once again...Congrats to the Seminoles on an amazing victory, taking 4th in the conference and playing better than any of us expected.
Take a look inside for the ballot. Look forward to hearing your thoughts.
 | ||
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Memphis | |
| 2 | Pittsburgh |  1 |
| 3 | North Carolina | 1 |
| 4 | Louisville | 1 |
| 5 | Connecticut |  3 |
| 6 | Duke | |
| 7 | Michigan St. | 2 |
| 8 | Missouri | 1 |
| 9 | Kansas | 1 |
| 10 | Gonzaga | 6 |
| 11 | Oklahoma | 3 |
| 12 | Wake Forest | 1 |
| 13 | Clemson | 2 |
| 14 | West Virginia | 2 |
| 15 | UCLA | 4 |
| 16 | Arizona St. | 1 |
| 17 | Villanova | 1 |
| 18 | Marquette | 4 |
| 19 | Purdue | 2 |
| 20 | Washington | 1 |
| 21 | Florida St. | 1 |
| 22 | Syracuse | |
| 23 | Brigham Young | |
| 24 | Louisiana St. | 2 |
| 25 | Butler | |
| Last week's ballot | ||
Dropped Out: Illinois (#24), Utah (#25).
This was a difficult one for me. Again, I take the two major media polls, Ken Pomeroy and my own poll to put together an poll that represents an average of those 4. I then make some adjustments. The major polls are from last week so they do not represent, for example, Pitt's victory over UConn and hence the reason I need to do some adjusting once the averaging has been done. This is probably also the reason there isn't a ton of movement in my poll from week to week...as the folks at CBS pointed out, all of this averaging likely brings everyting back to the mean and little movement.
Memphis stays number one. They did nothing to move themselves away from the number spot. Longest winning current winning streak in basketball. Ridiculous defense. Solid solid team.
Louisville moves up based on their recent Big East victory and surviving a tough game at West Virginia. In one of our other posts, I wrote this about them:
I like Louisville a lot. They have the second ranked defense in the country and those losses to Western Kentucky, Minnesota and UNLV were early in the season. 15-2 in the Big East is a remarkable record. Yes the Big East has been at time the Big Easy conference, but the top teams really are some of the elite in the country and night after night it is a battle. Their big weakness on offense is their ability to get to to the line, which I think plays a big part of tournament play. You have to be able to get your opponent in foul trouble and put points on the board without the clock running. Plus, they don’t shoot well from the line, but last year’s Memphis team proved that doesn’t mean anything. They are a big, young team that likes to rely on the three, scoring 65% of their points from deep. 37% of their shots are three which is higher than the national average of 33%. I think they will make some noise in the tournament because of their defense and will likely be a sweet 16 team. But I think their youth, reliance on the three and inability to get to the line will prevent them from getting further.
Big winners this week. Gonzaga and UCLA. This partially stems from their high rankings in the Pomeroy ratings. UCLA is probably a little high in my poll. They have the potential to be an outstanding team and were expected to do so, but they haven't quite lived up to expectation.
Gonzaga sits at #8 in the Pomeroy ratings. The hiccup against Memphis is their only hiccup since the start of the new year. Their only other losses are to Arizona, Connecticut, Utah and Portland St. Aside from PSU the others are solid basketball teams. They are a very big team and they defend the ball extremely well. Plus they play well on both ends of the court, ranking 13th and 15th respectively on OE and DE according to Pomeroy.
Marquette and West Virginia are the biggest losers this week. Marquette ended the year with losses to UConn, Louisville, Pitt and Syracuse. What a way to end the year. I was probably a little generous with them last week. Pomeroy has them way up in the polls. They have the #22 and #7 defense. Although they drop here, look for them to make some noise in both the Big East and NCAA tournament. They won't win either, but could upset a team or two. Granted, they really haven't upset anyone this year.
I look forward to your comments. Again, this won't reflect any of tonight's/afternoon's games. Let me know what you would like to see changed...and more importantly why. Always enjoy these Sunday afternoon discussions.
Oh...Noles drop a little with the loss to Duke. I was a little generous with them last week. We did have a huge win today but a 25% TO% and not getting to the line at home brought us back to reality. Still a top 25 team for sure.