Now that the season is a month old, we can start to get a picture of the elite and very good teams. Yet pollsters have not budged much from their initial guesses. I’ve talked to donald, who has more to say (vent) about this, so here’s a brief list of some of my complaints:

• It seems that “what have you done for me lately?” matters greatly, evidenced by the fact that losses will drop a team in the polls, no matter who they lose to or how well they play. If that’s the case, doesn’t it make sense to make big changes each week? Shouldn’t some of November’s big winners have shot up towards the top of the poll? Shouldn’t teams playing absolutely no one — UConn, that’s you — not move up at best?
• Conversely, it seems that the pollsters’ objective is to prognosticate about the end of the season. If this were the case, some losses would be more easily overlooked when weighed against the rest of the season. When #23 drops a close game to the #1 team, should they really drop out of the top 25?
• It all stems from a fundamental problem — no matter what poll it is, last week’s ranking carries significant weight towards this week’s ranking. A little humility is needed — pollsters should be willing to throw out their opinions from a week ago instead of reaffirming them. It leads to games like last week’s Bama-ND clash, in which the better team is unranked and the actual underdog is in the top five. ESPN.com gets to run some punny “upset special” heading on their front page, Vegas has no idea where to set the line, and the correction in public opinion is never enough (Alabama dropped to #9 and ND moved to #21 in one poll and #27 in the other).

So here’s our objective impression of the top 25. The ranking of all 336 schools can be found here.

School              W- L    Rat   (r)    SoS   (r)  NCSoS   (r)

Florida             8- 2   99.0   (1)   71.4  (87)   71.4 (100)

Arizona             7- 1   92.3   (2)   79.9   (3)   79.9   (5)

North Carolina      7- 1   92.3   (2)   77.0  (11)   77.0  (16)

Notre Dame          7- 1   89.6   (4)   69.9 (131)   69.9 (139)

Villanova           6- 2   89.6   (4)   77.3   (9)   77.3  (11)

Ohio St             8- 1   89.6   (4)   71.9  (73)   71.9  (86)

Connecticut         8- 0   89.4   (7)   64.4 (281)   64.4 (287)

Butler              9- 1   88.1   (8)   78.0   (6)   76.9  (19)

LSU                 5- 2   88.1   (8)   71.8  (74)   71.8  (88)

Kansas              8- 2   87.9  (10)   73.4  (47)   73.4  (56)

Maryland            9- 2   87.6  (11)   75.5  (20)   74.3  (40)

Texas A&M           7- 2   87.4  (12)   69.5 (154)   69.5 (159)

Clemson             9- 0   87.2  (13)   69.4 (155)   69.4 (161)

Oregon              7- 0   87.2  (13)   69.9 (131)   69.9 (139)

Texas               6- 2   86.9  (15)   69.6 (153)   69.6 (157)

UCLA                7- 0   86.7  (16)   74.1  (36)   74.1  (43)

Michigan St         9- 2   86.5  (17)   74.1  (36)   74.1  (43)

Georgia             5- 1   86.5  (17)   61.2 (322)   61.2 (323)

Air Force           9- 1   86.4  (19)   68.1 (191)   68.1 (195)

Xavier              7- 2   86.3  (20)   73.3  (50)   73.3  (60)

Duke                9- 1   86.2  (21)   73.8  (42)   73.8  (49)

Illinois            9- 2   85.9  (22)   70.9  (97)   70.9 (111)

UNLV                6- 2   85.8  (23)   80.1   (2)   80.1   (3)

Gonzaga             9- 2   85.7  (24)   72.4  (62)   72.4  (74)

Missouri            9- 1   85.5  (25)   73.2  (51)   73.2  (61)

You might question how Florida could be #1 by a huge margin, and if so, you’re probably too blinded by their two losses to have noticed how well they’ve played the rest of the season. Florida, Arizona, and UNC remain popular Final Four picks and populate the top three spots. UCLA, on the other hand, is #1 in both polls but stands at #16 here.

The Big East has just three representatives. I’m shocked that I have UConn ahead of their current poll standing. As usual, they’ve destroyed everything the state of Connecticut can throw at them, plus a couple other scrubs. Calhoun has pushed out any semblence of competitive nonconference basketball to 2007. Can they maintain their efficiency when the competition gets better?

Notre Dame has been very good, and I’ve touted them plenty here. I love the way they play. It hasn’t translated to the polls yet, however. Here’s a situation where significant preseason bias will prevent them from getting due respect for a while.

My favorite surprise is Villanova. Not only are they not in either poll, they haven’t been ranked as high as 25 on a single ballot. Subjectively, #4 in the country is unrealistic, but they’re better than nearly everybody thinks.

I expect this ranking to change greatly moving forward. Pittsburgh and West Virginia are not far from cracking the top 25, and I expect Pitt to do so as their competition gets better. They’ll rise to the occasion. Marquette and Syracuse have not played as well as the polls suggest; the voters must expect better things from them.

Categories: Dan'l B, Rankings