The AP Top 25 is the default ranking for college athletics. Each week the AP updates their rankings for eligible sports but it seems they need to start with a blank slate in Men’s College Basketball. Even though the season is entering conference play it feels like the AP should take a step back before using the Top 25 of last week to judge their newest ranking.
Being seen as a ranked team is one of the best ways to program build in college athletics, especially college basketball. Recruits weigh their options based on what makes sense for their situation and their family but it isn’t a coincidence most top recruits are featured on perennially ranked programs. While we can debate which came first, the recruits or the ranking, each school currently in the Top 25 has found themselves in a position to contend deep into March. As the college basketball playing field reaches a point of competition we haven’t seen in years, it is time for the AP to take down their preconceived notions of “how it should be” and see what it actually is.
For reference, you can find the latest AP Top 25 linked here and our latest MIP 25 here.
Looking over both lists, the source of our problem comes not from the teams featured in the ranking but how they are ranked. The voting system this season has proved to be continually flawed due to the bias within the voting ranks. The voters have been driving many of the perceived upsets over the last eight weeks. As voters scramble to find the right formula but also satisfy their own opinions, many deserving teams continue to be underrated and overlooked even when their play says otherwise. Below we have highlighted a few teams that should have their rankings reevaluated before the Top 25 drops next week.
The Perfect Examples:
#10 Michigan State: The Spartans are a solid squad but acting like they are a top ten team is more than generous and feels like blue blood bias. Michigan State is more than likely a top 20-30 team in the country and the fact they are currently sitting at #10 only means that they are primed to be upset but only have the loss impact their ranking marginally so they can still be in contention for a top four tournament seed come March. Moving to 22 Years since the last time the Spartans were the last team standing, the Mr. March nickname has stuck with Izzo but capturing the big one hasn’t. If the Spartans were a team that wasn’t looked upon as favorably they would find themselves near the bottom of the list, where they should be.
#19 Villanova: It isn’t hard to believe that if Izzo and the Spartans are still benefitting from the championship they won more than two decades ago, Villanova gets the benefit of the doubt because of their recent success. The Wildcats at #19 is not only generous but a product of their brand more so than their play. The Cats have four losses to UCLA, Purdue, Baylor and Creighton. Currently the only four loss team in the top 25 if a different team in the Big East played the schedule Nova has and lost those four games, I would be hard pressed to believe they would be sitting in the top 25. For argument sake, Illinois is 10-3 and lost to Marquette, Cincinnati and Arizona but have beaten Iowa, Rutgers and Notre Dame. While they aren’t stellar wins and certainly less than ideal losses why would a team be penalized so severely that they aren’t even touching getting close to the necessary votes when Villanova can’t beat a “good” team but continues to find themselves ranked week to week? At some point losses have to matter and it doesn’t make sense that a team struggling to beat anyone of notoriety deserves to be ranked above an undefeated Colorado State or a 12-1 LSU. Additionally, an argument could be made that they beat ranked Seton Hall. When you look past the box score, the Pirates had eight eligible players and no true front court presence so is it really that impressive to go wire to wire with a team that has no bench? I don’t believe so.
#21 LSU: If you were a 12-1 team that is (1-1) against the top 25 in a power five conference you would expect to be at the very least ranked like at #19 like Villanova but probably would have an argument to be even higher, maybe even closer to #10 Michigan State. However, if you weren’t supposed to be in the Top 25 and you were picked #7 in your conference preseason poll, it would make sense for the committee to be “forced” to rank you instead of believing in your talent. That is what the current LSU Tigers are dealing with. A team that nobody picked to be where they are, the Tigers are well coached, have well rounded players and should be respected going forward. After knocking off #16 Kentucky but falling to #9 Auburn if LSU had preseason expectations at the national level they would be ranked in the top 15 rather than the committee waiting for a reason to take them out of the ranking. The Tigers should get their respect moving forward but will have to prove it moving forward in conference play.
#24 Seton Hall: The Pirates are better than their record. Hit by Covid the team was on a roll before they lost two of their most important front court members. Their most recent two losses were down to the wire against ranked Villanova and Providence. They took the largest drop, nine spots, in this weeks AP ranking. It isn’t necessarily that they dropped but how far they dropped. Instead of giving consideration to the players that were lost during their COVID issues and the impact they could have had, like how the committee gives consideration to who Villanova has lost to, the Pirates are another underrated team that deserves more national recognition. While they aren’t the premier Big East program after making the tournament more than not over the last five years, they deserve more respect than just another team in the Top 25.
What should change:
Acknowledging that human error and personal biases already exist it is going to be hard to change how the AP voting is structured. Voters seem to have their minds made up about teams prior to the season and it remains evident through the eight weeks of voting. So how do you go about changing the system? Even though this isn’t a perfect fix we believe, based on how we rank, these are a few things that can be different:
Understand the Landscape: Gone are the days that you could wake up rank Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, Kentucky and Michigan State as your top five and keep them in the same order for the entire season. College basketball is making you work because the playing field has become so even. Mid-major programs are roster building and prospects are realizing if you are good enough the NBA will notice you regardless of if you play on a “blue blood” program. As media exposure has increased players are being recognized which has helped the little guy recruit within their area and get better with age. The AP seems to rely on the idea that these teams are still and should still be considered the perennial best even though that isn’t the case. For example Kansas has been ranked in the top ten all year, last season Kansas was also a top ten team ended up with a high seed in the tournament and lost to a better team in USC. It wasn’t because USC was underrated but it was because Kansas wasn’t as good as everyone thought just because they are the Jayhawks. It feels like the respect that smaller programs deserve hasn’t quiet caught up to the respect they are getting which makes it more difficult to accurately rank each team.
Name Brand doesn’t always translate to success: Sticking with the same theme the name brand doesn’t matter. Kentucky hasn’t been a great team in two years, the one and done isn’t working as well as it originally had and teams with more experience and chemistry have caught up. However, like our Kansas example many teams like Kentucky had a down year last season. North Carolina is still reeling from the loss of Roy Williams but for some reason was ranked #19 in the first poll. They have since corrected as UNC continues to falter but their performance last year combined with the loss of their coaching staple afforded them an opportunity to be ranked headed into the season? In any other situation a team losing their head coach and having a bad year would not result in a #19 ranking. Going forward understand the writing on the wall, evaluate each team for what they have done for you lately and take into consideration that a Texas Tech may be better than North Carolina even though they aren’t the school that produced NBA legends.
Unproductive doesn’t mean safe: Finally and what feels most important, unproductive doesn’t mean safe. What do we mean by this? If #7 USC continues to win games they should be able to jump #4 Gonzaga who plays in a two bid conference maximum. Generally, Gonzaga is the biggest target in this because they are the most successful mid-major school in history* but when you win 12-16 games because you show up it doesn’t move the meter and shouldn’t for the voters. A team that is playing tougher competition should be rewarded and should be able to jump teams even if the teams above them don’t lose. Shuffle the deck, make teams work just because Gonzaga can beat teams that would be perennial bottom tier teams in a different conference doesn’t mean they should be rewarded for going through the motions. While they did schedule hard outside of the conference if you aren’t consistently defending your ranking it should be up for grabs every week. Some objectors will say this is a penalty for a poor conference. Gonzaga could eventually leave, conferences shuffle all the time, yet they haven’t so why would we reward them while a Purdue, Baylor and Duke get challenged almost every night?
No ranking is perfect and while the AP is considered the best the flaws that continue to show season after season need to be addressed. Going forward, if you are at home or ranking college basketball yourself, consider everything. Sometimes it is easier to start with a blank slate than your preconceived opinion about a program.
*I am willing to listen to arguments but I can’t think of a team that has done it like the Zags.