Pre-Preseason College Hoops Top 10

There is a lot of information to go through here, so I thought I'd try to compile some of it, as well as add my own opinions. Among the various resources used for this were Katz's top 25, Lunardi's Bracketology, Pomeroy's site, Rivals' Prospect Rankings, and Wikipedia (always). The futures lines were gathered from Bodog, BetUS, Carib, and Sportsbook.

1. North Carolina (4.5-1, BetUS)
Katz #1, Lunardi #1 seed
Last year: 36-3 (14-2), Pomeroy #4. Lost to Kansas in the national semifinal.

Sophomore forward Alex Stepheson is transferring, to some school out west (he hasn't decided). I think the Tar Heels will survive the loss.

Since 2000, four teams have gotten at least 80% of the preseason first place votes in both the AP and ESPN polls, as I'm assuming UNC will. Two of those teams--'06-'07 Florida, and '03-04 UConn--won the title. The other two--'05-06 Duke, and '01-'02 Duke--lost in the Sweet 16. I don't know what that means, other than "Dook is teh suck" but it's interesting.

Carib currently has the Tar Heels at +250 to win the title, which is pretty absurd. What this ends up doing is putting a lot of value in some of the other teams, as you'll see below.

2. UCLA (18-1 at Carib)
Katz #3, Lunardi #2 seed
Last year: 35-4 (16-2), Pomeroy #3. Lost to Memphis in the national semifinal.

Give it up for Ben Howland, everybody. Losing two top 10 picks and still being this loaded is a neat trick. The incoming class, led by Jrue (pronounced Drew) Holiday, is supposed to be the best in the country. Add that to Collison, Shipp, and Aboya, and the pieces are in place for a fourth straight Final Four, which would be an astonishing accomplishment in this day and age.

The Bruins are getting some bonus points here for Howland. You don't have Defensive Efficiencies rankings of 3, 2, and 3 over a three-year stretch by accident. It's too bad, for both team and player, that Mbah a Moute's decided to stay in the draft. He could've been a solid contributor, and might end up going undrafted.

18-1 may be the best value on the board. Even if you don't agree with them at #2, it'd be hard to argue that they're not the second most likely team to get a #1 seed, given the relative weakness of their conference.

3. Pittsburgh (22-1, The Greek)
Katz #2, Lunardi #1 seed
Last year: 27-10 (10-8), Pomeroy #21. Lost to Michigan St. in the second round.

Well, I suppose they're the heavy favorite to win the Big East tournament at the moment.

Katz mentioned that Mike Cook may get a medical redshirt and be allowed to return for another year. That'd be big, since they're already set inside with Young and Blair, and at the point with Fields. It's tough to place them with that unknown, but I suppose that's why you don't rank teams in June.

22-1 isn't bad. The problem is this conference, which is going to be outrageously good. Four teams may end up deserving top two seeds, but that doesn't mean they'll all get them. For that reason, I don't know that I could pull the trigger on any of these Big East futures.

4. Duke (15-1, Carib)
Katz #6, Lunardi #1 seed
Last year: 28-6 (13-3), Pomeroy #8. Lost to West Virginia in the second round.

Considering they have six of their seven top contributors returning, you'd think it would be fairly easy to gauge how good this team is, but I have no idea. By the end of last year, they were much better than the public perception (no mystique!), but worse than their lofty Pomeroy rank. Problem is, that leaves a pretty big gap.

They lose Nelson, but their best recruit is 6'4 "slashing lefty" Elliot Williams, who sounds like an ideal replacement. Although that doesn't help their apparent weakness down low--I don't know if you've heard, but Duke lacked an "inside presence" last year.

I do know I wouldn't take them at 15:1.

5. Connecticut (20-1, Carib)
Katz #15, Lunardi #2 seed
Last year: 24-9 (13-5), Pomeroy #22. Lost to San Diego in the first round.

I was quite surprised to see that Katz has UConn so low. It sounds like they lose Stanley Robinson (Winn says he's "on the brink of academic ineligibility), which would be unfortunate. I really think a lot of the pessimism is caused by their weak finish last year, losing four of their last seven. But that included a two-point loss at Villanova, losing to a very good West Virginia team in the BE tournament, and losing to San Diego in OT without their point guard in the NCAAs. If, on February 20th, you would've told people that Thabeet was coming back, they would've been talking the Huskies up as preseason #1.

One thing UConn could stand to improve is their perimeter defense. With Thabeet inside, they held opponents to 40.4% from 2 (second in the country), but allowed 34.9% from 3 (153rd). Maybe the addition of Rice guard Kemba Walker (Rivals #14) will help in that regard.

6. Louisville (20-1, Carib)
Katz #5, Lunardi #3 seed
Last year: 27-9 (14-4), Pomeroy #6. Lost to North Carolina in the Elite 8.

They lose a lot of bigs--Padgett, Caracter, and Palacios--but are seemingly prepared for that with two Rivals top 20 recruits, 6'9" Samardo Samuels and 6'10" Terrence Jennings, incoming. The backcourt will be very strong, as they have everybody coming back. Earl Clark should make a big impact after electing to return, rather than entering the draft as a likely first round pick.

Maybe a couple guys will get hurt, they'll lose a bunch of games in November and December, and be undervalued for three months. That'd be fun.

7. Memphis (25-1, Carib)
Katz #7, Lunardi #1 seed
Last year: 38-2 (16-0), Pomeroy #2. Lost to Kansas in the national championship.

Like Duke, Memphis is tough to gauge, but for entirely different reasons. We know exactly how good they were last year--second best team in the country. But without Rose, CDR, and Dorsey though, that's not all that helpful.

Anderson, Dozier, Taggart, and Kemp return, joined by 6'5" guard, and Rivals #6 prospect, Tyreke Evans, and two more top 50 recruits. It's not clear how good the returning guys are, because they were only complimentary pieces last year, and recruits are always hard to value. So I'll play it safe and go with Katz here.

8. Texas (30-1, Carib)
Katz #13, Lunardi #3 seed
Last year: 31-7 (13-3), Pomeroy #9. Lost to Memphis in the Elite 8.

They would've been #2 if Augustin had come back, without a doubt.

Mercifully for all parties, Abrams is returning after considering going pro. Mason will take over at the point, which will clearly be a dropoff, although who knows how much. After a breakout 2008, Atchley returns for his senior season. This is a very strong team, which could contend for the title if Mason turns out to be a capable full-time point.

9. Gonzaga (50-1, BetUS)
Katz #9, Lunardi #4 seed
Last year: 25-8 (13-1), Pomeroy #30. Lost to Davidson in the first round.

That first round exit isn't looking so bad now, is it?

The Bulldogs got great news last week, when Pargo announced he'd return to school for his senior year. He returns to a pretty stacked team--a full year from Heytvelt, and everyone else except Pendergraft returning. If they're going to contend for a title, this is their year, as they'll lose (at least) Pargo, Heytvelt, and Downs after this season.

Probably because of their first round loss (and Heytvelt missing time), Gonzaga at 50-1 looks to be the second best value available here.

10. Notre Dame (50-1, Carib)
Katz #4, Lunardi #2 seed
Last year: 25-8 (14-4), Pomeroy #28. Lost to Washington St. in the second round.

They have a very good team coming back, but the defense is still a huge question mark. Notre Dame's Defensive Efficiency rankings over the last three years have been 120th, 49th, and 42nd, respectively. With the same personnel and coach as last year, I have a hard time putting them much higher than this. Should be a fantastic offense, though.

Carib seems to have the same reservations (defense, strong conference) about this team that I do, as their odds are a real outlier among Katz's rankings. If you think they're the fourth best team in the country, it's certainly worth it. Here, it's probably not.

Photo: NCAA.org.

A Post-Draft Deadline Look at the Big East

The deadline to declare for the draft was yesterday. There are still a lot of moving parts, since players have until June 16th to withdraw their name from consideration. We can make some reasonable assumptions though- most of of the top prospects have hired agents, and it's unlikely that guys like D.J. Augustin and Russell Westbrook will be returning. A full list of who has declared can be found here.

Since I couldn't care less about the NBA (although I do enjoy the draft), I'm primarily concerned with the guys that are coming back. The notables on this list include Earl Clark, Darren Collison, Stephen Curry, Blake Griffin, Hansbrough, Hasheem Thabeet, Terrence Williams, and Sam Young. The thing that jumped out at me is that the Big East is going to be very, very good next year. They dominate the previous list, and they won't lose as much to graduation as other conferences. A look at some of the top contenders:

Connecticut (20:1 at Sportsbook)
Declared for draft: Nobody
Graduated: Nobody

UConn would be getting all kinds of hype if Price hadn't gotten hurt in the first round. They'd be a Sweet 16 team (at least) with almost everybody coming back (Wiggins transferred). As it happened, they're an afterthought with a rehabbing point guard. If Price makes a full recovery, with the ever-improving Thabeet returning, this should be a top 5 team.

Louisville (20:1)
Declared for draft: Derrick Caracter
Graduated: David Padgett, Juan Palacios

They return an excellent backcourt- Williams, Smith, Sosa, and McGee- and Earl Clark returning is huge. They lose a lot more than UConn, but were better to begin with. The big question is whether incoming freshmen Samardo Samuels (#9 on the Rivals 150, an "automatic double/double guy") and Terrence Jennings (#18) can replace the production they are losing inside.

Georgetown (20:1)
Delcared for draft: Nobody
Graduated: Jonathan Wallace, Roy Hibbert, Patrick Ewing Jr.

Tough break for the Hoyas last week, as sophomore foward Vernon Macklin announced his intention to transfer. That's a big hit to their frontcourt, which was already going to struggle to replace Hibbert. A lot of Georgetown's success will depend on how good incoming freshman Greg Monroe (6'10", Rivals #8) is.


Pittsburgh (20:1)
Declared for draft: Nobody
Graduated: Ronald Ramon, Keith Benjamin, Mike Cook

Sam Young and DeJuan Blair will be very tough inside. The lack of guards may be a problem, with three of their top four graduating (Fields is the fourth). With a potentially dominant combo inside, they won't need the guards to be all-world, but there are some holes to fill. Pitt doesn't look to have any highly touted recruits coming in.

Notre Dame (40:1)
Declared for draft: Nobody
Graduated: Rob Kurz

Ugh. I'm still bitter. Kurz is a significant loss inside, but they still have Harangody and Hillesland. Combine them with McAlarney, Tory Jackson and Ryan Ayers on the perimeter, and they might even win a road game. Seriously though, that is a very solid starting five. I just don't know if I can deal with another year of Harangody and Hansbrough being on ESPN three nights a week.

I won't give them their own paragraph, but if McNeal withdraws from the draft, Marquette will be a contender. The same is true for Donte Greene and Syracuse, although it seems unlikely that he would return.

At this point in the year, it usually seems like the quality of play is going to be down, since most of the guys we are familiar with are either graduating or heading to the NBA. With every other conference, I think this holds true, but not with the Big East, which looks to be the strongest conference heading into the upcoming season.

Regional Previews: South

Same as always. I averaged the Vegas lines and the Pomeroy numbers for the first round. For rounds 2-4, I adjusted the Pomeroy numbers slightly. Marquette was downgraded, and I gave Pitt a slight bump.

Gasaway posted all the efficiency margins in one pretty chart this afternoon. The South is obviously handicapped because Memphis is not included, but it does not have a single team in the top 10.

I find it interesting that Memphis is 3:2 in multiple places to win the region. This is the same team that is 26-1, right? It's true that they didn't test themselves on the road, but were 3-0 in New York against Oklahoma, UConn, and USC. They also have double-digit home victories against Georgetown, Arizona, and Gonzaga. They went 16-0 in the 10th best conference in the country. If not for that one game, Memphis' odds would probably be much, much worse.

Looking at the aforementioned efficiency margins, Texas is only 15th in the country. This is partially because they play in the Big 12, which was very strong this year. But that's not the whole story- this didn't seem to bother Kansas, as their efficiency margin is 33% higher than anyone else's. The Longhorns looked good in their final two games- beating Oklahoma by 28, and hanging with the Jayhawks in Kansas City- but in the two weeks before that, they were uninspiring. A 3-1 record is nothing to complain about, but two of those games were at home and closer than they should be (beating Nebraska and Oklahoma St. by 4 and 5, respectively), and they lost @Texas Tech. The fact that their defense is only 32nd in efficiency also does not bode well. They don't have a bad draw- they should cruise to the second weekend- but I'm still not sold. Augustin is fun to watch though, I will give them that much.

Pitt sure looked good in New York. But the thing is, Pitt always looks good at the Garden. This was the fifth time they've reached the BE tournament final in the last six years. Let's look at how each year turned out.

Seems to me like their MSG performances aren't particularly indicative of how they'll do in the big tournament.

Marquette-Stanford would be an interesting second round game. Both teams rely on defense, but for Marquette it's their guards (3rd in 3-point FG% allowed, 5th in steal %), and for Stanford it's the tall brothers (6th in 2-point FG% allowed). I don't really see how Marquette is going to score against the Trees- their three guards are terrible outside shooters, and I can't see Hayward and Barro getting too much going against the Lopez brothers. The Vegas lines show a 64% chance of those two teams winning their first round games, so we'll probably find out.

I am picking Memphis- and they're very good- but it's essentially by default. I do not like Texas for the reasons listed above. Stanford has a bad draw. I'm not sold on Pitt. Michigan St. is 4-6 on the road, including losses at Iowa and Penn St. It's just not a very good region.

Pick: Memphis
Upset: Oral Roberts
Scary Team: Marquette

Related: First Round Schedule [Rush the Court]

Since a couple people have asked, I'm going to post my full bracket later tonight. There is no way I am going to class tomorrow afternoon, so there may be a live-blog.

Conference Tourney Odds Recap

Throughout the conference tournament previews, I mentioned how terrible the odds for the longshots were. If any of those teams made a run, you could make a lot more money betting on the money lines in each individual game than you would if you bet on the futures odds at the beginning of the tournament. Conversely, there seemed to be significantly more value in the the odds for the top three or so teams in each tournament.

Over the last few days, I tracked the money lines for each conference tournament game. Using this information, we can determine the "true odds" for each team that reached their conference tournament final- that is, the odds you could've gotten if you bet on their money line each game, rolling the winnings over to the next game. The table below shows these "true odds" for each team, and compares them to the best odds you could've gotten on that team at the beginning of the tourney.

Georgia's run was quite improbable. If you had bet $10 on them to beat Mississippi at +175 in round 1, and rolled that money over all the way to betting on them at +310 to beat Arkansas this afternoon, you would've turned that $10 into $1,725.10. A little better than ending up with $510 if you'd bet on them at 50:1, I'd say. The fact that they had to play three games in two days factors into this discrepancy somewhat, but it's also true that they didn't even have to play the conference's beat team, Tennessee.

The same is true for Pitt; their game-by-game odds were almost twice as good as the pre-tournament 12:1 odds. And there is no disclaimer here- they had the insane task of having to beat Louisville, Marquette, and Georgetown on three consecutive days. At least they were rewarded by being placed in the same pod as Michigan St.

The Illinois lines look strange, since their pre-tournament odds were actually better. This can be explained pretty simply- they ended up being favored in the semifinals, since they played Minnesota after the Golden Gophers upset Indiana. If the Illini had faced the Hoosiers in the semis, that +1888 would've become +2891.

Each of the other teams to reach the final were in the top 3 in their conference. UNC's "true" odds probably would've been closer to EV had they faced Duke in the finals.

As expected, Wisconsin at +200 was excellent. They did benefit slightly from facing Illinois in the final, but they would've been significant favorites against any opponent.

NCAA Futures Odds (Kind Of)

This post was originally going to be about good NCAA futures odds on various sites. But when I actually sat down to write it, I realized there isn't much out there right now.

There was some decent value out there a couple weeks ago. Xavier was recently 100:1, but the best you can do on them right now is 60:1 at Carib. Kansas St. was 80:1 right after they beat KU, now they're around 30:1. Wisconsin's currently at 75:1 at Carib, which is pretty solid.

Basketball Prospectus favorite Louisville is 20:1 at Carib. This isn't bad, but considering the rest of their schedule (@Pitt & Georgetown, vs. ND & Villanova), I think it might be smart to wait on them. There's a decent chance they lose a couple of those games and (absurdly) fall out of the rankings, possibly allowing their odds to drop to somewhere in the range of 30:1.

Anyway, what this became is an analysis of teams that are currently overvalued, as shown by their unprofitable odds. I understand this isn't very helpful from a wagering perspective, but hopefully it is interesting nonetheless.

USC- #8 seed, Pomeroy #27, 30:1 at Sportsbook
I'll be the first one to tell you how good the Pac-10 is this year. But it is kind of ridiculous for the fifth best team in the conference (fourth if we're being generous) to be 30:1 to win it all. This may have been reasonable three weeks ago, when they had just beaten UCLA and Oregon on the road, but not now, as they currently sit at 6-6 in conference play. Guard Daniel Hackett, USC's assist leader and second most efficient scorer, may not play again this year. Without him, USC has some serious depth issues- they made only one substitution in Sunday's loss to UCLA. With the talent they have, a turnaround is not impossible, but the Trojans' current concern should be making the tournament, rather than winning it.

Pittsburgh- #8 seed, Pomeroy #26, 50:1 at Sportbook
Two months ago, Pitt was 11-0 and #6 in both polls. Sure, they hadn't played anyone who was actually good, that's not the point. Things were really looking up after they beat Duke at MSG. Since then, the Panthers are just 8-6, including ugly road losses at Dayton and Marquette, and a shocking home loss to Rutgers. Part of it has been injuries, but Mike Cook isn't coming back this season, and the Marquette loss came in Fields' first game back. Pitt's early reputation exceeded its actual talent, because they played well against a weak schedule and beat Duke on a buzzer three. The odds still haven't caught up reflect how much of a longshot they really are to win it all.

Michigan St.- #6 seed, Pomeroy #24, 40:1 at Sportsbook
The Spartans got off to an impressive 14-1 start, with wins against Missouri, BYU, Texas, and Purdue, and their only loss coming against UCLA. Then they scored 36 points in a loss to Iowa. So that wasn't good. But they followed that up by winning five straight and moving to 7-1 in the Big Ten. Then came the loss to Penn St. If you're supposed to be at the top of the B10 this year and find yourself losing, even on the road, to Iowa and Penn St., something is wrong. Last week MSU had two road games against teams that are playing like they're the cream of the B10 crop, Purdue and Indiana, and they lost them both, including an uninspiring 19-point defeat at the hands of the Hoosiers. Right now it looks like Sparty is behind those two and Wisconsin in the B10, and that conference just isn't good enough this year for its #4 team to be 40:1 to win the championship.

UConn- #3 seed, Pomeroy #21, 9:1 at Bodog
I am picking on the Huskies a little bit here, because almost all of Bodog's futures odds are terrible (for example, Kansas St. is currently 12:1). Obviously they have been playing well- their win over DePaul on Tuesday was their 10th straight W. But they have been extremely fortunate over this stretch, winning games by margins of 1 (twice), 2 (twice), 5 (twice) and 6. That's seven of the 10 wins by an average of only 3.1 points. This is how teams get overrated- they are fortunate late in games, and people focus on the fact that they won. The rest of UConn's Big East schedule is remarkably easy, with the only tough games coming at Villanova and home vs. West Virginia. It looks like they'll end up with a 2 or 3 seed, but I can't see them being one of the best teams in the country.

After jumping out to a 41-2 lead (!), the Seattle under ended up winning 82-22 (79%). Detroit poll is up.

Blogpoll: Week Seven

Everybody's votes are here (Google Doc); the final ballot is as follows:

The Blogpoll has a new #1 this week, after Memphis' impressive 14-point victory over Georgetown. The AP and ESPN polls continue to be useless, as they will keep UNC as a clear #1 until they lose, no matter what.

Pitt moves up seven spots, to #8, after their big win over Duke at the Garden. Pitt has a big game at #25 Dayton on Saturday (8pm ET, ESPN2).

Kansas was #3 on all 12 ballots. This is amazing to me.

The team we had the least agreement on was Texas A&M. They were as high as 6th, but were unranked on one ballot. Both of those seem a little excessive, although I sympathize more with the optimistic view, as I had them 12th.

Vanderbilt comes in at #21; I had them 16th. I know they're undefeated and all, but their resume really isn't that impressive, but they almost lost to Tennessee State last weekend. Their schedule is pretty weak until they play UMass on 1/5, before starting SEC play.

This Week's Links (12/17-12/21)

Big Shot Levance.

ATHF's Carl breaks down the Mitchell Report. "How do you think Ted Williams fought all those Nazis, huh? Roids, pure and simple." (via Defensive Indifference)

How The Weakest Link relates to sports.

Pomeroy explains his individual stats, and looks at which teams have accumulated gaudy win totals against weak competition.

AA talks to Gus Johnson. This is one of my favorite calls ever.

STF interviews Basketball Prospectus' John Gasaway.

Another potential replacement for the BBWAA awards: The Pozcars.

Blogpoll: Week Six

The full blogpoll can be found here; my ballot was as follows:

There haven't been that many games over the last week and a half because of finals, but that all changes on Saturday, with Georgetown @ Memphis, Tennessee @ Xavier, and Texas @ Michigan St.

#3 might be too high for Kansas. Georgia Tech really isn't that good, yet they almost sent that game to OT. You look at their resume, and the only thing that really qualifies as a quality win is the USC game (and Arizona at home is decent; but they probably should have won that game comfortably, rather than in OT). If Texas wins @Michigan St. on Saturday, they'll definitely be at least 3rd next week. (Man, the Longhorns' schedule is impressive; Spartans on Saturday, then Wisconsin, TCU, and Saint Mary's, then the Big 12. Sadly the UT-KU game isn't until February 11th, and there's only one of them.)

Duke-Pitt at the Garden tonight, which should be pretty good (it better be; I spent way too much on tickets on eBay). Duke is favored by 5.5, which seems about right. Both teams have strong New York followings; I'm sure it'll be a pro-Duke crowd, but I'm interested to see what the Pitt turnout is like.

I am "hosting" this whole blogpoll situation next week, so we'll see how that goes. Oh, and no more finals, so after I get a little sleep things will be back to normal around here. Although I have no idea what qualifies as "normal".

Vegas' Take on SOS

Yesterday's Clemson post got me to thinking about early season strength of schedule. There are many ways to quantify the strength of a opponents; the RPI does it, as do Pomeroy's ratings.

I figured it would be interesting to use point spreads to compare the strengths of various teams' non-conference schedules. So, to start off, I took the average number of points each top 25 team has been favored in each game this season. The one problem here is games for which there weren't spreads at all. It turns out that the average margin of victory for (current) top 25 teams in those games was 30 points. So, instead of the spread, I split the difference between 30 and the actual margin of victory. So if a team wins one of those games by 40, the number included in their average is 35.

Using this, as well as the actual spreads for each other game, here is how much each top 25 team has been favored by, on average, so far this year:

(A bigger number means an easier schedule; using this metric Kansas has played the easiest schedule of the top 25 teams, Butler the most difficult.)

An interesting list. Although rather than strength of schedule, I think it would be more accurate to think of this as how challenging the schedule is to that particular team. For example, if another team had played UNC's schedule, they would be lower on the list, since they wouldn't have been favored as much in the same matchups.

Therein lies the problem; doing it this way is biased against the top teams. This can be seen pretty obviously in the fact that Kansas, Memphis, Duke, Georgetown, UCLA, UNC and Texas all have one of the ten easiest schedules. So, to remove the correlation between rank and SOS, I made a little adjustment, which gives us a new list:

This is better. Let's look at some of the extremes here.

1. Tennessee, 21.1

The Volunteers played West Virginia and Texas on back-to-back days in Jersey a couple weeks ago. Those are both difficult games. But that's pretty much it. Here's the rest of their schedule, along with the line for each game:

That is pathetic. They haven't left the state, and the only non-home game on that list is against Chattanooga. Three games with no line, and no game in which they were favored by less than 16 points. So they've played two competitive games; they got blown out in one, and they beat WV by two on a neutral court in the other. Not much of a resume. It does get better the rest of the way, as they have upcoming games at Xavier and Gonzaga.

2. Pitt, 20.3

Pitt is kind of in the same boat. They've notched two solid wins in the last week (@Duquesne, @Washington), but their schedule prior to that was ridiculous. Four games without a line, and favored by 13.5, 24, and 22 in the other three, respectively. But it's not all bad for Pitt. They did win those games by an average of 30 points, which is somewhat impressive. Then they played (and won) two tough road games, and their difficult stretch continues, with their next three against Oklahoma St. (at home), Duke (at MSG), and @Dayton.

3. Kansas, 20.3

The Jayhawks are victimized a little bit by being really good; they were favored by fifteen at home against a solid Arizona team. They won that, and also won @USC. But (and I think we're beginning to see a trend here), the rest of their schedule hasn't been very tough. Two games without lines, and they've been favored by an average of 29 points in the other five. They have some decent games before Big 12 play begins (@GT, vs Miami OH, @BC), but for a team with Final Four aspirations, they really haven't challenged themselves over the first couple months of the year.

And on the other end of the spectrum...

23. Michigan St., 11

The Spartans have two things going for them in this analysis. The first is that Vegas doesn't seem to think they're all that good, as they were 2.5 point underdogs against BYU on a neutral court, and favored by only one against Missouri in the same situation. So Vegas hasn't given them the amount of respect that their current #10 ranking might indicate, which allows their schedule to look more difficult than it actually has been by this metric.

But they've also played five competitive games, which is a lot at this stage. There were the two I already mentioned, plus UCLA (neutral), NC State (home), and Bradley (away). They were underdogs in the game against the Bruins, and favored by nine and five in the other two. Sure, they've played four games against overmatched opponents, but those are outweighed by the other five.

24. Marquette, 10.7

The Golden Eagles have had a strange year. They've only played seven games. Two of those were been very difficult (Duke on a neutral court, @Wisconsin). In a third (Ok. St., neutral), they were favored by only 3.5, but won by 30. Their other four games have been against IUPUI, Utah Valley St., Chaminade, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Because they've been underdogs twice, and only played four non-competitive games, their schedule comes out looking tough. It's been somewhat challenging to this point, but after their next four games (Sacramento St., IPFW, Coppin St., Savannah St.) they'll be much higher on this list.

25. Butler, 10.5

Now this is a schedule. The Bulldogs are obviously different from most teams on this list, as they have to notch some big wins in the early months before flying under the radar in the Horizon league come January (actually, come December; they've already played two league games). Even so, what they've done is impressive. Butler has been favored by between 5 and 12.5 points in each of its first nine games; that is some incredible consistency. They haven't lost a non-conference game yet, but did fall @Wright St. on Saturday. It's interesting to compare their schedule to Gonzaga's; the Bulldogs (Spokane version) have to play a difficult early season schedule as well, but have also sprinkled in some blowouts (Montana, Idaho, UC Riverside, Cal State Northridge).

Blogpoll: Week Four

The full blogpoll can be found here; my ballot was as follows:

My strategy for teams who don't play anyone (Pitt, Clemson) is to just keep them where they are. I really don't care how much you beat Toledo by (26, in Pitt's case); you're not moving up with this nonsense. As for Clemson, they're actually lower than last week, because they looked absolutely atrocious against Purdue.

Arizona is good, apparently. I kind of lost faith after they lost to UVA at home, but playing with Kansas in Lawrence and beating Texas A&M certainly puts you in the top 25. I'm trying to plan a trip to visit a friend at Arizona and see Wildcats-Bruins in early March. We shall see.

It's hard to know what to do with teams like USC. They're clearly very good, but they need to actually start winning some of these games (they should have last night; Memphis gave them that game, Hackett just missed the FT that would have given them the lead with six seconds left).

I filled this ballot out Monday night, but last night caused me to have some second thoughts about having Memphis so high. They looked so sloppy. It's one thing for USC to still be figuring things out this early in the year, but expectations are a lot higher for the Tigers.

Big game in the northwest tonight, Washington St. @ Gonzaga.

The Hoosiers have bounced back after a disappointing loss to Xavier with wins over Georgia Tech and Southern Illinois. Interesting game in Bloomington on Saturday, with Kentucky coming into town.

Butler is another team it's hard to find a spot for. They outscored Ohio State 45-16 in the second half, and have the advantage of being more of a "name" than a year ago, but their resume isn't going to be nearly as strong; the only major conference team left on their schedule is Florida State (they play @Southern Illinois later this month as well).

Blogpoll: Week Three

The full blogpoll can be found here; my ballot was as follows:

North Carolina plays Ohio St. tonight, in Columbus. It'll be interesting to see how the Hansbrough-Koufos matchup plays out. Hansbrough rarely takes a shot from more than eight feet out, while Koufos is 5/11 from 3 so far this year.

If I had submitted this today rather than Monday night, Clemson would not be on the list. They looked terrible last night against Purdue. Same goes for Wisconsin, who lost to Duke by 24.

How about Texas? They shot 63.6% from the floor in beating Tennessee by 19. Abrams is averaging 23 ppg, Augustin is at 17 pts and 8 assists. And sophomore Damion James is chipping in with 9 pts and 8 boards. They visit UCLA on Sunday night. Good thing it's on FSN so I won't be able to watch it.

I have no idea if Pitt or Miami are actually good.