Xavier with 3 votes in Jan. 6 AP Poll

[BMoreX]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rankings/_/poll/1

Villanova ranked 8th and Creighton had 82 votes.

Cincinnati with 103.

[blueblob06]

Ha! CBS Sports put UC in at 26th in their top 25 + 1 poll. How are Memphis and UC in all these clowns' rankings and not X??? Oh well, we'll continue to surprise everyone I guess.

[The_Mack_Pack]

SMU just lost last week to UC and they have more votes than X..

[xubrew]

Memphis is still #24. Gonzaga, for reasons that I'm sure make no sense at all, is #22. Baylor is #7. I think Baylor is good, but on what planet are they the 7th best team??

I really don't think Mizzou and Illinois are all that good, but I could at least make a case for them to be in the rankings if I really had to. I guess if you really used your imagination, you could make an argument for Memphis, but it would be a piss poor argument.

With Gonzaga, there is no case to be made. None. I mean....what in the hell are they looking at?? They've beaten two NIT caliber teams in Colorado State and New Mexico State. Both at home. That's it. They've failed every other test by a mile. Yet, they're in the rankings. I don't really count their win against Arkansas as meaning much when you consider how bad Arkansas is away from home. Look at them over the past couple seasons.

The voters don't watch the games. They sometimes look at the scores, but I think that's about it. Even with that, the rankings do begin to make a little bit of sense by mid-January, but there are still gross inaccuracies.

Louisville hasn't exactly been lighting the world on fire either, and they're now without Chane Behanan for the rest of the year, yet they're ranked #12th.

[MHettel]

Hard to say how good Wichita State really is. They are 15-0, with their 2 best wins being equal to 2 of XU's best wins (Tennessee & Alabama). They played a fairly weak non-con. Their "brutal" conference schedule includes games against Missouri (state) x2, Indiana (state) x2, Illinois (state) x2,(northern) Iowa, and (southern) Illinois. it's entirely possible that Wichita State goes undefeated this year, and with conference play just starting, they should gradually work their way up the polls and could reasonably finish in the Top 3 in the polls.....

I dont quite understand the Gonzaga hate. They are ranked #22. Not #2, but #22. They are 14-2 with 2 neutral site losses to respectable teams. Their 14 wins have come by margins of 24, 32, 15, 16, 32, 10, 35, 12, 4, 9, 14, 28, 18, 22. Their schedule is not too tough, but they have been hammering teams. Somebody has to be ranked #22...

[xubrew]

Both the teams that have beaten Gonzaga are ranked behind them, and both Dayton and Kansas State have better wins than Gonzaga does. They haven't beaten any teams that have a high probability of making the NCAA Tournament, so if they've failed to beat every top forty team they've faced, why would anyone think them to be the #22nd best team??

[bleedXblue]

Media darlings for some unknown reason......complete and utter bs.........and by the way, Im not saying X SHOULD be ranked....only that Memphis has no business in the Top 25

[GIMMFD]

I don't even get upset about the polls anymore, most coaches hand it to the assistants to fill them out, and they are irrelevant. Let's just keep winning and show the nation how tough we really are.

[JTG]

Media darlings for some unknown reason......complete and utter bs.........and by the way, Im not saying X SHOULD be ranked....only that Memphis has no business in the Top 25

ThIs....there are certain media favs. that get love no matter what...Duke, Green Bay, Cowboys, and Gonzaga . Plus it takes a lot of wins to erase totally shitting your pants in Atlantis

[XUFan09]

Apparently all 3 of the votes that Xavier received come from the one, the only, Dick Vitale. What world do I live in?

[GoMuskies]

Even though we have no votes in the coaches' poll, Creighton is ranked #23 there, so we will have a shot to knock off a ranked opponent on the road Sunday.

[MHettel]

Both the teams that have beaten Gonzaga are ranked behind them, and both Dayton and Kansas State have better wins than Gonzaga does. They haven't beaten any teams that have a high probability of making the NCAA Tournament, so if they've failed to beat every top forty team they've faced, why would anyone think them to be the #22nd best team??

I really dont understand this argument. Even if you want to make these arguments in the case of Gonzaga, they dont hold up under any other circumstances. Lots of teams have losses to teams ranked below them, it happens all the time. There is no single set of logic that holds up to gauge all the teams, so you are left with evaluating each team on it's merits, and a 14-2 Gonzaga team, which has outscored it's opponents by 19.4 points a game in their wins and have collectively outscored their opponents by 256 points this year is certainly worthy of top 25 discussion.

Gonzaga lost to Dayton and KState, which are both ranked below them. Fantastic. Maybe that has to do with the fact that both Dayton and KState have 3 losses while Gonzaga has only 2.

Kansas State is 11-3 and ranked 25th. They lost to Northern Colorado, Charlotte, and Georgetown. Their best win was at home vs. #6 OK state, and their next best win is....Gonzaga. Aside from that, they have wins against Oral Roberts, Central Arkansas, Tulane, GW, South Dakota, Troy, etc. Would you feel that much better if KState was ranked higher than Gonzaga?

And the better question is simply "if Gonzaga is not worthy of being ranked #22, then what SHOULD they be ranked?"

Just glance at the 10 teams immediately below Gonzaga in the rankings: Illinois, Memphis, KState, Cincy, Creighton, UNC, UCLA, Pittsburg, UConn, & Harvard.

Do you see any teams there that should clearly be ahead of Gonzaga in the polls? Illinois potentially. Creighton is 12-2, but lack any really good wins. We know what UC is made of and their best wins are pedestrian. UCLA has a great record and has beaten nobody. Uconn is 11-3 and has dropped their first 2 conference games in the AAC. UNC has 4 losses including Belmont, UAB and Wake. Pitt is well positioned at 13-1 with a handfull of solid wins, so maybe they should be in the Top 25.

Point being that Gonzaga IS a Top 25 team simply because you cant find 4 better teams to bump them out. So maybe they should be closer to 25 than 22. But all the constant whining about Gonzaga just seems like what it really is......whining.

[_LH]

Just keep winning.

[xubrew]

I really dont understand this argument. Even if you want to make these arguments in the case of Gonzaga, they dont hold up under any other circumstances. Lots of teams have losses to teams ranked below them, it happens all the time. There is no single set of logic that holds up to gauge all the teams, so you are left with evaluating each team on it's merits, and a 14-2 Gonzaga team, which has outscored it's opponents by 19.4 points a game in their wins and have collectively outscored their opponents by 256 points this year is certainly worthy of top 25 discussion.

You don't understand the argument that teams who have beaten Gonzaga, and have better wins than Gonzaga, should be ranked ahead of Gonzaga?? Really??

Yes, every team drops a game or two to someone ranked below them, but if you're talking about a top 25 team, they probably have at least a smattering of good wins to offset those losses. Gonzaga doesn't. Gonzaga hasn't beaten anyone that is as good as the teams that they've lost to, so most would look at that and reason that they're not as good as the teams they've lost to.

Illinois, Cincinnati, Xavier, Pitt, Kansas State, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, and Memphis all have better wins than Gonzaga, and with the exception of Kansas State's loss to Northern Colorado and Xavier's loss to USC, all their losses have come to teams that are tougher than anyone Gonzaga has managed to beat. You could argue that Harvard's win at Green Bay is better than any win that Gonzaga has managed. Green Bay took Wisconsin to the wall, and will probably not lose a home game for the rest of the year.

I don't think all of those teams should be in the rankings. Far from it. But, I do think they've all proven themselves more than Gonzaga has. I actually think Dayton is better than Gonzaga, although they do have a bigger propensity to lose to crap teams.

Keep in mind that I've been a huge supporter of Gonzaga over the years when a lot of people on this board have wanted to trash them. I have no vendetta against them. I just don't think they're that good this year, and I don't understand the logic in ranking them.

Yes, it is whining, but my gripe is with the voters, not Gonzaga. It's just that I think Gonzaga happens to be the best example of lazy voting right now.

[paulxu]

Apparently all 3 of the votes that Xavier received come from the one, the only, Dick Vitale. What world do I live in?

The Muskies have blown up his stupid top 40 so often, he must have decided to hedge his bet.