ESPN's Way too Early Top 25

[GoMuskies]

Remember that it's ESPN's top 25 (MOR will tell you why that's important): http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/10742731/arizona-wildcats-duke-blue-devils-headline-early-top-25-2014-15-men-college-basketball-season

One Big East top 25 team (Nova), and one other team in the top 40 (Georgetown). Not that great. I do think Xavier has a shot to join that group, but who knows how the freshmen will shake out.

I also see Wichita State at #5. That will really improve our schedule once the home and home with them is set up.

[casualfan]

Remember that it's ESPN's top 25 (MOR will tell you why that's important): http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/10742731/arizona-wildcats-duke-blue-devils-headline-early-top-25-2014-15-men-college-basketball-season

One Big East top 25 team (Nova), and one other team in the top 40 (Georgetown). Not that great. I do think Xavier has a shot to join that group, but who knows how the freshmen will shake out.

I also see Wichita State at #5. That will really improve our schedule once the home and home with them is set up.

There are certain situation where ESPN has undoubtedly shown bias towards the league. This is not one of them. Other than Nova what team could you possibly make a case for?

[paulxu]

Kentucky just showed it could do very, very well with freshmen.
But it still surprises me that so much of the expectation of the top teams in this ranking is dependent on their recruiting classes.
It's almost as if the AAU circuits and prep schools are creating a good measuring stick for the top 50 recruits (the rest being a crap shoot of greater proportions) and one can supposedly forecast their impact on a team's future without them ever having played a minute of D1 ball.

Looking at last year's Way Too Early Top 25, really only Duke and Marquette crapped the bed in the top 10.
Even Connecticut at #14 was there.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/9147684/very-early-top-25-2013-14-season-ncaa-men-college-basketball

[The_Mack_Pack]

Looks like a decent list to me. I don't think Florida will be a top 25 team with the kind of defensive players they're losing but we'll see I guess.

[xubrew]

I'm so disappointed in Wichita State. Had they beaten Kentucky in the round of 32, no one would remember Kentucky as anything other than an overrated preseason team with a lot of young talent that ultimately underachieved by finishing the regular season outside of the top 25, and then lost in the round of 32. This, of course, would have followed a year where they missed the tournament entirely.

Why couldn't have that last shot had gone in?? Why??

GoMuskies, Wichita State had one job. Just one. And they failed. I blame them for Kentucky being more relevant than I would like them to be. It's all about me, and that's how I feel, and it's all because Wichita didn't do their one job.

[gladdenguy]

Did you honestly think Wichita St. was gonna beat Kentucky? Even if they would have beat Kentucky Louisville or Michigan would have beat them. No way they get out of that region. And they proved me right with a loss to the 8 seed and the first 1 seed out......just like most people predicted.

[muskiefan82]

Remember that it's ESPN's top 25 (MOR will tell you why that's important): http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/10742731/arizona-wildcats-duke-blue-devils-headline-early-top-25-2014-15-men-college-basketball-season

One Big East top 25 team (Nova), and one other team in the top 40 (Georgetown). Not that great. I do think Xavier has a shot to join that group, but who knows how the freshmen will shake out.

I also see Wichita State at #5. That will really improve our schedule once the home and home with them is set up.

Sneaking up on people in 3......2........1........

[xubrew]

Did you honestly think Wichita St. was gonna beat Kentucky? Even if they would have beat Kentucky Louisville or Michigan would have beat them. No way they get out of that region. And they proved me right with a loss to the 8 seed and the first 1 seed out......just like most people predicted.

I didn't think they'd get out of the region, but I did think they'd beat Kentucky. They led for most of the game, and had they not changed their defense up they probably would have beaten Kentucky. I just didn't see what was so special about Kentucky.

Kentucky lost to three teams that didn't make the field, and their best wins were at home against Louisville and on the road against Missouri (who wasn't good, but was tough to beat at home). That hardly screams anything better than a #8 seed, which is what they got. Wichita had a last second shot to win it, and if it had gone in, no one would have thought of this Kentucky team as being anything special.

During the season, Kentucky didn't play anywhere close to as well as they played during the tournament. I didn't expect them to go far. If you saw it coming then I guess you're better at it than I am. I didn't expect Butler to go far the year they made the championship game for a second time. Had it not been for a crazy ending against Old Dominion and another one against Pitt, no one would remember that team as being anything special either.

[GoMuskies]

Did you honestly think Wichita St. was gonna beat Kentucky? Even if they would have beat Kentucky Louisville or Michigan would have beat them. No way they get out of that region. And they proved me right with a loss to the 8 seed and the first 1 seed out......just like most people predicted.

Wichita State totally embarrassed themselves losing by two points to the team that made it to the national title game and beat Louisville, Michigan and Wisconsin along the way. What a fraud they were.

[xubrew]

Had Wichita beaten Kentucky, I do think they would have beaten Louisville, but not Michigan.

The tournament is funny. Over the last three seasons, I think Wichita's weakest team was the team that ultimately made the Final Four when you look at their entire "body of work."

I think every VCU team since the Final Four run has been better than the one that actually made the Final Four.

The tournament is kind of a different animal. Upsets play into it. Match ups play into it. Injuries play into it. In the case of VCU back in 2011, a very mediocre shooting team inexplicably started shooting the lights out in the NCAA Tournament.

I don't want to undervalue success in the tournament, but I don't want to overvalue it either, at least not to the point to where everything a team did in the previous 35 games is entirely wiped out. Nova had a great season. They lost to a team that won the national title. Had Saint Joe's not completely blown it at the end of regulation against UConn, and ended up losing the game, Nova would have been playing Joe's in the round of 32. They had clobbered Joe's earlier in the year, and would have likely done the same thing again because it was such a favorable match up for them, and people would have remembered this year's Nova team as being a top ten caliber team, which they were. But, as it turns out, no one will think of this season as being a good year for Nova, even though in reality it was.

Kentucky's run was amazing. They did not have the benefit of upsets. In fact, they probably had the toughest run to the title game in history, But, nothing they had done prior to the NCAA Tournament gave any indication at all that they were good enough to beat four top six teams in a row. I don't see how anyone could say they saw this coming, unless the only thing they were looking at was the name on the jersey. And, at the same time, if that shot for Wichita goes down, this UK team would have been completely forgotten.