Top 25 question

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redfan259999888

Active member
I know we peaked at #15 in Lavins first season

Espn has ranking from 02-03, so I checked week by week until we started getting real bad.
Didn't see St. John's ranked at all.
Question is, when was the last time they were #14 or higher.
 
One team we should pass but won't is Washington. They struggled at home with Tulane and now are struggling against Stony Brook.
 
One team we should pass but won't is Washington. They struggled at home with Tulane and now are struggling against Stony Brook.
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3pnt game with 1:44 left wash up

stonybrrok up 2 going to the line with 21secs left
 
One team we should pass but won't is Washington. They struggled at home with Tulane and now are struggling against Stony Brook.
Click to expand...

3pnt game with 1:44 left wash up

stonybrrok up 2 going to the line with 21secs left
Click to expand...

The Brook with the win.
 
Seth Davis, who has an official vote in the writers poll, says #15:

Seth DavisVerified account
‏@SethDavisHoops 1. UK 2. Duke 3. Wisc 4. Lou 5. Gonz 6. Va 7. Nova 8. Ariz 9. Tex 10. Utah 11. NDame 12. Md 13. Okl 14. Iowa St 15. St. John's 16. UNC

Was told at the game today that Tulane's coach has an official vote in the USA Today Coaches' Poll. I would expect him to vote for us on the higher end of the spectrum, given today's performance. Of course, the individual votes in the Coaches' Poll are not made public (with good reason).
 
I've seen a dozen or so ballots on Twitter and we haven't improved as much as I hoped (when comparing to individual ballots from last week). Washington we will certainly pass, as writers have knocked them down quite a bit. Kansas, Texas, and to a lesser extent WSU only dropped a couple places on a lot of these ballots. Texas is apparently without a key player.

Georgetown definitely should be ranked tomorrow. A lot of ballots with them.

Hoping for top 15 at the very least.
 
I'm really enthused about the way we are playing, so this isn't to throw cold water on this rankings stuff. However, to me, pre-conference ranking. can often be a lot of fool's gold. I don't really care too much about rankings now, because perhaps other than Syracuse, we haven't won a single game that was unexpected. When we run through the first 6 BE games, a ranking of 15 will really begin to mean something as SJU being a formidable team.
 
I'm really enthused about the way we are playing, so this isn't to throw cold water on this rankings stuff. However, to me, pre-conference ranking. are a lot of fool's gold. I don't really care too much about rankings now, because perhaps other than Syracuse, we haven't won a single game that was unexpected. When we run through the first 6 BE games, a ranking of 15 will really begin to mean something as SJU being a formidable team.
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It's true we've had 12 games and were only underdogs in two of those (Gonzaga and Syracuse). The thing is, to win all 10 of the games we were favored in is really difficult. For anyone big on statistics, it's not as easy as it sounds. Take St. Mary's, as 7 point favorites we had roughly a 73% chance of winning. Once you start multiplying all those games together, it comes out to really low odds (say on average if we had a 75% chance of winning each game we'd only have a 5% chance of winning all 10 games). And then of course we split the two games we were underdogs in.

Further, we've won nearly all of our games convincingly.
 
For whatever it's worth, ESPN shows our RPI as jumping up to 12th following yesterday's game, with an 88th SOS, which is the highest we've had for both this year. I wonder if that factors into any of the voting for this week. The SOS is helpful as that will continue to shoot up over the coming weeks. Good stuff.
 
It is nice to see a number before our name, but I don't get too excited about early rankings. We have done what we needed to in phase one of schedule, going 11-1.

Phase 2 - Win 12 BE games, lose to Duke

Phase 3 - Get to BE Tourney Finals & get decent NCAA T seed.

Winning 24 or 25 games heading to Dance would be outstanding and puts the program in a positive light. I prefer not to go down the road of "we can beat Kentucky, get to Final Four", etc. If we avoid a key injury, I think we can win to the level noted. Anything above that is gravy.

Finally, every road game, net of DePaul, will be fiercely contested & holding serve at home in conference is dramatically more difficult than what we have accomplished to date. With our small rotation & vulnerability to a loss of a key player at any time, our margin of error is tight. Despite the ranking, this team must bring A game each and every night going forward.
 
Can't find anything to confirm, but my recollection is that SJU was #5 in the final AP poll in 98-99 after the Elite 8 loss to OSU. Could be wrong.
 
It is nice to see a number before our name, but I don't get too excited about early rankings. We have done what we needed to in phase one of schedule, going 11-1.

Phase 2 - Win 12 BE games, lose to Duke

Phase 3 - Get to BE Tourney Finals & get decent NCAA T seed.

Winning 24 or 25 games heading to Dance would be outstanding and puts the program in a positive light. I prefer not to go down the road of "we can beat Kentucky, get to Final Four", etc. If we avoid a key injury, I think we can win to the level noted. Anything above that is gravy.

Finally, every road game, net of DePaul, will be fiercely contested & holding serve at home in conference is dramatically more difficult than what we have accomplished to date. With our small rotation & vulnerability to a loss of a key player at any time, our margin of error is tight. Despite the ranking, this team must bring A game each and every night going forward.
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I am in lockstep with you on this subject and have been preaching the same things as you.

One thing that's clear to me is how hard it is to make the 64 team field. If we don't beat Duke, we will be 11-2 OOC. Then say we have a moderately successful BE campaign, going 11-7 in a tough home and home schedule (the home and home part makes it difficult to sweep anyone). That would put us at 22-9, hardly a lock for the tournament, and would need a BET win to feel more secure. We still have a lot of work to do, but I'm nervously greatly enjoying this all. You can't ask more than these guys have done, and to me, there is still room for considerable improvement.
 
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