Preseason Rankings... Who needs 'em anyway?
Bill Koch, National Columnist
Here’s a confession that I probably shouldn’t make to the college basketball gods as the calendar gets ready to switch from October to November:
I don’t pay a millisecond’s worth of attention to the preseason top-25 rankings.
I know that I should be stocking up on Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, Blue Ribbon and every other preview edition on the shelves to get my fix heading into the opening weekend of games. I should be salivating over the thought of the new season and beating Joe Lunardi to the punch by projecting who will play for the national championship in New Orleans.
Don’t worry – I’ll be doing plenty of reading and scouting on my own. I’ll get to know the new faces, new coaches and new conference alignments. It’s nothing less than what’s expected of me if I want to continue to take up some space here at College Chalktalk. Just don’t think that I’m going to run to Las Vegas and start dropping cash on one of the so-called preseason favorites to win the national championship.
Sure, No. 1 can go wire-to-wire at times. When you have a collection of talent like North Carolina did in 2004-05 (Sean May, Raymond Felton, Rashad McCants, Marvin Williams) it looks a pretty good bet. But if I was to sit here and list my preseason top 25 right now, I’d run the risk of looking like a fool as the drama of March plays out.
I’ll go to no less an authority than Jeff Goodman, the excellent national writer for CBSSports.com by way of FoxSports.com. Goodman’s preseason top 25 for the 2010-11 season featured Duke at No. 1, three teams from the Big Ten in the top five (No. 2 Purdue, No. 3 Michigan State and No. 4 Ohio State) and two teams apiece from the Big East (No. 6 Villanova, No. 7 Pittsburgh) and Big XII (No. 5 Kansas State, No. 9 Missouri) in the top 10. The other member of Goodman’s top 10 was No. 8 Washington, the perennially talented Pac-12 favorite. On its face it looked like a pretty solid collection of teams.
How did Goodman’s picks turn out? Duke and Florida were the
only two teams from that group to make the Sweet 16, and only
Florida reached the Elite Eight. The Blue Devils were blown out by
Arizona, 93-77, in the West Regional semifinals, with Derrick
Williams enjoying his coming out party on the national stage. The
Gators were upset in the Southeast Regional final by Butler, who
tied with Minnesota at No. 25 in Goodman’s preseason poll.
The Bulldogs went on to their second straight runner-up finish in
the NCAA Tournament, losing to a team that earned only a brief
mention is Goodman’s next 20 teams to watch –
Connecticut. At the very least, the champion Huskies fared better
than one of their fellow Final Four participants. VCU was left off
Goodman’s radar entirely, as was a San Diego State team that
went on to win more than 30 games.
Robbie Hummel’s second shredded ACL ultimately buried the Boilermakers. The Spartans slipped to a No. 10 seed in the Southeast Regional, a handful of elements conspiring to keep them from reaching their full potential. Jared Sullinger’s superb freshman campaign came to a close at the hands of another precocious group of youngsters, as John Calipari had callow Kentucky knocking on the door of the national title yet again. Villanova and Pittsburgh both wilted against withering assaults from mid-major foes in March, as George Mason and Butler bounced the Wildcats and Panthers, respectively. Kansas State’s offcourt woes only added fuel to the volcanic temperament of head coach Frank Martin, as co-stars Jacob Pullen and Curtis Kelly were each dogged by a year’s worth of troubles before the Wildcats bowed to Wisconsin in the second round. The Tigers barely merited a selection thanks to their 8-8 conference record, and their 78-63 hammering in the opening round against Cincinnati provided a swift end to their season. Washington fell in an 86-83 thriller against North Carolina in the second round of the East Regional, exactly where the Huskies should have been eliminated according to their No. 7 seed.
As for the rest of the Goodman’s top 25, No. 13 Memphis scraped into the field as a No. 12 seed and lost to Arizona in the opening round. No. 17 Baylor (18-13), No. 20 Virginia Tech (21-11) and the Golden Gophers (17-14) missed the field entirely, with only the Hokies cracking the .500 mark in conference play.
The only rankings that matter will be released on April 3, the day after the national championship game. Those numbers to the left of 25 team names are just decoration for now. Consider the first 750 words of this column evidence that hindsight is 20/20 and don’t fall victim to the first argument amongst your friends this fall about your team being left out of the preseason title picture.
As Connecticut certainly showed all of us last season, it’s not always a bad place to be.
* * *
(Additional Credit: Walker Photo courtesy Steven Slade/UConn Athletics)
