Ranking the Rankings: UConn's Turn

Ranking the rankings criticizes the critics when the polls come out.

Headlining: Connecticut became the fourth straight different No. 1 when they hopped to the first overall spot this week.

As Ray Holloman noted yesterday, there's a lot of parity in college basketball. The Huskies, however, look like a pretty good bet to make it two weeks in a row after paddling Louisville at Freedom Hall on Monday night.

Meanwhile, the very quiet (relatively) Oklahoma Sooners and Wooden leader-in-the-clubhouse Blake Griffin hopped to No. 2. And yes, you may have noticed that, along with Xavier, they're one of two non-ACC/Big East teams in the top 10. What does that mean? I tend to think it says we should all be pretty shocked if an ACC or Big East team doesn't cut down the nets in April.

Freefalling: St. Mary's -- The Gaels lost two games last week. Worse news? Patrick Mills, easily their best player, broke two bones in his right hand and will miss at least four weeks. Don't expect to see these guys back in the rankings for a while. Darn shame too.

Arizona State -- This is likely because of last week's jinx; sorry, Herb. The Sun Devils coughed up inexplicable losses to Washington and Washington State and, as Mr. Papagiorgio pointed out, they're inching dangerously close to the bubble (although they're not on it yet, necessarily.)

You Gotta Rise Up: Villanova -- A huge win over Pittsburgh followed by a healthy throttling of Cincinnati Sunday night helped the Wildcats surge a few spots up the rankings; wins this week against Providence and Syracuse could make them a top-10 team headed into next week's matchup against Marquette.

Kansas -- Bill Self has the Jayhawks back into both polls for the first time in a while, on the heels of a six-game winning streak (albeit over some pretty easy opponents).

Hyped: Louisville -- OK, not really, but it's hard to really make them a top-five team when they got paddled at home by Connecticut, no?

Syracuse -- I know the Big East is tough, and the recent sked for the Orange was brutal, but you can't lose four of five and still hang onto that ranking. Just ask Notre Dame. I'm sorry.

Bunked: Villanova -- I think 17-ish is a bit low for them, honestly, but seven (see below) is still too high. Same goes for Davidson -- I know their conference schedule is embarrassingly bad, but they've got some close losses to some really good teams, with the Purdue blowout being the only real mar.

WTF? There are more ACC teams in the top 10 (four) than there are ranked Big 12 schools. And I'd make a similar comparison with the SEC ... but they got nothing. How about Kansas and Kentucky swapping spots, just to be ranked? That doesn't sound all that crazy, I suppose, at the moment, but if you're over the age of 21, you should think it's weird.

People Who Vote Are Smart: Jon Wilner, whose maverick-esque voting style I usually appreciate, has some pretty strange oddities in his rankings this week (note that he's usually almost always high on Pollspeak's "extremeter") For starters, he's got Louisville third in his rankings, and while I have the benefit of hindsight here, it's probably not fair to slot them above Oklahoma or Duke, anyway. I would probably argue the same for North Carolina. Additionally, Villanova's been good (see above), but seventh seems a bit aggressive. And punishing Clemson for not losing by sticking them at 22? Yeah, probably too low. Finally, there's no way it's acceptable to have Notre Dame and Ohio State ranked without Davidson in there.