AP Top 25 & Commentary: Saint Mary's Hammered

    
February 20th, 2012 by Shawn Siegel
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AP Top 25 Commentary: This week's poll features some of the biggest changes of the season, particularly outside of the Top 10. UNLV, ranked 11th last week, dropped 9 spots after losing an OT game at TCU and at new #18 New Mexico. This seems a bit harsh considering TCU is a fringe Top 100 team with a handful of solid wins, and New Mexico is on a tear.

 

Fellow MWC San Diego St dropped 13 spots, although this is more deserving. SDSU's home loss to UNM was much worse than UNLV's road loss, and the road loss at Air Force was much worse than UNLV's TCU loss. I was surprised SDSU remained in the Top 25, expecting one of Gonzaga or Creighton to be in their spot.

 

Saint Mary's met an even worse fate than the MWC duo, going from 21st to receiving a paltry 7 votes. Yes, they lost at Murray St, but name a west coast team that could have flown to Murray, KY in the middle of February and won that game?

 

Besides New Mexico, the other team to move into the poll is #22 Temple. Temple beat two mediocre teams, but moved up thanks to other team's struggles.

 

The ranked team with the lowest RPI is Virginia, sitting 42nd. Its hard to say what justifies Virginia, just 6-6 in ACC play, being ranked over the likes of Creighton and Gonzaga.

 

Lastly, Drexel received 13 votes this week. The Dragons have won 15 games in a row, but look deeper and they're no more deserving of votes than better mid-majors like Iona and South Dakota St. 15 of Drexel's wins over sub-200 RPI teams, and they haven't beaten a Top 50 team all season.


RK  TEAM  RECORD  PTS
1 Kentucky (63)    26-1 1,623
2 Syracuse (2)    27-1 1,559
3 Missouri    25-2 1,498
4 Kansas    22-5 1,377
5 Duke    23-4 1,359
6 Michigan St    22-5 1,317
7 North Carolina    23-4 1,261
8 Ohio State    22-5 1,139
9 Georgetown    20-5 1,085
10 Marquette    22-5 1,013
11 Michigan    20-7 869
12 Florida    21-6 860
13 Baylor    22-5 859
14 Murray State    26-1 765
15 Florida State    19-7 620
16 Wisconsin    20-7 615
17 Louisville    21-6 495
18 New Mexico     22-4 469
19 Wichita State    24-4 467
20 Notre Dame    19-8 457
21 UNLV    22-6 325
22 Temple    21-5 281
23 Indiana    20-7 246
24 San Diego State    20-6 176
25 Virginia    20-6 153

Others receiving votes:

Creighton 76, Gonzaga 47, Brigham Young 29, Saint Louis 25, Drexel 13, Harvard 12, Vanderbilt 12, California 11, Saint Mary's 7, Long Beach State 4, Virginia Commonwealth 1

Dropped from rankings:

Saint Mary's 21, Gonzaga 24

 

New This Week:

New Mexico 18, Temple 22

 

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