The State Of The Other 22, Week 2: 11/27/2007
I know, I know, I promised to do this last week. I didn't. I'm doing it now. Welcome to the first edition of The State Of The Other 22, a weekly look at the best and hottest mids in convenient top-ten form. There is no Week 1.
The State of College Basketball is a brand-new ratings system that uses a lot of good basketball sense, per-game team performance ratings and degradation of older results to rank the teams from No. 1 to 341 (here's the long-winded version). In its overall form, it retroactively picked three of the Final Four last season. For our purposes here, it gives the world's only hype-free, non-voting, computer poll of teams in the lower 22 conferences. It's updated every hour on the hour over at Basketball State, but we'll be looking at a snapshot of the ratings every Tuesday in this space over the course of the season. SID's, get your linkers fired up!
(In case you've been living under a rock, or have just been looking at one of the Internet's 56 million other web pages, Basketball State is The Mid-Majority's sister site. Its beautiful, luscious, smart, basketball-loving red-headed sister, who demands you buy her a $25 dinner before you can come up to her apartment.)
I'll have to admit, I've been putting this off as long as possible. It's still incredibly early, and the system doesn't have enough data yet to be wholly accurate (although the RPI's not looking too insightful so far... Sam Houston is good, but the best team in the country? Yow!). From the looks of it -- judging from early 2007-08 results and last year's dry run -- the index starts looking smart after a team has about six or seven games in the tank. So here we go, and don't laugh.
As of 11/27/2007, 3 p.m. ET
Legend: Rank. Team Rating, Record (Conf. Record)
1. Drake 123.96, 3-1 (0-0)
Yeah, like I said. The Bulldogs are the number one team in the mid-major subsection of the index, and the second overall, because they lead by a bunch in the efficiency column. They hung tough with Saint Mary's on Nov. 10, before Saint Mary's did that Oregon thing, then completely demolished Wisconsin-Milwaukee 80-59 on 1.248 points per possession. The next time they don't beat somebody by a million points, even if that happens on Saturday against North Carolina Central, they will, in the words of this morning's Wall Street Journal, "sink into correction."
2. Xavier 113.98, 4-1 (0-0)
The Muskies were 51st overall in this index a week ago, but TSoCB loved its performance against Indiana over the weekend, vaulting the X into the top rungs of mid-majordom (and yes, the A-14 is in the club this year). And who wouldn't love it? An 80-65 win in Chicago, giving Xavier a per-game efficiency rating of 113.943 (which is good). They also have the 25th best efficiency mark of the year so far, a 137.7701 against Southeast Missouri on Nov. 10, as per the Real Meat Report.
3. Butler 112.47, 6-0 (0-0)
Last year's mid-major darlings, this year's mid-major darlings. The Bulldogs are likely to top this list next week, mostly on the strength of their Alaska sweep. Even a respectable showing against Ohio State at home this weekend will help here.
4. South Alabama 112.37, 4-2 (0-0)
Another team helped out here by efficient performances. The Jaguars destroyed San Diego and Chattanooga at the Anaheim Classic, and have lost their pair of games by a combined eight points and a combined efficiency margin of 8.5. This index likes that kind of stuff, but not enough to keep this team around this high. They are at the Vanderbilt Fightin' Trocchis on Thursday.
5. Niagara 112.07, 2-1 (0-0)
Niagara is here because it killed Central Michigan, and NU's loss to Duquesne was the dent that sent it from an unpublished No. 1 last week to nickel position. Central Michigan is sort of the oddball in this whole index so far -- they're 0-4, but their strength of schedule is so high that it's hoisting up anything that's come into contact with them. As the Chips continue to get pounded, teams like Niagara will suffer along with them. With two teams coming up (Bonaventure and Liberty) in the low 200's, that'll drag the Purple Eagles down too.
6. South Dakota State 111.85, 2-2 (0-0)
Summmmit Leeeeague! We have a bonus/penalty system that knocks you for home losses, and losing to Montana on Nov. 17 dented the Jacks' number. But the index loves its 61-55 win over Northern Iowa, a very efficient performance that included a -6 turnover differential and -10 on fouls. Also here for playing No. 8 UWM. We'll get to them in a bit.
7. Texas-Arlington 111.15, 5-0 (0-0)
This is a very good and undervalued team right now, but this is a little too high, obviously. Four straight wins over Cal Riverside, Texas Southern, UALR and North Texas, all with sizeable efficiency margins, propel the Mavericks into the top 10. Last night's 99-66 win over infamous Schreiner isn't included. No games against non-D1 opponents are.
8. Wisconsin-Milwaukee 109.20, 3-2 (0-0)
The second column in TSoCB is for "location-based performance," which rewards teams for playing well on the road. The Panthers are 12th overall in that column, only because they pantsed Ball State early this year. UWM is staying afloat because of strength of schedule, and since the RPI is involved, having Sam Houston State on tap for tonight is why they're here. Without dismissed leading scorer Avery Smith, this will likely be the last time you see this team in this weekly post.
9. Illinois State 109.06, 3-2 (0-0)
This is a team that will be much better than people think, and Osiris Eldridge is a big reason why. Will they hang in the State's top 10 all year? Probably not, but for now they're riding big wins against UNCW and SEMO, and non-embarrassments in the Chicago Challenge against Kent State and Indiana. Another team with some low-State opponents coming up, and only gigantic performances against bottom-feeders don't bring you down.
10. Montana 108.65, 5-2 (0-0)
Here's a team you haven't heard too much about this season. And why not? They've beaten Air Force at the Washington State tournament, destroyed Colorado State to open the season by a 75-39 score, and topped TSoMM No. 6 South Dakota State. But big losses to Gonzaga and WSU have put them in their place. Like I said, this is only beginning to be sorted out.
The next 15:
11 - Miami (Oh.) 108.35, 12 - North Texas 107.07, 13 - Saint Joseph's 105.76, 14 - Siena 104.69, 15 - Central Michigan 104.63, 16 - Nevada 103.66, 17 - Saint Mary's 103.50, 18 - Northern Iowa 103.07, 19 - Sam Houston State 101.94, 20 - Northeastern 100.44, 21 - Virginia Commonwealth 99.871, 22 - Holy Cross 99.709, 23 - Chattanooga 98.541, 24 - College of Charleston 98.372, 25 - North Dakota State 96.606
| Season 4 (2007-08) The State of the Other 24 |
