A sports blog by and for Midwest Sports Fans
By the time you read this, the Super Bowl will be over, and the sports world will finally be able to turn more of its attention to college hoops.
A terrific Kansas-Missouri game on Saturday night provided a springboard into “Rivalry Week,” which features a number of intriguing matchups.
Before that tips off though, here are this week’s power rankings.
It sounds a bit odd to say this, but last week was relatively tame in the college hoops world since “only” nine teams in the Top 25 lost. Even so, there are no new teams in this week’s edition of my power rankings, just some jostling of positions.
Saturday was arguably the best day of college basketball so far this season, as a pair of Top Five sqauds squared off, the top-ranked team went down, and a buzzer-beater ended a lengthy home winning streak just to name a few of the notable happenings.
And as usual, that led to plenty of shakeups in this week’s Top 25.
After yet another week where nearly half of the Top 25 suffered at least one loss, the exercise of putting together my latest power rankings has proven to be challenging once again.
The middle of the list has proven to be a complete mess, but since road wins have been so tough to come by, there are some teams that actually stayed put or even moved up despite losing.
It continues to be an exciting, albeit unpredictable, season in college hoops. Twelve teams ranked in the Top 25 lost last week, with many of those defeats coming on the road. Consequently, putting together this week’s power rankings proved to be pretty challenging once I got past the first 12 teams.
It’s been a couple weeks since the last edition of my power ratings, and a whole lot has changed since then thanks to some surprising results from early conference play, meltdowns from Pitt and Xavier, and a couple more teams falling from the ranks of the unbeaten.
Since last week’s installment of the power rankings, Illinois, Marquette, and Xavier have fallen from the ranks of the unbeaten, leaving just six teams with an unblemished record. One of those teams, Murray State, makes their debut in the Bottoms Line College Basketball Power Rankings this week.
I’m a couple days late on the power rankings this week, but there is no truth to the rumor that I went on a five-day bender following IU’s win over Kentucky. In case you forgot what happened, here’s the video. And in case you want to see a complete moron preview the game, here’s another one.
Now that the college basketball season is about a month old, it’s time for the first installment of the Bottoms Line College Basketball Power Rankings.
Putting these together is my attempt at balancing how teams are playing as well as who they are playing (and ideally beating) to rank the top teams in the nation. So before you get bent out of shape and call me an idiot for having North Carolina at number four, make an argument that they aren’t among the four best teams in the country based on how they played against Kentucky.
That’s what I thought.
Andrew Luck didn’t play this past weekend, as his Stanford Cardinal did not make the Pac-12 championship game. Oregon did. And so did UCLA, which really made the game less “championship game” and more “meaningless exhibition between a good team and a crappy team whose coach has already been fired.”
Anyway, there isn’t much to say about Luck for this week in looking back; but we can look forward.
It’s Power Rankings time!
Doing weekly Power Rankings makes me almost as happy as Pete Carroll!
New England should be happy as they moved up ten spots from my preseason rankings. Houston moved up seven spots. They are the top two movers. The Jets, Falcons and 49ers all fell five spots, the most out of any other teams.
Well all, it’s here.
This is the final Power Rankings of the Year, and with it comes major shake-ups to the top Five, as the last of the undefeateds have fallen.
I want to thank all of my readers for your support through this season, and I look forward already to next season’s power rankings.
(On a special side note, congrats go to Cleveland for winning their third straight. Perhaps mentioning them in my Power Rankings has been good luck for the Browns; perhaps Mike Holmgren needs to be made aware of this and he could send a little compensation my way :-D.)
For the last few weeks, the following historical question has been asked: could we have two undefeated teams in the Superbowl?
That question was answered this week on the NFL Network’s Saturday Night Football when the Dallas Cowboys handed the New Orleans Saints their first loss of the season. The Saints loss left the Indianapolis Colts as the NFL’s lone unbeaten team at 14-0 (coincidentally, the same regular season record that the Miami Dolphins had in 1972).
So we now that the Colts are #1, but do the Saints hang onto their #2 ranking? Read on to find out.
(Also, as a little treat, make sure to read to the end of this week’s rankings for a little surprise, and a Christmas gift from a writer to his editor.)
We’re going to open this week’s Power Rankings with another moment dedicated to MSF Editor-in-Chief, Jerod Morris.
The Cleveland Browns get mentioned for the first time this season in a positive light today, after their win over Pittsburgh, who are now losers of six straight, and likely out of the playoffs.
So, congratulations Cleveland and, of course, Jerod.
This was the Super Bowl for the Browns, and you won.
[Editor's Note: Thank you Myles. It was quite a week for Browns fans, many of whom - like myself - are still on Cloud 9 after last Thursday's thrilling W. Thus, to make this week's Power Rankings even more of a tribute to the Browns, I have chosen a very special song to provide our Week 15 NFL Power Rankings mood music.
Click the play button below (or click here if you don't see a play button), then proceed onto Myles' personal, one-man circle jerk otherwise known as his #1 and #2 spots in the rankings.]
Now onto the teams we actually care about:
[Read more...]
Much like the marriage and reputation of Tiger Woods, who has apparently been trying to catch up to Wilt Chamberlain in the “Ticks on the Bedpost” category, some of the NFL’s elite teams have been on the decline.
Two teams, however, have continued to carry their torches and remain undisputed as #’s 1 and 2 in the not just our Power Rankings, but everybody’s NFL Power Rankings.
Until someone can defeat New Orleans or Indianapolis — and perhaps twice considering Minnesota’s loss last weekend — no one can supplant them in the top spots.
The only question is: who is #1?
