Men’s
Sooners need some key games…
Oklahoma (currently #47) has been falling down the index rankings throughout the tough Big 12 Conference season and for the first time has fallen out of the projected tournament teams as of today’s rankings. While the Sooners have spent a good portion of the season ranked in the Top 25, they are also the only team that has lost six games by 10 or more points while ranked this season. The next closest is Creighton with four such losses while being ranked this season.
Cincinnati vs Oklahoma…
One of the teams ahead of Oklahoma on my list is Cincinnati, but OU has victory over that team, currently has a better conference record — 7-7 to 5-9 — and has eight victories over Top 100 Index teams to just 4 for Cincinnati. Keep in mind that there is just 1.17 index points between the 35th team and the 47th team on my list. In comparison, Houston currently leads Purdue by 1.5169 points in the battle for #1… there will be a lot of shuffling in these last 3 weeks of the regular season.
UConn men under-appreciated…
The numbers in my index have not been kind to UConn, keeping them down at #9 behind three SEC teams and 2 Big 12 schools. Part of the reason for that is the number of poorly rated and performing teams they have faced. There are plenty of good teams in the Big East but also a couple of dogs. Expect UConn to climb as they consistently play the better conference teams in the next few weeks.
Women’s
South Carolina rules…
There is little doubt who sits at #1 on the women’s side with South Carolina undefeated at 27-0. My index has them at an impressive 81 points, and a big reason for that is not just the 19-0 record against Top 100 teams but the average margin of victory of almost 33 points.
UConn women have big wins…
While the UConn men may not be appreciated by my index, I have the UConn women at #2, well ahead of most pundits. The main reason for that lies in their victories against Creighton and 2 against Marquette. The index scores the quality of each game and on the women’s side only 27 games so far this year have scored higher than 100 points; UConn has three of those. By comparison, South Carolina also has three. The Gonzaga women also have three such wins in their pocket.
Concentrated power…
The Power 5 certainly rules the prospective tournament teams on the women’s side. Yesterday’s numbers had the SEC and PAC-12 with eight teams each, the Big 12 and Big 10 with seven each, and the ACC with six. The only other conferences with multiple teams are the Big East with three, and the Atlantic 10, Horizon, and Ivy League with two each. That would be 36 of the 68 teams in those five conferences.