Top 25 polls

[Cascadia]

I was a big Jim Wooldridge fan.

particularly with the neck brace.

The neck brace was pure gold.

[NewtonHawk11]

KU still 15 after 2 losses this week.

Kind of surprising.

[CrimsonNBlue]

That's why I roll my eyes on us being this all time awful team.

When you look at teams outside of the Top 10 in any year, you'll find inconsistent play and obvious weaknesses. Our fans seem to think there are at least 100 teams out there that are better, but it's actually hard to come up with even 20. And then you think about the double digit seeds that go to the Final Four every 2-3 years, it seems.

[Deleted User 89]

it’s our expectations

i blame Self

[CrimsonNBlue]

I think it also shows that we are not playing like who we really are, which should be encouraging.

I don't see us getting blown out by UTenn. That's a potential turning point of the season.

[pdub]

I thought we'd be lower.
Even 20's lower.
But Kenpom still likes us alright - at 17 there.

[NewtonHawk11]

I was expecting closer to 20. But a 6 place drop is still a huge drop week to week in polls.

The quality of the wins though have been really good too.

[PhDhawk]

I think it's also that you look at a team like OU, who just beat us, and was unranked at the time in spite of a similar record in and out of conference and OSU who just beat us and is unranked.

I mean we've played a killer schedule, but we've also been beaten by unranked teams...albeit still tournament teams. So you couple those optics with the fickle nature of pollsters and being in the 20s or "others receiving votes" sections wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

[PhDhawk]

I thought we'd be lower.
Even 20's lower.
But Kenpom still likes us alright - at 17 there.

I'm not buying the metrics.

I think SOS might be weighed slightly too heavily.

Also, our adjD is still top 20 and man that doesn't feel right. I think we do a good job of forcing our opponents to take tough shots...but man, that's about it. Our D is not disruptive at all...which I think would really really help our offense. We're not a great defensive rebounding team either, which makes me hesitant about wanting to go small all the time or thinking Harris is the answer to all our problems.

[pdub]

We are 129th in the nation in scoring defense, which isn't so hot.

But SOS in Kenpom is 4th.
Same in Sagarin - 4th.
We've played the most quad 1 teams ( NCAA's NET ) of any team in the top 25.

[CrimsonNBlue]

The defense sucking, or, at best, being inconsistent really irks me because this should be a great defensive team.

[PhDhawk]

We should at least be better on ball defenders and create more turnovers.

I don't think we're a great rebounding team unless that's our primary focus (e.g. the UK game) and we aren't great at rim protection.

I think our guys play hard...but I think there's another gear that most of them don't get to on the defensive end.

[Cascadia]

I think it's also that you look at a team like OU, who just beat us, and was unranked at the time in spite of a similar record in and out of conference and OSU who just beat us and is unranked.

I mean we've played a killer schedule, but we've also been beaten by unranked teams...albeit still tournament teams. So you couple those optics with the fickle nature of pollsters and being in the 20s or "others receiving votes" sections wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

I've always maintained that they need to stop the "others receiving votes" section and replace it with ranked 26, 27, 28 etc.

For print purposes it's ok to list them that way but on TV and in written previews and recaps it should read "#7 KU vs #31 Oklahoma State".

[CrimsonNBlue]

We should at least be better on ball defenders and create more turnovers.

I don't think we're a great rebounding team unless that's our primary focus (e.g. the UK game) and we aren't great at rim protection.

I think our guys play hard...but I think there's another gear that most of them don't get to on the defensive end.

It's water under the bridge, but we have seen Silvio be a really good 5 man in a 4-out offense. I can't watch this team and think he wasn't part of this team's original plan.

I don't think rim protection is as big of a deal as defensive rebounding and transition defense, which have not been good. I do think Silvio helps out in really all of those areas. But, most of it is fixable by getting our guys to buy in and communicate.

[PhDhawk]

We are 129th in the nation in scoring defense, which isn't so hot.

But SOS in Kenpom is 4th.
Same in Sagarin - 4th.
We've played the most quad 1 teams ( NCAA's NET ) of any team in the top 25.

We do a great job of scheduling tough. But we're also strategic about doing it. I mean, NDSU is 153 in Kenpom...so that doesn't hurt our SOS...but that's still a team we shoulda beat by 15+ at home if we're a top 10-15 team.

I also I wonder if SOS gets used as a crutch and kinda masks some warts that our teams may have. At least this year and '19 seem that way. Are we a great team that lost some tough ones, or good team that's loosing close ones to teams that are simply better (hypothetically in any given year)?

[NDballer13]

OU was favored in the game against KU and OSU gave the undisputed #2 team in the country all they could handle for 30 minutes without their best player and 6th man. I think those two things factor into KU only falling 6 spots more than the "losing to two unranked teams" way of thinking according to most voters.

[PhDhawk]

OU was favored in the game against KU and OSU gave the undisputed #2 team in the country all they could handle for 30 minutes without their best player and 6th man. I think those two things factor into KU only falling 6 spots more than the "losing to two unranked teams" way of thinking according to most voters.

I think you're giving most voters too much credit.

I think it's the metrics. Jesse Newell type voters are keeping us in the top 15 plus the minority who watch as closely as you're saying or at least pay close attention to KU and the Big12.

The fact that OU was favored just makes me think Vegas has this team pegged better than the pollsters.

[Deleted User 89]

The defense sucking, or, at best, being inconsistent really irks me because this should be a great defensive team.

^^^^^
and as was already mentioned...if this team played better defense it’d undoubtedly help on the other end of floor

[pdub]

NCAA NET has us 19th, or a good team that's loosing to teams that are simply better.
4-5 quad 1.
Losses to 1 Baylor, 2 Gonzaga, 10 Texas.

25 Oklahoma, 41 OSU.

[pdub]

I also think we're better than Oklahoma and OSU despite the results.
If Oklahoma is 25th, i'm comfortable being 19th.