College basketball rankings should be one of the terms in the thesaurus that is synonymous with the word “joke.” Throw Buckeye loyalties out the window for a moment and just think about what has happened with the Ohio State team that is now number 1 or 2 in the country depending on which poll you look at.
Eleven games ago, the scarlet and gray fell to Wisconsin in Madison, making that their third loss, all three of them to teams that at the time were ranked in the top-5 nationally. After that loss to Wisconsin, the Buckeyes were ranked 7th in the nation.
In the following weeks, they crept up the rankings board to the four spot. Who were the teams ahead of them? They were Florida, Wisconsin and North Carolina, the only three teams that have beaten them this season. That seemed to make sense, because Ohio State shouldn’t be ranked ahead of teams that beat them.
Oh, the beauty of losses by the top three teams in the nation. First, Wisconsin fell off to Indiana on the road, a place where the Bucks don’t need to play this season. Then, North Carolina put together two losses. The capper was this week, when the long-haired ugly son of a tennis star and his Gator teammates fell to a dark horse Vanderbilt team on the road.
After all that, the Buckeyes have reached the pinnacle as the #1 ranked team in the ESPN/USA Today coaches’ poll. Worthless. As Sean Salisbury once said, “Are you kiddin’ me?”
Let’s compare, shall we? Florida and Ohio State are both 24-3 overall on the season, with one conference loss apiece. Wisconsin is 26-2 on the year, with one conference loss. In a system of rankings, it would be an absolutely brilliant and mind-numbing idea if they actually ranked teams based on which team is better than another.
Florida and Wisconsin have very similar records to Ohio State, and both have beaten the Buckeyes. So, both the coaches and writers are basically trying to say that if Ohio State met Florida today, the Gators would be the underdog despite beating the Buckeyes by 30,000 points back in December and embarrassing twelve generations of Ohioans in the BCS National Title Game in football to boot.
The polls shouldn’t automatically punish a team for losing a game, if it is clear that they are still the team to beat in the country as Florida is. The rankings shouldn’t be based on who won or lost this week; they should be an accurate depiction of who the best team is. Right now, the Buckeyes are not the #1 team in the country, especially after almost embarrassing five more generations of Ohioans in a near-loss at Penn State.
The Buckeyes will hold the 1 or 2 spot by default for now, but a huge game looms with Wisconsin as long as neither team gets trapped in their mid-week games. As of right now, it looks like Sunday will pit the #1 team in America against…the #1 team in America. Maybe, for once, a team will earn its ranking on the court.
Eleven games ago, the scarlet and gray fell to Wisconsin in Madison, making that their third loss, all three of them to teams that at the time were ranked in the top-5 nationally. After that loss to Wisconsin, the Buckeyes were ranked 7th in the nation.
In the following weeks, they crept up the rankings board to the four spot. Who were the teams ahead of them? They were Florida, Wisconsin and North Carolina, the only three teams that have beaten them this season. That seemed to make sense, because Ohio State shouldn’t be ranked ahead of teams that beat them.
Oh, the beauty of losses by the top three teams in the nation. First, Wisconsin fell off to Indiana on the road, a place where the Bucks don’t need to play this season. Then, North Carolina put together two losses. The capper was this week, when the long-haired ugly son of a tennis star and his Gator teammates fell to a dark horse Vanderbilt team on the road.
After all that, the Buckeyes have reached the pinnacle as the #1 ranked team in the ESPN/USA Today coaches’ poll. Worthless. As Sean Salisbury once said, “Are you kiddin’ me?”
Let’s compare, shall we? Florida and Ohio State are both 24-3 overall on the season, with one conference loss apiece. Wisconsin is 26-2 on the year, with one conference loss. In a system of rankings, it would be an absolutely brilliant and mind-numbing idea if they actually ranked teams based on which team is better than another.
Florida and Wisconsin have very similar records to Ohio State, and both have beaten the Buckeyes. So, both the coaches and writers are basically trying to say that if Ohio State met Florida today, the Gators would be the underdog despite beating the Buckeyes by 30,000 points back in December and embarrassing twelve generations of Ohioans in the BCS National Title Game in football to boot.
The polls shouldn’t automatically punish a team for losing a game, if it is clear that they are still the team to beat in the country as Florida is. The rankings shouldn’t be based on who won or lost this week; they should be an accurate depiction of who the best team is. Right now, the Buckeyes are not the #1 team in the country, especially after almost embarrassing five more generations of Ohioans in a near-loss at Penn State.
The Buckeyes will hold the 1 or 2 spot by default for now, but a huge game looms with Wisconsin as long as neither team gets trapped in their mid-week games. As of right now, it looks like Sunday will pit the #1 team in America against…the #1 team in America. Maybe, for once, a team will earn its ranking on the court.
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