Duke 1, Kansas 2, Gonzaga 3 in Week 2 AP Poll
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Luke Maye and Dedric Lawson are almost the same player. But Luke Maye looks like a werewolf.
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KirkIsMyHinrich said:
You’re absolutely right that Gonzaga is going to miss Killian Tillie in that game. I like Gonzaga’s chances, even with Tillie out. They’re an experienced team that will spread the floor, execute on offense, and not turn the ball over. In 2 games (against no one) they’re averaging 112 points and 9.5 turnovers per game, which is great.
I need this for my self esteem after picking Kentucky to beat Duke.
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Nice call to those who liked the Zags last night, so nice to see the dooksters get taken down. And happy Turkey Day to all the board rats.
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KU gets jumped by Gonzaga in the polls. Pretty sad, another slap in the face. Its all about Duke even when they lose
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I’m ok getting overlooked. So long as we secure a #1 seed in KC. That’s the single most important thing for this season.
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The poll at this point and time means nothing , nada , zilch. I’m fine with where we are - -who cares? - -All I - - we should care about? ? worry about ? - -is having that # 1 rank is at the end of the year. We all know , realize is that ranking is really for the fans to be able thump on our chest - -say oh look were # 1 were the number # 1 ranked team in the Nation. So let’s ask this , So were # 1 during the Season & then we lose in the NCAA tourney - - - -So how is that #1 ranking during the regular season working for ya now?
US just having the name of Kansa written across those jerseys gives us a big enough target on our chest - -let someone else have that heat. - - I will bet you this - -if you were to ask the Coach’s - - players which they would rather have , either the # 1 ranking during the season and lose in the tourney - -OR not being # 1 during the season and then getting that NCAA hardware at the END OF THE YEAR - - I would place any amount what their answer would be. - -Rankings are worthless at THIS point - -other then for the fans. I’m fine with where we are at right at this point. - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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FWIW, ESPN Power Ratings have KU as #1.
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I hope it motivates us.
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@KUSTEVE It motivates the SHI* out of me. I know it’s early, I know the polls mean zero right now, but I’m tired of KU being disrespected. We could be 38-0 and Duke, Kentucky and Carolina could all have 12 losses and they still get all the press, all the hype.
In my opinion, anybody that is a KU fan should be ticked.
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In a testament to how good we are perceived to be, Tennessee is still #6.
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Duke got a first-place vote this week somehow.
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nuleafjhawk said:
@KUSTEVE It motivates the SHI* out of me. I know it’s early, I know the polls mean zero right now, but I’m tired of KU being disrespected. We could be 38-0 and Duke, Kentucky and Carolina could all have 12 losses and they still get all the press, all the hype.
In my opinion, anybody that is a KU fan should be ticked.
KU lacks a nationally recognized rivalry to help promote the games. UNC and Duke have each other. UK has Louisville. KU has… nobody. It’s tough to be a nationally respected program when most of the games you play don’t matter outside the state. In that respect, KU is something like Gonzaga, but in a major conference.
We need an annual rivalry game that gets national TV exposure (i.e., not K-State). There’s no game that KU has on its schedule every year that is worth promoting for several days leading up to it like you can Duke-UNC or UK-Louisville. The only time you can really build up a KU game leading up to it is when KU is facing Duke, UNC, or UK.
So what’s the solution? Well, there are a few options.
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Get the Border War going again. It matters outside Kansas, which is a big issue in getting national attention.
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Start an annual series with (pick one) UCLA, Indiana, Ohio State, Arizona, Michigan, Louisville. It has to be a prominent program from a major conference, and has to be something that will always draw a national audience.
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Create an annual Naismith Classic, something like what UCLA did with the Wooden Classic before merging the event into a tournament. Find a weekend in the early season to host two games at AFH and play ball.
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@justanotherfan I’m not trying to be that guy, but to say KU is not a nationally respected program is one of the strangest statements i’ve ever seen on this site.
You do realize we’ve won more games than any team in the universe except one. We’ve won 3 or 5 National Championships, depending on who you talk to.
We’ve won a hundred Big 12 Championships in a row (give or take).
Even broadcasters recognize that Kansas is the mecca of college basketball - if you don’t believe me, ask any of them that have ever done a game at AFH. It’s the pinnacle of college basketball arenas.
Not having a Missouri to beat 2 or 3 times a year is not hurting us a bit.
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New #1 Ohio State! Initial NET rankings clearly don’t have a large enough sample size and are flawed at best right now. Looks pretty sketchy.
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@justanotherfan The lack of a rival was why I wanted KU to somehow end up in the SEC. UK vs KU yearly and with conference championships on the line would be awesome.
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Hate to break it to you but outside Kansas and some fans in Missouri nobody really cares about the border wall. MU agreed to a game last season because it though it had a team that could give KU a game; it will not happen again in a while.
KU has been part of the Champions Classic for several years now which provide at least a quality opponent every year. KU also plays this season UK, Villanova , Marquette and Tennessee, 4 high quality opponents in addition to several top 20 ranked Conference teams. KU schedule is and has been consistently plenty strong with several marquee names and does need any more tweaking.
The MSM will build up East Coast teams regardless of who KU plays or does not play.
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@JayHawkFanToo I was torn between the Puke-Zags game. Like most on here I love it when the BDevils go down. The problem is now Gonzaga may go undefeated what with the conference they play in. They play Washington, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Other than that, they will probably win out. Hope Roy’s boys can take them down.
Actually I only care that our Hawks can have a terrific season and be one of the final four again. Then whatever the other teams do will not matter.
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KU is nationally respected and recognized with a significant degree of difficulty. That comes from a lower rate of exposure than most other major programs.
It’s not impossible, obviously, but KU is the most consistently dominant program in the country and yet probably only the fourth or fifth most recognized program. That says a lot.
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@justanotherfan KU’s national notoriety would go up if we produced more actual NBA stars like Pierce. We have produced a plethora of journeymen (Collison and Hinrich notably; Mason and Graham’s track, too), but even Embiid (if he has longevity), and Wiggins and Jackson (if they happen to break out) were only at KU for 1 year and so the association to casual fans is weak. Especially since KU flamed out before expected in their years.
Still, here in football country, I get a lot of comments about how great KU is–in bb, followed by comments about fb, of course!
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mayjay said:
@justanotherfan KU’s national notoriety would go up if we produced more actual NBA stars like Pierce.
KU has lacked in producing next level stars for a program of this level. In the last 25 years, KU has produced two true stars in the NBA (Pierce and Embiid), a handful of good players, and a host of productive players and career backups.
It would be nice if Grimes can find himself here because I believe he can really be a star at the next level with his size and talent. But I want him to also be a star at KU so he isn’t a guy that was restrained by college hoops, then broke out in the NBA because that actually hurts KU more than helping.
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@mayjay That speaks volumes about what a great coach Bill is, and Roy as well.
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I wondered who in the heck voted Duke number 1 after it lost to Gonzaga. Guess who? Jesse Newell. Collegepolltracker.com shows who’s voting in the AP poll. Dick Vitale voted KU number 1.
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I know a few weeks ago I told everyone to chill about the Duke stuff, but when I look at ESPN, I sure get irritated because Duke is plastered all over their college basketball page. DSPN is what it’s now called.
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Here is Newell’s explanation for his vote. The only problem appears to be that he is missing the meaning of the weekly polls which is to be a snapshot in time of the teams at the time of the poll but he seems to be looking at the before and after rather than the now…
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@JayHawkFanToo He has set up his own metric that has nothing to do with the polls. It’s the weekly rankings- it’s not the futures rankings. He is treating our win over Tenn as a loss.
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I understand this but he is not publishing his own ranking, he is voting on a poll that is a snapshot in time which ranks teams based on their current status and production and he is applying criteria that is not supposed part of the poll.
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@JayHawkFanToo I was agreeing with you.
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I disagree with Newell’s explanation and approach to poll rankings. Newell says he looks at what would happen if Duke and Gonzaga play 100 games and he speculates that Duke would win the most. But, that is not how college basketball games are decided; they are decided by one game. So, the polls should be based on what has happened during games played, not speculation about teams playing each other 100 times and who he speculates would win the most. After KU won the National Championship in 1988, I heard from the KU haters that if KU played any of the teams again KU would lose, so KU wasn’t the best team in the tournament. But, we decide the championship on which team won the game, not Newell’s illogical approach of who he speculates would win the most of 100 fictitious games. What say you JBate? Surely, you disagree with Jesse Newell and agree with me, right.
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@stoptheflop We can call it what it is…jesse clickbait.
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Exactly. Newell should follow the rules for the weekly polls that represent the here and now and not the past, future or potential of any team. If he wants to use his own criteria he should have his own rating like Pomeroy, Sagarin, Massey or any number of other analysts do.
As far as 1988, KU won that tournament fair and square and in accordance with the rules, regulations and structure in effect at the time, so any discussion is moot.
Having said that, I am an aAdvocate of having a lot less teams and having a best of xxx game elimination starting at least with the Elite 8. I understand that in this scenario KU probably would not have won in 1988 but it is also likely that it could have won 2-3 titles when one bad game eliminated teams with true championship potential.
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I disagree entirely! The polls are a collective judgment of which teams are better and are expected to do well. Game results are just one factor–until they become determinative in the tournament.
Otherwise the polls are not a judgment call at all. The voters would just sort all teams by record. That makes no sense since you only need a preseason poll and a compendium of game results to proceed from there. I agree with Newell–an early 2 point upset in college BB does not require upending poll rankings.
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mayjay said:
The polls are a collective judgment of which teams are better and are expected to do well.
Actually they are not. The weekly polls are an indicator of how team are doing “NOW” (and this is why they are updated weekly) and not how they are expected to do in the future which is pure speculation and is best left to Vegas and they don’t project game results until a day before the game because of the volatility of the predictions. Even their long term projections have odds associated with them and are constantly changing and are by their very nature probabilistic rather than deterministic.
This is the equivalent of asking you to rank 5 player by height with the tallest one first and the shortest one last and you tell me that you have your own way to measure the height of players and you ranked the 6’-3 ahead of the 6’-5" player because he has the potential of growing taller than the 6’5" player, which may or may not happen but certainly is not taller now.
Otherwise the polls are not a judgment call at all. The voters would just sort all teams by record.
This makes absolutely no sense. If a team has ten wins over 10 bottom 20 teams it is not the same as having 10 wins over top 20 teams, right? Ranking by record alone is not a good way to rank teams and I don’t know of anyone that does that or would ever consider it.
Records are used for standing within like group of teams such as those in a conference where they all have the same opponents but standings and rankings are two different things.
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Here’s a theory about why we’re not Number 1: ( Norlander )
As for Kansas … why isn’t it No. 1? This is an oddity worth pointing out.
The Jayhawks were the preseason No. 1 team in the AP Top 25. They’re still undefeated and have two wins over two top-10 teams on neutral courts. And yet, Kansas is no longer No. 1 and hasn’t been since Nov. 11. First, Kansas was leapfrogged by Duke in the first week of the poll in the regular season. And this week, Gonzaga bumped past the Jayhawks because it beat … Duke.
Kansas’ biggest issue, it seems, is that it hasn’t played the Blue Devils.
It’s just a bit weird. I don’t violently disagree with keeping Kansas at No. 2, but you’d expect a non-traditional school – a team that seldom gets to No. 1 – to be subject to this kind of treatment. The fact that Kansas is the school being held at No. 2 is curious. I don’t want to get too conspiratorial, but I wonder if some AP voters have held the federal trial stuff against Kansas just a little bit and if that’s played into KU being ever so slightly suppressed in the polls.
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mayjay said:
I disagree entirely! The polls are a collective judgment of which teams are better and are expected to do well. Game results are just one factor–until they become determinative in the tournament.
Otherwise the polls are not a judgment call at all. The voters would just sort all teams by record. That makes no sense since you only need a preseason poll and a compendium of game results to proceed from there. I agree with Newell–an early 2 point upset in college BB does not require upending poll rankings.
I think this post is pretty much right on. The AP Poll is 65 voters voting who they feel are the best teams in college basketball. Each voter can use whatever criteria they want to rank the teams, whether it’s head-to-head, gut-feeling, advanced rating systems like KenPom, or whatever else. Most voters probably use a combination of all of these. Newell uses KenPom exclusively for his ballot, which I don’t really agree with, but that’s his prerogative.
The AP Poll has always had a predictive element to its rankings. If it didn’t, there’s no way Kentucky would be ranked in the Top 10 right now. The voters expect them to get better as the season goes on. If Kentucky’s ranking was simply a screenshot of how they’re playing right now, I’m not sure they’d even be in the Top 25.
I don’t really care if somebody wants to rank Duke #1 on their ballot after they lost to Gonzaga. Duke lost by 2 points. They might be the better team. They might beat Gonzaga in a best-of-seven series. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that. And the AP Poll doesn’t really matter at all.
The only ranking I care about is the S-Curve for the tournament in March. And I think this should be pretty much entirely results-based. For example, if the season ended now, I think it would be fine to think that Duke is the best team in the tournament, but you had better give Gonzaga a better seed than Duke.
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@JayHawkFanToo said “Ranking by record alone is not a good way to rank teams and I don’t know of anyone that does that or would ever consider it.”
But are you not doing exactly that by saying Duke’s loss to Gonzaga deserves to put Duke below KU, which stayed undefeated?
I would like to see those strict polling rules you are relying on. I did not know the voters were voting wrong all these years. Just cannot see how KU remained ranked in the top 25 last year after those 2 Cowboy losses to go with the preconference ones. Could it be as Newell described–voters believing KU was better than the losses showed?
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No, I am not doing this at all and you know it. I did not say that Duke should be behind the 15 or so undefeated teams but it should be behind KU because KU had to this point the better body of work including 2 wins over top 10 teams while Duke has wins over a very overated UK and Auburn and a loss to Gonzaga. CBS seems to think so as well as ESPN Power Ranking both of which have KU as #1. BTW, Newell is the only voter that has Duke as #1 which would indicate all the rest of the voters do not agree with him.
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Teams get over-ranked every year based on hype. No way was that 10 loss 13-14 KU team a 1 seed, but had Embiid played who knows what could’ve happened? Duke isn’t the best team right now, but the hype around Zion will make them seem like it no matter what.
I’ll enjoy the flames when Duke loses in the tournament, hopefully at KU’s hand.
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