Against Ranked Teams - Week 14

[SWC75]

It occurred to me that with a new basketball season beginning I could do an “Against Ranked Teams” post for this sport, too. The margins of victory are similar to football. The formula is to first give each team that plays a ranked team from 1-25 points based on the ranking (I’ll use the writer’s poll) of their opponent. This chart shows you how many points they’d get for playing each team ranked at a certain level , (the ranking is first, the points, second):

1-25, 2-24, 3-23, 4-22, 5-21, 6-20, 7-19, 8-18, 9-17, 10-16, 11-15, 12-14, 13-13, 14-12, 15-11, 16-10, 17-9, 18-8, 19-7, 20-6, 21-5, 22-4, 23-3, 24-2, 25-1

I’ll call those “schedule points”. Then you look at the point differential in the game and apply it to the schedule points. If a team loses to the #1 ranked team by 10 points. They’d wind up with 15 points: 25 schedule points minus the ten points they lost by. If a team beats the #10 team by 5 points, they’d get 21 points: 16 schedule points plus the 5 points they won by. If a team lost to the #20 team by 6 points, they’d get nothing. The margin of defeat would cancel out their schedule points. If a team lost to the #25 team by 3 points, they get a zero. You can’t have negative points. You just failed in an attempt to get positive points.

I’ll figure the points based on games over the past week every Sunday and post them, along with cumulative season standings, just as I have done for football. As I said on that post, this is less a way of ranking than it is simply something you might want to look at in ranking them – or selecting them for a tournament. I recognize that rankings will change over the course of the season. I’m making the assumption that teams are worthy of the ranking they have at the time another team plays them. That may not always be true but a subsequent ranking may just reflect how good or bad a team has become since the game in question: they may have been as good as their ranking at the time.

WEEK FOURTEEN

Virginia beat #4 Louisville 71-55 = 38 points
Duke beat #8 North Carolina 86-78 = 26 points
Notre Dame beat #14 Florida State 84-72 = 24 points
Texas Tech lost to #3 Kansas 79-80 = 22 points
Kansas State lost to #3 Kansas 71-74 = 20 points
UCLA beat #9 Oregon 82-79 = 20 points
Nebraska lost to #7 Wisconsin 69-70 = 18 points
Villanova beat #24 Xavier 73-57 = 18 points
Miami lost to #4 Louisville 66-71 = 17 points
Oklahoma State lost to #6 Baylor 69-72 = 17 points
Gonzaga beat #20 St. Mary’s 74-64 = 16 points
St. Mary’s lost to #1 Gonzaga 64-74 = 15 points
Georgetown lost to #2 Villanova 64-75 = 13 points
North Carolina beat #20 Notre Dame 83-76 = 13 points
Oregon lost to #10 UCLA 79-82 = 13 points
California lost to #9 Arizona 57-62 = 12 points
Alabama beat #19 South Carolina 90-86 = 11 points
Indiana lost to #10 Wisconsin 60-65 = 11 points
Southern California lost to #5 Oregon 70-81 = 10 points
Stanford lost to #9 Arizona 67-74 = 10 points
Penn State beat #21 Maryland 70-64 = 9 points
Xavier lost to #2 Villanova 57-73 = 8 points
Notre Dame lost to #12 North Carolina 76-83 = 7 points
Clemson lost to #18 Duke 62-64 = 6 points
Central Florida lost to #11 Cincinnati 50-60 = 5 points
Indiana lost to #16 Purdue 64-69 = 5 points
Louisiana State lost to #15 Kentucky 85-92 = 4 points
Marquette lost to #22 Butler 65-68 = 3 points
Mississippi St. lost to #19 South Carolina 73-77 = 3 points
Alabama lost to #15 Kentucky 58-67 = 2 points
Oklahoma lost to #13 West Virginia 50-61 = 2 points
Texas Christian lost to #6 Baylor 52-70 = 2 points

Comments:

I find it interesting that there are never any games against ranked teams on Fridays. How do they know ahead of time who is going to be ranked?

Virginia, despite their defeat by SU, forged ahead and have joined the 100 club in a big way, all the way to #2 in the standings. Villanova, Kansas State and Oregon also joined the group, which is now a Top 10.

I’ve decided to expand my Top 25 to a Top 68 plus any t ie at the end, (not that a team’s record vs. ranked teams will be the only criteria), to list them in pods of 4 rather than 5 and to put the teams we have played or will play in bold.


Cumulative Totals

Top 68

Baylor 136 points
Virginia 122 points
Louisville 119 points
Florida State 116 points

West Virginia 115 points
Butler 114 points
Kentucky 113 points
Villanova 108 points

Kansas State 106 points
Oregon 104 points
Creighton 97 points
Kansas 95 points

Duke 93 points
Georgetown 92 points
Notre Dame 91 points
North Carolina 89 points

Georgia Tech 87 points
Indiana 84 points
Iowa State 81 points
Marquette 75 points

Gonzaga 68 points
Arizona 67 points
Purdue 67 points
Texas Tech 65 points

Oklahoma State 63 points
Florida 60 points
Colorado 59 points
Utah 59 points

South Carolina 54 points
UCLA 54 points
Miami (Florida) 51 points
Syracuse 51 points

Tennessee 50 points
Nebraska 48 points
Pittsburgh 47 points
Oklahoma 46 points

Providence 46 points
North Carolina State 42 points
Southern California 41 points
St. John’s 38 points

California (Berkley) 37 points
Ohio State 36 points
Texas 36 points
Virginia Tech 36 points

Wisconsin 36 points
Xavier 35 points
DePaul 34 points
Texas Christian 34 points

Clemson 33 points
Minnesota 31 points
Iowa 29 points
Michigan State 29 points

Penn State 28 points
Texas-Arlington 28 points
Fort Wayne 26 points
Wake Forest 25 points

Georgia 24 points
Mississippi 23 points
Seton Hall 23 points
Rhode Island 22 points

Central Florida 18 points
Cincinnati 18 points
Mississippi State 17 points
Oklahoma State 17 points

Stanford 17 points
Wagner 17 points
Lehigh 16 points
Brigham Young 15 points

Davidson 15 points
Oral Roberts 15 points
Oregon State 15 points
St. Mary’s 15 points