Against Ranked Teams - Week 18

[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 EIGHTEEN

Arizona beat #3 UCLA 86-75 = 34 points
Duke beat #6 North Carolina 93-83 = 30 points
Texas Christian beat #1 Kansas 85-82 = 28 points
Gonzaga beat #19 St. Mary’s 74-56 = 25 points
Arizona beat #5 Oregon 83-80 = 24 points
Kansas State beat #9 Baylor 70-64 = 23 points
Seton Hall lost to #2 Villanova 53-55 = 22 points
Southern California lost to #3 UCLA 74-76 = 21 points
Duke beat #10 Louisville 81-77 = 20 points
Vanderbilt beat #17 Florida 72-62 = 19 points
Notre Dame beat #21 Virginia 71-58 = 18 points
Michigan beat #13 Purdue 74-70 = 17 points
Oregon lost to #7 Arizona 80-83 = 16 points
Notre Dame beat #16 Florida State 77-73 = 14 points
Alabama lost to #8 Kentucky 74-79 = 13 points
California lost to #5 Oregon 65-73 = 13 points
Santa Clara lost to #4 Gonzaga 68-77 = 13 points
Xavier beat #18 Butler 62-57 = 13 points
Creighton lost to #2 Villanova 60-74 = 10 points
Duke beat #22 Notre Dame 75-69 = 10 points
East Carolina lost to #12 So Methodist 77-81 = 10 points
Kansas State lost to #11 West Virginia 50-51 = 10 points
Iowa State beat #11 West Virginia 74-80 = 9 points
Northwestern beat #25 Maryland 72-64 = 9 points
Louisville lost to #14 Duke 77-81 = 8 points
UCLA lost to #7 Arizona 75-86 = 8 points
Georgia lost to #8 Kentucky 60-71 = 7 points
Northwestern lost to #16 Purdue 65-69 = 6 points
Notre Dame lost to #14 Duke 69-75 = 6 points
Clemson lost to #14 Duke 72-79 = 5 points
Colorado lost to #7 Arizona 78-92 = 5 points
Virginia Tech lost to #16 Florida State = 4 points
Central Florida lost to #12 So Methodist 59-70 = 3 points
North Carolina lost to #14 Duke 83-93 = 2 points
Connecticut lost to #15 Cincinnati 71-81 = 1 point

Comments: Thanks to the conference tournaments, this week produced a flood of points. Duke has shot to #1 with 60 point s earned in winning the ACC titles. Arizona got 58 points for winning the Pac 10 title and not only broke the 100 point mark but went all the way to 141 points and 9th place. Syracuse is has the 29th most points vs. ranked teams. We've played 4 of the top 6 teams beaten two of them.

In today's games, Arkansas, which has 13 points, get 8 more for playing #8 Kentucky. Michigan, with 73 points, get two more for playing #24 Wisconsin. Cincinnati is ranked #15 and has 18 points and will be playing #12 Southern Methodist, who has 26 points.



Cumulative Totals


(I’ve decided to expand my Top 25 to a Top 68 plus any tie 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.)

Duke 209 points
Baylor 182 points
North Carolina 173 points
Virginia 157 points

West Virginia 155 points
Louisville 148 points
Butler 146 points
Kansas 142 points

Arizona 141 points
Notre Dame 140 points
Kansas State 139 points
Kentucky 136 points

Florida State 130 points
Iowa State 121 points
Oregon 120 points
Creighton 115 points

Villanova 108 points
Texas Tech 101 points
Gonzaga 93 points
Georgetown 92 points

UCLA 89 points
Miami (Florida) 88 points
Georgia Tech 88 points
Indiana 84 points

Syracuse 84 points
Texas Christian 78 points
Virginia Tech 76 points
Marquette 75 points

Michigan 73 points
Oklahoma 72 points
Southern California 71 points
Vanderbilt 69 points

California (Berkley) 67 points
Seton Hall 67 points
Purdue 67 points
Florida 65 points

Colorado 64 points
Oklahoma State 63 points
Utah 60 points
Ohio State 56 points

South Carolina 54 points
Providence 51 points
Tennessee 50 points
Iowa 49 points

Michigan State 49 points
Texas 49 points
Brigham Young 48 points
Nebraska 48 points

Xavier 48 points
Minnesota 47 points
Pittsburgh 47 points
DePaul 45 points

Wake Forest 45 points
Clemson 43 points
North Carolina State 42 points
Northwestern 41 points

Georgia 39 points
St. John’s 38 points
Oklahoma State 37 points
Central Florida 36 points

Penn State 36 points
Wisconsin 36 points
Stanford 35 points
Arizona State 28 points

Texas-Arlington 28 points
Fort Wayne 26 points
Southern Methodist 26 points
Mississippi 23 points