Our new top 25 poll is based upon a number of criteria, including team performances over the past week, strength of schedule, RPI, quality of wins, quality of losses, and head-to-head performances. All of these things are weighted relatively evenly, though the emphasis is placed on an overall resume.
It’s been an unpredictable season thus far, with numerous upsets and surprises along the way. Just this week alone, 10 teams currently ranked 12-25 lost at least one game, leaving the rankjings wide open.
This week three teams fell out of the top 25 and others took hard falls.
1. Notre Dame
2. UConn
3. Baylor
4. Louisville
5. Oregon
6. Stanford
7. Mississippi State
8. North Carolina State
9. Maryland
10. Oregon State
11. Syracuse
12. Texas
13. Marquette
14. Gonzaga
15. Iowa
16. Rutgers
17. South Carolina
18. Arizona State
19. South Dakota
20. Iowa State
21. Michigan State
22. Kentucky
23. Utah
24. Tennessee
25. Central Michigan
Notes
-Plenty of people take issue with UConn being ahead of Baylor when they lost their head-to-head match up. While that meeting obviously needs to be taken into account, so do both team’s other wins. The Huskies beating Notre Dame on the road by 18, coupled with wins at Cal and over DePaul, is more impressive than Baylor’s next best wins (at Arizona State and at South Carolina). It is splitting hairs, and others may still put the Bears in front of UConn, but that is the rationale.
– Rutgers took the biggest jump of the week, going from unranked all the way up to No. 16. Part of that is because every team from 15-25 lost this week, but they are 13-3 with a win at Maryland on their resume. They probably should have been on last week’s list.
–Tennessee took the biggest drop of the week, falling from 12 to 24. A case could be made that they should fall out of the top 25 altogether, but again, the lack of strong resumes after the No. 14 spot has them just holding on.
–Teams that fell out: Indiana (20), Florida State (23), Minnesota (24)