Rankings - Bias or poor SOS?

Is anyone surprised we are not currently ranked with a 14-1 record? I see many teams in the top 25 polls that I think are not as good as BYU and have not looked as good as BYU so far this season. We don't really seem to be making any moves up in the polls. On the other hand, looking at our SOS (ranked >200) it is far and away weaker than any of those in the top 25 (even if some ranked teams have lost 3 or 4 times already). It is too bad our scheduling this year has not given us the chance to prove ourselves. I think we would have fared pretty well against some higher rated teams, but maybe we needed some time to mature and gel, it's hard to know. Luckily the MWC should have several good tests for us coming up pretty quickly.

Agreed with 2nd and 3rd options. I would like to think we try to schedule the best available opponents always, although you do hear chatter about coaches scheduling a certain way with young teams vs experienced teams so as to not destroy a young teams confidence or some odd thing ... not sure how much truth there is to that. I'd like to think this team could handle some of the big boys, I just wish we had the chance to prove it this preseason.



I think USU was an abberation and the way our team is currently playing there is no way we lose that game again this year.

Would've been nice, but keep in mind that ASU and AZ are usually top 20 teams. Besides we'll be ranked tomorrow when the new polls come out. The AZ game was big news and then they went on to beat UCLA--which means something psychologically even though the Bruins are down. I say 21st in the rankings.

Mars wrote:


Rankings come out every Monday in college basketball, if I'm correct.

Yep, we'll be ranked in one of the two major polls tomorrow.

Tell me who was going to give us a home and away that we should have been playing?



We got bradley, arizona, nevada, arizona state, utah state during down years (all perrenial tourney teams). We got Nebraska after they knocked off a dangerous Tulsa team and we have Utep left who has been pretty good and recently beat Oklahoma by 15. We travelled to fresno state and expected some competition there too, and we just ran through them.

Even weber state and san fran have solid basktball history.



I'm sure we would love to have a better sos, thus a better rpi in the non-con but getting good teams to agree to home and aways is near impossible.



If we take care of business in conference, our rpi wil be just fine because of how well this conference has fared in the non-con. Top to bottom (the bottom being Utah, who just beat LSU) this entire conference is competitive and if we win 13-15 of our next games and show well in the conf tourney, we're still looking at a 6 seed or lower. That will not be an easy task, there's not a gimmee game in conference this year; but to Dave Rose's credit, his BYU teams have always overachieved during the conference regular season and ran off a lot of wins.



If you're going to play an unranked Arizona in Tuscon, we couldn't have done it with more style though (record setting style; we'll always have that historical game on them at their place - just revenge for Eugene Edgerson cold-cocking bret jepson in 98). We've just blown through our competition for the most part and that bodes well for conference. Our guys just dont' seem to take a night off, no matter who we play.

Utep and UNLV are right on the horizon... we need those badly to springboard us from the arizona game.

That cold-cocking of Jepson still bugs me. That was one of the most deliberate, thuggish things I've seen in a college BBall game and it essentially finished Jepson's career. I don't recall the punishment for the thug, but I'm sure it wasn't enough.



Back on today, I'm excited about this week's games. Hope we have Emery back for UNLV. I think we can handle them without Emery, but we will fare far better with his defense and speed.



UTEP game will be interesting. Tough game down there. 2 wins this week ought to bring a little respect our way.



I notice we play home games against NM and UNLV in first half of the season, meaning second half of the season may be the tougher half of our schedule. This may be good, giving us time to get JT back in service and getting our inside game tuned up by then. it will also make for an exciting final few weeks of the regular season.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/rankings

25 and 23 in AP and Coaches Polls respectively.

Why don't we schedule Washington St., Gonzaga and St. Mary'? Plus I would go to Spokane for a game. Just a little person interest being in Oregon.

scott715 wrote:
Why don't we schedule Washington St., Gonzaga and St. Mary'? Plus I would go to Spokane for a game. Just a little person interest being in Oregon.

With our luck, we'd schedule them and then they'd have their worst seasons in 20 years. If you want to beat up on some name brand schools, the PAC 10 seems to be easy pickins right now - good teams in that conference are hard to find.

I definitely agree with those that have said that the "weak" schedule has nothing to do with a lack of interest from Holmoe or Rose in signing big-time teams. We all know, or should know by now, that in both football and basketball, opposing coaches do not have any interest in coming here. I think it's partly because they don't want to lose but also partly because they don't want to risk waking the sleeping giant in BYU. If we could even just land all the best LDS talent in we'd be a guaranteed top 20 team in both sports. We have better facilities than probably 90% of the country and even have some appeal for the talented non-LDS players that want to come and not be "distracted" by other things during their career.



After the Wake Forest game last year, their coach said "he'd never make the mistake of coming to Provo again" or something along those lines. Why would he say that? It has to have something more to do than just not wanting to lose because the big programs are always scheduling each other and the occasional losses are inevitable in order to establish a tough SOS. And it can't really have anything to do with worrying about a loss to a supposed-mid-major either, because most teams know BYU is not a mid-major and not a bad loss most years and these teams lose to other mid-majors all the time. That's where I think the sleeping giant theory comes into play.



Also, recently Rose alluded to the fact that "we'll see if Arizona keeps their end of the contract" when the return trip won't even be played in the MC but in Energy Solutions Arena. I just don't understand why they would pay money to break a contract just because they might lose to a decent team on a neutral floor, unless there were something more to it.

As for the rankings, as to whether they are biased or just evidence of BYU's poor SOS...



First of all, while BYU's SOS hasn't been great this year, it really isn't that bad. The top two teams in the country's schedules are nearly as bad. And SOS is quite overrated IMO. In football it's one thing, but it basketball where only five guys play at a time, it's much harder to keep your players consistent enough to go on long winning streaks. Any team could win on any given night if the "star" players have a off/break-out night. One player can make all the difference. In football, very seldom will one player be enough to effect the outcome. The outcome in football is much more team-dependent.



That's why I think the rankings need an overhaul. At the very least, there needs to be some ground rules established. I recognize that UNC is a very popular program and it is probably good for the money... ahem...I mean sport... to have them high in the rankings. But when they've got three losses this early in the season, can they really be a top 10 team? I know some people vote on potential or where they think the teams will finish up. But that's my point, there needs to be some ground rules established here based on body of work. Some teams will always look better on paper. Does that mean they should just be given the championship?... because they have more athleticism or talent? Now UNC will have four losses but I guarantee you they won't drop below 17 next week. Heaven forbid they have to actually prove they deserve a high ranking.



There's definitely far too much bias in the rankings. Even more in basketball than in football because there's just no way anyone can keep track of all the teams in D1 basketball on a week to weak basis. The only saving grace in basketball is there is a playoff so even if a team gets screwed, as long as they win their conference they at least have a shot and their destiny is in their own hands.

I like and agree with a lot of what you're saying gmj. If I recall correctly, I'm usually surprised at the tournament seedings . . . One would expect each of the top 25 teams to be a 1-5 seed if the rankings and the seedings were unbiased. I think there are top 25 teams that end up as 6-8 seeds fairly regularly. I may be wrong, but thats the way it seems. I should probably look it up, but I'm too lazy right now.



I'm not sure I fully follow your sleeping giant analogy, elaborate. Can't we wake it up ourselves? :)

The long and the short of it is, the BCS and MAJOR programs know that if BYU were put on equal footing, we'd start having insane success. Give us the access to the BCS games, to the high seeds in the tourney and watch how that would affect recruiting.



BYU already has the same quality of facilities or better than the best programs in the country. So the only thing they can hold over us is the fact that "BYU will never play for a NC" or "BYU plays a bo-diddly tech schedule". They recruit many of the same kids we do and covet many of the high profile LDS kids. If BYU were to land them all, we'd be a top 10 team every year in football and a top 20 team every year in basketball. With sustained success, they would improve facilities even more, recruit better (and even land some highly coveted non-LDS kids) and establish the kind of tradition that programs like UNC/Kentucky have in basketball, and USC/Notre Dame have in football.



So by not playing us, they keep BYU from getting high profile wins and a schedule that would sway those recruits to come our way. BYU unlike Yewtah or TCU is a sleeping giant based on the built-in recruiting base with members of it's faith. There's a natural gravitational pull there for the LDS youngsters. And if all the top LDS talent came to Provo. BYU would experience success like never before and like none but the very elite programs of collegiate athletics.



Can we wake it up ourselves? Sure, we just have to win we are faced with the kind of opponents that would hold us down. Should BYU get to a BCS bowl game or advance to the sweet 16 in the Madness, you'd see an explosion like never before in recruiting.