4 Underrateds, and 1 Overrated:
1. Gonzaga - Polls: Unranked, Kenpom.com: #2
The Zags have gradually shown their prowess again after losing to Portland State. The press should know better than to treat a team who loses to Connecticut by 6 like they stink. Their 'unranked-ness' clearly comes from the 1-4 sputter they had a few games ago, but only the Portland State game should have been very unexpected. Losing to Utah by three is not that bad, tsk tsk. Gonzaga has one of the best groups of teams beaten: Oklahoma St., Maryland, Tennessee (twice), and Washington State. Oh well.
2. West Virginia - Polls: Unranked, Kenpom.com: #7
The Mountaineers are good for two reasons: Destroyed Ohio State and Cleveland State, and had their worst loss to a then-confident Davidson (#46 kenpom). Getting killed by Marquette was quite the downer, but in Big-East play, AT Marquette, what should be expected? Now, West Virginia might be overrated from their absolute-crushing of ~100s teams (poor Seton Hall), and it does remain to be seen if they can be very consistent, but I think the Mountaineers will soon show Georgetown that they are a much better team than ESPN and the Coaches think.
3. Missouri - Polls: Unranked, Kenpom.com: #11
Missouri, like West Virginia, has had some troubles with consistency. But beating USC (#33 kenpom) by 11 on a Neutral Court, and destroying Cal (#20 kenpom) by 27 at home, have definitely shown some insane spark. Yes, they've done a lot of cupcake-eating, and yes, they lost to a mediocre Nebraska (#71 kenpom) on the road, but such performance isn't that strange in basketball from most top-caliber teams.
4. Memphis - Polls: Unranked, Kenpom.com: #12
I know, I know. Nathan, calling Memphis, UNDERRATED? This year has definitely presented Memphis' toughest competition. And they lost a huge part of their great team from last year. Memphis' biggest drop was at home against Syracuse (#32 kenpom, #8 in the polls!) only by seven! And they took Georgetown (#4 kenpom.com, #12 polls) all the way to overtime AT Georgetown. I can't understand why they aren't ranked. Maybe their streak of 7-0 will increase to 8-0 by Monday, with a relatively tough game against UAB.
Overrated:
Only two teams are in the top 25 of the polls, and not in the top 40 of Kenpom
1. St. Mary's - Polls: #25 (ESPN), Kenpom: #62
This team has beaten ONE top-40 team. San Diego State (#39). By 3. On a neutral court. They've only PLAYED 3 top 100 teams, losing one of those (#81 Texas El-Paso, on a neutral court by THIRTEEN). Seriously. Oh well, if they can notch one more in the "L" column, they'll be off for good.
2. Michigan - Polls: #25 and #25, Kenpom.com: #51
Michigan is a bit of a mystery to me. They have had TWO top-10 Kenpom wins, (UCLA and Duke). They're the only team I can think of that has done this. Nevertheless, they beat perenial bottom-feeders Savannah State (#323 kenpom) only in OVERTIME AT MICHIGAN. Ouch. Inconsistent much? What about #237 Indiana? On the road, Michigan needed an overtime to beat them as well. Despite having some of the best wins in the nation, Michigan needs to do consistently better.
UNC-DUKE, part 3240923490.
I have come up with yet another cool stat. It's called "% chance of close game" and you get to choose how close the game is!
Duke is still predicted to beat UNC by 6 at Duke, but this brings up some interesting questions....what is the % chance that it will be a close game. Using my new-and-improved formula, and this new addition to it, lets see what we get:
Chance of win- Duke: 62%, UNC: 38%
Chance of game being within __ points:
Overtime(.49): 3%
1: 6%
2: 12%
3: 18%
4: 25%
5: 31%
6: 36%
7: 42%
8: 47%
9: 52%
Aaaand here's a graph:
That's all, folks.
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