The Predictor Top 25: 1/29/07

Time for the second Top 25 of the year. A lot of teams suffered only one loss, but still managed to defeat decent opponents during the week. So there is some odd movement in the rankings. Kudos this week to Oklahoma State for getting back on track with two wins. Kudos also to the Hokies, making that 14th ranking I gave them last week look pretty good.

1. North Carolina (19-2), LW-2: UCLA losing helped UNC jump them. Not to mention the 28-point beatdown they put on Arizona in the desert.
2. UCLA (18-2), LW-1: Losing at Stanford won’t seem so bad when the Cardinal make the tournament. It was UCLA’s first bad game of the season.
3. Florida (19-2), LW-3: Near loss to terrible Mississippi State proves that I was correct about the lack of effort from the Gators. They remain here until they stop avoiding upsets or start beating good teams.
4. Wisconsin (21-1), LW-5: I hate doing this. I just can’t justify moving any other team above the Badgers in the rankings at this time.
5. Texas A&M (17-3), LW-4: Losing by two points at Texas Tech is nothing to worry about, especially because the Aggies controlled the game for the most part. They recovered nicely with a solid home win against Oklahoma.
6. Ohio State (18-3), LW-6: Managed to turn two should be blowouts into two nail biters. The Buckeyes are still not playing like a team that is going to get to the Final Four.
7. Kansas (18-3), LW-8: Unlike a lot of their top 25 brethren, the Jayhawks got two easy games and blew their opponents out of the gym.
8. Oregon (19-2), LW-7: Without Aaron Brooks, the loss to UW is explainable. And even though they were down double-digits in Pullman, the Attack managed to peck their way to a tough overtime victory.
9. Oklahoma State (18-3), LW-9: Managed to win their bi-annual dogfight with the Sooners then trounced pesky Iowa State. Now they must find ways to win on the road.
10. Marquette (19-4), LW-12: Despite having an additional loss, I had to put Marquette here because they’ve beaten the Panthers at Pitt.
11. Pittsburgh (19-3), LW-10: What? Wins over Cincinnati and St. John’s are supposed to impress me?
12. Virginia Tech (16-5), LW-14: This is the first place team in the ACC. They just scored two solid road wins. How can you question them anymore?
13. Nevada (19-2), LW-15: Two wins against less than stellar WAC competition, combined with a bunch of losses from the teams in front of them, allow the Wolf Pack to move up a couple of spots. No more until they beat the top two teams in their conference.
14. Washington State (17-4), LW-16: Yes, despite losing at home the Cougars move up. They took care business against Oregon State, then lost a game they shouldn’t have against the Ducks. In case you haven’t noticed, the Ducks are in the top 10. This is a young team that needs to learn to finish games. Plus they move up because all the teams around them lost twice, or lost a game they shouldn’t have.
15. Air Force (19-3), LW-13: Oh, those tricky Mormons! There are worse things than losing at BYU, another solid team in the always good Mountain West.
16. Memphis (17-3), LW-22: I’m doing everything in my power to keep the Tigers down in the standings as they continue their romp through the ridiculously easy CUSA.
17. Texas (15-5), LW-NR: How did I not have these guys ranked last week? That was a mistake. Their five losses are by a combined 25 points.
18. Duke (18-3), LW-23: Due to a malfunction in the rankings, and two very close games at home, the Dookies will have to wait to jump higher.
19. USC (16-6), LW-20: The loss total is starting to climb too high, but it’s hard to punish them for a loss to Stanford if I didn’t punish their Southern California counterparts for the same loss.
20. Kentucky (16-5), LW-19: I’m going to ignore their loss to Georgia and focus on the whooping they laid on Tennessee. Hopefully I don’t regret doing this.
21. Butler (19-2), LW-24: Defeating Loyola (IL) and Detroit isn’t helping their top 25 cause right now.
22. Texas Tech (15-6), LW-25: The victory over A&M doesn’t make any sense, and neither does a loss to Missouri. I think the wins over the Aggies and Jayhawks are more important than the loss to Mizzou.
23. Notre Dame (17-4), LW-17: I didn’t give Pittsburgh any dap for their win for St. John’s. But at least they won. The Irish lost to the Johnnies. So despite the win over Nova, they plummet.
24. Vanderbilt (15-6), LW-NR: The Commodores have arrived. They are 5-2 in the SEC. They’ve scored wins over Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Alabama, at Kentucky and at LSU. That’s a pretty good resume for a team that no one knows about. Now we’ll see what happens when they visit Florida this week.
25. Alabama (15-5), LW-11: The Irish don’t plummet as far as the Tide. After it looked like Bama was getting its act together, they get blown out by dreadful Auburn and get whitewashed for a second time – this time at home – by Arkansas.

NEXT TEN: Stanford, Virginia, Clemson, UNLV, Arizona, Kansas State, Boston College, VCU, George Washington, New Mexico State