Program alert: #1 ranked team plays at #5 tonight

I'll be tuned in, turned on, and dropped out

Rock Chalk!!

But Guys, their Coach is really handsome!!! (batting my eyelashes and cocking my head coyly....... )

and our coach is really cute........

I'm sure that the other stats people are saying similar things, but I like Sagarin, and here's what he's got:

Michigan State #1 overall, KU #2, Nova at #3.

SOS: MSU ranked #26, KU #4, Nova #33
Overall Rating: MSU 92.47, KU 92.18, Nova 92.12 (all 3 teams within 0.35 of a point, only 0.06 separating KU and Nova)
Golden Mean: KU 92.23, MSU 92.18, Nova 92.11 (all 3 teams within 0.12 of a point)
Recent (weighted toward recent trends): Nova 93.39, KU 93.02, MSU 92.33 (spread of 1.06 points and a totally different order).

This tells me that there's a lot of parity going on.

Here's where it gets most interesting:
KU clearly has the most battle-hardened team:
KU: 23-4 record, 5-3 vs. top 25 (.625), 12-3 vs. top 50 (.800).
MSU: 23-5 record, 4-3 vs. top 25 (.571), 7-4 vs. top 50 (.636).
Nova: 24-3 record, 1-2 vs. top 25 (.500), 8-2 vs. top 50 (.800)..

While this is kind of borne out in the SOS numbers, as you can see KU's winning percentage in both the top 25 and top 50 categories is not only as good or better than MSU or Nova, but we've played more games against these teams....thank you Big 12. While KU and MSU are only 1 game different vs. the top 25, Nova has only played 3 of the top 25 teams in the country and lost twice. Ditto on the top 50 except KU has played 15 games to MSU's 11 and Nova's 10, and has still maintained the highest winning percentage.

So here's what I'm seeing: KU lost legitimate games against MSU, @ISU, and @WVU. Those won't hurt us a bit. Had we not crapped the bed in Stillwater, I don't think that there'd be any debate who the top team in the land is.

As for Villanova, I'm interested to watch, but just looking at the straight up numbers against top teams, I don't know that they've not only been tested like our guys have, but have RESPONDED to those tests like our guys have.

I am crushed that NotO would prefer the 2nd rate musings of an MIT professor (Jeff Sagarin) over a battle tested brother in crimson and blue (yours truly). I mean Sagarin is only a measly professor at a school that does not even field an NCAA basketball team. How could he possibly know how to build a system to rank teams? I have a degree from the most prestigious basketball university in the universe. It seems that I would be far more qualified to rank teams. FWIW, I have KU ranked 1st and Nova ranked 2nd. Michigan St. is 3rd in my system. If you believe all the other hacks out there who feign knowledge of how to rank programs, you can visit the attached link (Massey) to see the composite of all (currently 57) computer systems out there (of which yours truly is one). In this composite, Nova is 1st, KU 2nd, Oklahoma 3rd and Michigan St. 4th.

I don't want to see MSU in our bracket. Izzo's boys always find a way to steal a W from the Hawks. Since HCBS has been at KU, Izzo is 4-2 vs our guys and it's always some dang Sparty player going off Lucious in 09, Valentine earlier this year. Honestly, have a lot of respect for the fighting Izzos, but it really chaps my hide that they seem to get the last laugh and when you look at the stats you are like how, why?

RC

Sorry Corpus. Didn't realize that you were in that listing. I've had Sagarin bookmarked forever so it's force of habit.

Out of respect, I'll instruct my henchmen to have Mr. S's fingers broken so that he can't operate his computer for the rest of the season and change my bookmarks.

RC

After we beat TT on Sat., we can all chant 'We're #1, etc. 'Nova lost. George Clooney isn't as good a coach as Self, by the way.

You made me laugh out loud, Senex!!! Thanks!