Will KU be No. 1?

No, not in the AP Poll. The AP Poll is whack. I am talking about the Massey composite of 50 computer systems, including, Sagarin, KenPom, my DPPI and 47 others. KU was a solid 2nd place last week and Duke was a runaway 1st place. But Duke lost 2 games this week including one at home (granted to a very good Louisville team, but still). Kansas won 2 road games this week, granted against relatively week competition but still). My DPPI has Duke still at No. 1 but just barely. Last week Duke was 1st in 34 of the 50 polls while Kansas was 1st in only 3. I suspect Duke will hold onto the No. 1 spot but they are no longer dominant. Gonzaga also had a very good week, as did Seton Hall. One team that did not have a good week (other than Duke) was North Carolina who have lost 4 in a row and 8 of their last 10. If any of you are interested in viewing Massey's composite, you can see it here --> Massey Composite

With 41 computers thus far aggregated as I write this, Kansas is No. 1 by a mile. KU has an average ranking of 1.83 and is 1st in 23 of the 41 computer polls. Baylor is 2nd with an average ranking of 4.23 followed closely by Duke at 4.32 and Gonzaga at 4.88. Dayton is a distant 5th at 7.12. Now if we can just take care of business on the court.

Obviously when all is said and done, the only thing that matters is scoreboard. But the thing I like about the computer algorithm’s and especially when you aggregate 50 algorithm’s is, it validates that Kansas is truly in a position to be competitive to the point of winning on any given night against any and every team. We will be favored in all but three remaining games and by more than 10 points in most. If we can keep from having any more games like we did against Baylor, we should have a very good season.

Unfortunately, we're once again in a situation where Gonzaga will likely block us from the #1 spot unless we win at Baylor and they're still ranked #1, which is questionable.

Gonzaga frustrates me. They play a legitimate schedule in the pre-season, climb the polls and then disappear into the WCC where they have little competition. For example, every team in the Big 12 is in the top 100 (Sagarin) with our weakest team currently #83 (OSU) and 4 teams in the top 25...and this is a "down" year for the Big 12. We play each team twice, so that's 18 games against top 100 teams.

The WCC has only 3 of it's 10 teams in the top 100. They have 3 at #200 or higher with Portland at #291. Gonzaga's current SOS #208 and that will only get lower as the season progresses. Barring something miraculous happening with BYU (#40) or St. Mary's (#38) Gonzaga will stay in the top 3 and likely find a #1 seed at the tournament.

Do they deserve it? Who knows? How can anyone say one way or another if they're any good at all if they're favored in every game and win every game due to poor competition? Frustrating as I know that if they played in a decent conference, they'd face some real tests.