It’s been a while. In April of 2022, nearly 22 months ago, I published my most recent “Behind the Ballot” column, explaining the reasoning behind my votes for the Student Media Poll. That was on the women’s side, following UConn’s loss to South Carolina in the national championship. Writing that column feels like a lifetime ago. Now, I’m back as a voter, this time for men’s basketball. Yes, I’m joining midseason. It’s been a wild few weeks of college basketball, so let’s get into what the SMP is and why I voted the way I did.
As a brief reminder, the SMP is a weekly basketball poll, voted on by student journalists from around the country from a variety of different college newspapers. I took a lot of time to put together my initial rankings and looked at games from the past week to determine this ballot. With that being said, let’s jump into this week’s rankings!
As I began to comb through the available teams, I realized how much of a trick creating these rankings was going to be. Once you get past the top handful of teams, the number of attractive options dwindle. Most squads have four to six losses and it really comes down to who has looked the best recently. There were few easy decisions and there are any number of not-wrong ways one could draw up a top 25. With that being said, let’s take a look at the rankings and the five most interesting teams from this week’s action: two high achievers, two low and one wild card team of note.
- UConn
- Purdue
- UNC
- Tennessee
- Houston
- Wisconsin
- Arizona
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Illinois
- Marquette
- Creighton
- Iowa State
- Auburn
- Duke
- Alabama
- TCU
- Baylor
- BYU
- San Diego State
- Utah State
- Oklahoma
- Dayton
- Texas Tech
- New Mexico
HIGH ACHIEVERS
No. 13 Iowa State: Out of seemingly nowhere, the Cyclones have forced themselves into the conversation, now near the upper half of the rankings. Looking at their resume holistically, they appear to be as good as any other team outside the top five. And they have been really peaking lately. ISU is now 5-2 in conference play, picking up big wins over current No. 5 Houston and No. 8 Kansas. They had a lack of signature wins and lost a few against KenPom ~50 teams. They’ll have a pair of important away games this week–against No. 18 Baylor and Texas–that will give them the chance to skyrocket past comparable squads.
No. 16 Alabama: The Crimson Tide have had one of the more odd seasons among top 25 teams, gaming the system for an excellent ranking in many metrics. Despite losing six times, they sit at No. 8 in KenPom thanks to their tremendous wins over poor teams. Before they played No. 14 Auburn Wednesday, Alabama’s best win was over Indiana State, who is just outside the top 25. They beat Auburn in a great performance, though the Tigers have been questioned due to the lack of competition they’ve faced. More on them later. Alabama did secure the victory nonetheless and are trending in the right direction.
DISAPPOINTMENTS
No. 14 Auburn: And we’re back to the Tigers. They still stand without a great win, with their top victory coming against 12-8 Texas A&M. Not super impressive. The thread holding their argument for a top 10 spot together was the fact that they lost just two times in their first 18 games. Auburn doubled the figure this week. They picked up losses to Alabama and Mississippi State on the road. Neither defeat is bad, but dropping chances to pick up signature wins just doesn’t provide a convincing argument for a top 10 spot. As a result, they fall to the bottom of the 6-15 cluster.
No. 8 Kansas: The Jayhawks, one of two teams to defeat top-ranked UConn, has been faltering in Big 12 play. We’re not far removed from their legitimate argument to be the No. 1, but Kansas has lost three of their last six and are 4-3 in conference for the first time in the Bill Self era. The recent away loss to a surging ISU squad is understandable, but losses to UCF and West Virginia, a pair that could end up in quad two by the end of the season, just is not great. Their three top 10 wins, including two against the current top four, are keeping the Jayhawks in the top 10. That, along with the fact that everyone else keeps losing alongside them.
WILD CARD
The top five: In some strange and unusual continuity this season, the top five in these rankings didn’t lose this week. No. 1 UConn absolutely shellacked KenPom top-35 Xavier by 43, while No. 2 Purdue picked up decent wins over Rutgers and Michigan. No. 3 UNC is red-hot, riding a 10-game win streak. This week, they beat Wake Forest and Florida State, both of which are quad two at the moment, but could become quad one. No. 4 Tennessee convincingly beat a poor Vanderbilt team, while No. 5 Houston survived No. 19 BYU on the road and took care of business against Kansas State. Not having questions in the top five is refreshing, though it’s hard to count on it staying this way. Houston and Kansas line up for a huge matchup this Saturday in a game that could shake things up.