HHS Top 25: Holiday Tuneups
The volatility that unfolded the last few weeks appears to have died down, as there were no ranked teams losing to unranked teams last week, and in the only ranked-against-ranked matchup No. 7 Louisville defeated then No. 16 Kentucky by one point.
Without much of a change from last week’s rankings, it is a perfect week to look ahead at how some key matchups will affect the rankings going into the holiday break. The biggest games are all included in this week’s Games to Watch from our own Marissa Sisk.
Below is the ballot that we submitted to the Sport Tours International/Hoopfeed Top 25 Poll for Week 6, which included games played from Tuesday, December 10 through Monday, December 16. Movement up or down from our Week 5 ballot is denoted in parentheses.
1. Stanford
2. Oregon State
3. UConn (↑2)
4. South Carolina (↓1)
5. Oregon (↓1)
6. Baylor
7. Louisville
8. Florida State
9. N.C. State
10. Texas A&M
11. Indiana (↑1)
12. Arizona (↑1)
13. Maryland (↓2)
14. UCLA
15. Gonzaga
16. Mississippi State (↑1)
17. Missouri State (↑2)
18. DePaul
19. Kentucky (↓3)
20. South Dakota
21. Michigan State
22. West Virginia (↑1)
23. Tennessee (↓1)
24. Michigan
25. FGCU
UConn’s win over DePaul was one of this week’s Games to Watch, and it ended up being one of the most significant games for the rankings. Our Top 25 has consistently been conservative in ranking the Huskies because we did not see any wins in their resume worth jumping them over one-loss teams like South Carolina or Oregon.
Looking forward, the remaining four games in our Games to Watch are all ranked-against-ranked matchups that will have large effects on the rankings going forward. Tennessee at Stanford and Florida State at Michigan aren’t exactly tossups, but upsets could cause massive fallout among the Top 25. The other two games will separate two pairs of teams with similar resumes.
In the marquee mid-major matchup of the season, No. 17 Missouri State travels to Spokane to take on No. 15 Gonzaga. The two teams are very difficult to separate, as Missouri State has the stronger wins — South Dakota and Minnesota — but Gonzaga took current No. 1 Stanford to overtime on the road earlier this season. The winner has the potential to rise significantly in next week’s ranking.
The other ranked-against-ranked matchup is between Indiana and UCLA in Bloomington’s historic Assembly Hall. Ordering the Hoosiers and Bruins poses a similar dilemma. In two days at the Paradise Jam, Indiana racked up one of the best wins (South Carolina) and one of the best losses (Baylor) in the country, which makes it hard to compare them to the undefeated Bruins. We decided to give Indiana the edge because going 1–1 against the No. 4 and No. 6 teams in the nation is more impressive to us than going 0–0, but UCLA can prove us wrong with a win against their first ranked opponent.
How do you think we did with our ballot? Who did we miss? Who’s too high? Too low? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter (@herhoopstats), and keep an eye out for our rankings on the Hoopfeed website throughout the season.
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