Monday, February 25, 2008

The Big Guy Nails the Rankings

Vanderbilt is ranked #18 by the AP and #14 by the Coaches in their USA Today/ESPN Poll.

A few more stories to check out:

The Man We Love to Hait opines that Memorial might be a "trap" for the Volunteers in today's City Paper, while PAUL KUHARSKY (apologies to Paul and VSL Nation for the incorrect citation - thanks to anonymous for pointing this out; don't worry the interns will be spoken to) chronicles a day in the life of Crocodile OG in today's Tennessean.

Brett double-dips with a piece on Commodores at the Combine.

Baseball team opened the year 2-1, beating the defending College World Series Champions on Friday, getting beat-down by #1 Arizona State on Saturday, and beating Miami (OH) 4-3 in the bottom of the 9th yesterday.

The boys at Who Ya With look ahead to tomorrow, and begrudge how Vanderbilt is left out of the media's love-fest with the State of Tennessee's Basketball.

Our man Woody took Lunardi to take for his Commodore-hating:
Joe,

Vanderbilt could easily be a No. 5 seed, but not a No. 7. They have lost only four games. They are undefeated at home.

BYU the same seed as Vandy? Crazy. They have lost more games AND play in a conference full of cupcake basketball teams. Every time they've played a decent team, they lost.

The best team they beat was UNLV!!! They also lost to UNLV!!! Come on, Joe.

Rhys Harter
Vandy student

Vanderbilt was actually a No. 6 seed on this week's S-Curve but could not be slotted in the only available No. 6 position (due to Tennessee being in the same region). The reverse was true for BYU; the Cougars were a true No. 8 seed with procedural reasons forcing their move to the No. 7 line.

Having noted both of these permissible adjustments, you are -- in my estimation -- still overvaluing the Commodores and undervaluing BYU.

Vanderbilt vs. BYU (through Thursday)
Vanderbilt BYU
RPI No. 10 No. 24
Nonconf SOS No. 112 No. 124
Conf RPI No. 30 (7-4) No. 13 (10-1)
LunaRPI (R/N) No. 30 No. 46
vs. 1-50 2-2 3-3
ASM 9.77 12.63
I'd still give the edge to Vanderbilt, Rhys, but it's much closer than you think. I'm also not convinced Vandy would be favored if it faced BYU on a neutral floor; in fact, I believe it'd be a pick 'em game or the Dores would be a very slight underdog.


Lunardi is on the wrong side of this one, and the fact he brought evidentiary support just proves that.

VSL Nation will be present at Mulligans in the Fan in Richmond, VA for Tuesday's showdown. As always, the DC crowd will be at Buffalo Billiards. Phoenix, KC, San Francisco, Tulsa, and Western Kentucky will also be having viewing parties for tomorrow's game. If you are in or around any of those areas, you can get information by clicking on the Alumni Association's website.

6 comments:

Woody said...

Just a point of clarification: I didn't talk to Joe. I found that whole exchange was on ESPN. You have to be an insider to have access to it.

J.B., M.D. said...

The fact that Notre Dame is ahead of us in the AP is utterly absurd and its voters should be confined in one large timeout chair so that I can form next week's rankings.

Anonymous said...

we would beat BYU on a neutral court by double digits. period. unfortunately it's gonna take a beating of the orange to show our critics we are for real so show up tomorrow and take 'em down.

Das Fuhrer said...

Dallas, TX Frankies on McKinney...White out to Black out

Unknown said...

apparently joe read's these boards. Vandy currently sits at 5 and on the rise at bracketology. 7:18pm CST

Anonymous said...

Mo Patton didn't write that article. Come on, guys..