Monday, January 24, 2011

Vanderbilt Returns to Top 25 in Week 12 Rankings

The Commodores reclaimed a place in college basketball's Top 25 after handling St. Mary's 89-70. The AP has Vandy (14-4, 2-2) ranked #19 while the coaches place them at #22. Rather than torturing yourself with the thought of what those numbers would look like if the Dores were undefeated in SEC play instead of having blown two big leads on the road, let's take a moment to be psyched that, despite the missteps, this is the position we find ourselves in on January 24.

More importantly for purposes of seeding in March, Vanderbilt's RPI also got a bump (to #18) and the Commies got a "resume win" (albeit on their home court) with which to impress the selection committee.

4 comments:

Bobby O'Shea said...

Frankly, I'm surprised we leaped back into the rankings as high as we did. I guess it just goes to show you how much the voters respect St. Mary's.

With a good week this week (i.e., beating MSU in Starkville, something CKS has never done, and T.C.O.B. at home against Memorial), the Commodores have a chance to solidify a ranking such that they aren't "in again/out again" the rest of the way.

Chuck Heston said...

Agreed. Let me ask you this. Do you root for FL to beat UGA tomorrow night so that it maintains its #23 ranking when Vandy roles into the O-Dome next week? If FL wins, it will start to pull away in the race for the SEC East. A loss makes it more likely that FL will be unranked next week.

Thursday's match-up @ MSU will be a real gut test for VU. If VU plays flat, I may once again resolve to give up on the season.

Bobby O'Shea said...

Personally, I think Vanderbilt is the best team in the SEC. As the season goes on (and hopefully guys come back or get healthy), the muddier the division race is, the better off we are. Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, the rankings of our opponents is less important than it's been in years past because we're better than our opponents are. With that said, next Wednesday's game at the O'Connell Center is a very important SEC game for Vanderbilt. As you said though, a real test comes Thursday at MSU, a team that historically plays us tough (either at their place or ours). If we can get a win in Starkville, and best Arkansas Saturday, we have put ourselves in a great position.

Call me crazy, but I just don't buy that Florida is a good team, and they've shown an uncanny ability to lose games they shouldn't (hosting JU, for instance), and while blowing out teams they shouldn't. We got the monkey off our back in Gainesville last year, and we definitely have the better squad.

Anonymous said...

Our out of conference wins are good enough to get us into the NCAA tourni, now we need to take care of the SEC. Im not sure we will win the SEC and will be haunted by the two road losses where we had double digit leads in the 2nd half. I said it after we lost in Knoxville, this team will win every home game and act like everything is fine. However we still have not done well on the road this season. Like Bobby said, Stallings has never won in Starkville and if he does I think we will be legit threat to win the whole thing and it will be a sign we are turning this season around.

Remember 07-08 season? 14-0 start and then we only won road games at USC and UGA. Last year we turned the corner when it comes to playing on the road and I hope the same thing happenes this year.