Ranking every D1 College Basketball Team - No 1 to 353 by Matt Norlander

[Go_Braves]

I am going to allow those who feel incline to add their own comments regarding this ranking article. (Refer to the provided web link for this article) My only comments are Northwestern, Kansas State, Pittsburgh, and Northern Iowa are all ranked ahead of Bradley. And as expected Memphis and Missouri State are also ranked ahead of Bradley.

And I will close by quoting and agreeing with what "BUSongwriter" shared in another post regarding national rankings. It's as simple as that. GO BRAVES.

I agree, GB. For Valley teams and other mid-majors, the lack of recognition and exposure is a problem before the year starts and an even bigger problem come tournament selection time. The only way to get recognition is pretty much to remain undefeated for the first half of the year and finish the year with four or fewer losses. Meanwhile, a team like Illiniois -- which finished 11th in the Big 10 last year and had only one road win -- is supposedly a Top 30 team this year. Always frustrating. Our Braves just need to play with a chip on their shoulder and go out and open the eyes of people with tunnel vision.

 

[Da Coach]

Yes, polls and rankings are always interesting, but you have to take them with a grain of salt. And when someone ranks all 353 schools, you can be sure he didn't really spend much time looking into facts about each team. Matt Norlander is a pretty good sportswriter, but some of his rankings are unbelievable, and laughable.
For example: Northwestern is picked dead last in the Big Ten this year by virtually everyone who is picking. Here is the official Big Ten preseason media poll-
https://247sports.com/college/ohio-s...and-136346897/

Northwestern comes in 14th out of 14 teams, and there is a huge gap between them and 13th place Rutgers. Yet Norlander ranks Northwestern inside the Top 100 at 97th. Rutgers hasn't had a winning season in 14 years! Yet somehow, he ranks them at 72nd! That is close to being NCAA Tournament-worthy, yet the actual odds of them making the NCAA Tournament is about 1%!
https://www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-ba...s/bracketology

He has a bunch of teams in the Top 100 that had losing records last year and were not very good, and a lot of 20+ win teams are ranked way down the list.
In the end, it's just one guy's guess. Bradley will have plenty of chances to prove themselves since they play a number of the teams ranked ahead of them like UIC (yes, UIC is ranked ahead of Bradley!) , Northwestern, Penn State or Kansas State, Loyola, UNI, & Missouri State.

 

[Mikovio]

If this were football the human rankings would matter, but all rankings do in basketball is give fans something to talk about. Ultimately it’s going to be up to the selection committee, and all they’ll use to select and seed teams is the NET computer ratings (replacing RPI). Everything else is just noise.

 

[PTTB]

As Valley members, our teams just need to win their non-conference opportunities and prove their worth. We need to do what we can to really push to get half our teams in the top 100 of the NET (and that’s have our top teams win almost all of their non-con games). We need to see some separation from the top 5-6 and the bottom 4-5 during conference season. I see a path where that could happen this year.

 

[Tommy]

As Valley members, our teams just need to win their non-conference opportunities and prove their worth. We need to do what we can to really push to get half our teams in the top 100 of the NET (and that’s have our top teams win almost all of their non-con games). We need to see some separation from the top 5-6 and the bottom 4-5 during conference season. I see a path where that could happen this year.

That's exactly right, PTTB. We have to play with the hand we're dealt, and that means we need to win games outside of the valley and show up strong in tournaments (most especially). I think BU did their part in their two tournaments last year, even if we were ousted in the 1st round of the NCAA.

The difference in talent level is growing smaller and it seems like the NCAA keeps trying to adjust the rules to favor the Power Five (moving the 3 point line back is one, since the 3 point line is a massive equalizer for the smaller schools). Even still, the gap will continue to close and mid-major teams like the Valley teams will continue to gain ground. We'll always have to fight the bias of the referees who always seem to favor the Power Five come tournament time, but if we get to the point where they need to rely on officiating help, I'd say we've already won the war.