Note: Bradley has been excluded this week strictly because of this video.
|
NCAA Basketball Power Rankings
|
Got a different view than Luke? |
| 1 |  |
Last Week: 1 |
Oklahoma's Blake Griffin ranks first in the nation in rebounds by more than a full board, grabbing 13.8 per game compared to Luke Harangody's 12.7 and DeJuan Blair's 12.6. But a comprehensive look at the players' stats -- including offensive and defensive rebounding percentages -- shows that the Panthers' Blair is making the biggest impact on the glass:Player (Team) Reb/G OReb% DReb%
Blake Griffin (OU) 13.8 11.4 33.3
L. Harangody (ND) 12.7 13.2 28.2
DeJuan Blair (Pitt) 12.6 26.5 28.7 Blair, as the chart above shows, grabs 26.5 percent of the available offensive boards while he's on the floor -- an incredible percentage that leads the nation by a wide margin, and provides Pitt with so many second-chance opportunities that it has the nation's fifth-most efficient offense.
Next three: 1/17 at Louisville, 1/19 vs. Syracuse, 1/25 at West Virginia |
| |
| 2 |  |
Last Week: 4 |
On the top shelf of one of his office bookcases, Demon Deacons assistant Pat Kelsey has an instructional DVD of the Pack-Line Defense. "You're from Wisconsin, so you know what this is," he said to me, referring to the scheme that Dick Bennett so successfully employed at UW-Stevens Point, UW-Green Bay, Wisconsin, and finally Washington State, where his son, Tony, still runs it. Wake switched to the defense last season when Dino Gaudio took over for the late Skip Prosser -- who favored a more gambling, denial D -- and the Deacs are now ranked No. 1 in the country in raw defensive efficiency. The Pack-Line attempts to create a wall in front of the basket, and Wake, which ranks second nationally in effective height, with 6-foot-8 James Johnson and 6-9 Al-Farouq Aminu at the 3-4 spots, and 7-footer Chase McFarland at the five, does this particularly well. UNC's Tyler Hansbrough ran into that wall of long arms and finished the second half of Sunday's loss to the Deacons without a field goal.
Next three: 1/17 at Clemson, 1/21 vs. Virginia Tech, 1/28 vs. Duke |
| |
| 3 |  |
Last Week: 3 |
The ACC is trying to take away more rights from student-athletes this week, by pushing through an NCAA-wide proposal to give underclassmen only a 10-day window after the Final Four to make their final decisions on the NBA draft. Currently underclassmen have a late-April deadline to declare for the draft, then a mid-June deadline to pull out and return to school. (In between, players can work out for NBA teams and receive feedback in order to make an educated draft decision.) Under the new plan, players would be forced into hasty decisions, while coaches would enjoy the luxury of entering the spring recruiting period knowing their exact roster for the following season. UNC coach Roy Williams told the Washington Post that the current process "leaves your program in limbo," and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said, "I think it adds some semblance of order in recruiting. It is too much time. Either a kid is with you, or he is on to other things." Coaches, meanwhile, have no deadline to commit to their schools for the following season and not consider jumping to the NBA. Krzyzewski himself took until July 5, 2004, to mull an offer from the Los Angeles Lakers, and more recently, Billy Donovan accepted the Orlando Magic job on May 31, 2007, the final day of the NBA's pre-draft camp.
Next three: 1/17 vs. Georgetown, 1/20 vs. N.C. State, 1/24 vs. Maryland |
| |
| 4 |  |
Last Week: 5 |
This week a New Haven Register story pointed out how Huskies guard A.J. Price, who's still recovering from offseason knee surgery, has become less of a slasher and more of a three-point bomber. Fifty-four percent of Price's shots this season are from long distance, compared to just 37 percent last season. I wondered how this was affecting the Huskies as a whole, and found out something surprising: As a team, UConn is actually taking even fewer threes than it did last season, when it ranked 332nd nationally in percentage of field-goal attempts taken beyond the arc, at 24.2. This season, only 22.9 percent of the Huskies' shots have been threes, which ranks them 337th in the country (out of 344 teams). Of teams in the Power Rankings, only Wake Forest -- at 20.6 percent, or 340th -- takes fewer treys.
Next three: 1/15 at St. John's, 1/18 vs. Seton Hall, 1/21 vs. Villanova |
| |
| 5 |  |
Last Week: 7 |
In the course of Monday's Q&A with Sooners guard Willie Warren, the freshman star explained why he's never taken a picture with (or asked for an autograph from) any of his favorite players, including LeBron James, whom Warren infamously spurned at a Nike camp photo op. "It's more an ego thing than anything," Warren said. "I get that from my mom. We're both very stubborn." Warren's mother, Malaika Frazier, was a high school and small-college hoops star, and he said, "If you put Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes in front of her, I bet you she wouldn't ask them to take a picture with her, either." In a question that got cut from the final version, I asked Warren how he'd react if an up-and-comer wanted to take a photo with him. "If they asked me, and wanted to," he said, "sure, I'd let them."
Next three: 1/17 at Texas A&M, 1/21 vs. Nebraska, 1/24 vs. Baylor |
| |
| 6 |  |
Last Week: 6 |
K.C. Rivers and Trevor Booker are now one of the top forward duos in the country, but where were they rated when they committed to play for the Tigers? Rivers was a three-star shooting guard out of Oak Hill Academy, ranking 36th at his position in the Class of 2005. Curiously, Duke reserve Marty Pocius was ranked 12th in that shooting-guard crop, and UNC reserve Bobby Frasor was 14th -- and both had four-star ratings. Booker, meanwhile, was a three-star power forward from Union, S.C., who ranked 29th at his position in the Class of 2006. On that same list, UNC-bound Alex Stepheson was 11th and Wake Forest-bound Jamie Skeen was 21st ... and neither of those four-star guys are still at their original schools.
Next three: 1/17 vs. Wake Forest, 1/21 at North Carolina, 1/25 vs. Georgia Tech |
| |
| 7 |  |
Last Week: 2 |
Back when the Tar Heels were 13-0 and hadn't allowed an opponent to get within 15 points, it was easy to joke about how much they were missing senior Marcus Ginyard, their glue guy/defensive stopper who was still recovering from left-foot surgery. Adding in Ginyard at that point seemed just unfair. But now that UNC is 0-2 in the ACC, and all of its guards were torched by various Jeff Teague moves on Sunday night, it seems that Ginyard's presence would come in quite handy. "What [Ginyard] gives us is our best defensive player; a guy that's going to take a charge, who's going to get an offensive rebound, who's going to get a key steal, who's going to bother people with what he's doing as a total basketball player," Heels coach Roy Williams said on Monday. "Needless to say, we could use that right now." Problem is, UNC had to put Ginyard back on ice last week to further his recovery. He's only played 37 minutes all season, and would be eligible for a redshirt if he wanted it, but I suspect Ginyard has little interest in missing Carolina's title run.
Next three: 1/15 at Virginia, 1/17 vs. Miami (Fla.), 1/21 vs. Clemson |
| |
| 8 |  |
Last Week: 8 |
Excellent YouTube initiative shown this week by The World of Isaac, which uploaded a video (linked from Yahoo!'s Dagger) from Saturday's Michigan State-Kansas game of ref Steve Wellmer -- the hardest working guy in the business -- huddling with Tom Izzo and Bill Self during a break at the 3:50 mark of the first half. Izzo was fortuitously mic'ed up for the exchange, and here's the transcript: CBS' Vern Lundquist: "And, let's listen once again to Tom Izzo." Wellmer (to coaches): "I think I broke a bone in my right foot. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I went to make a cut, right here, and something just popped. I don't know [unintelligible] son of a b----." Unidentified voice (sounding a lot like Kansas coach Bill Self): "Just put his ass in a chair at half court, that'd probably be just as good." Wellmer: "I've only missed about a dozen ..." Unidentified voice (again sounding like Self): "Let's just do that." Lundquist (cutting back in): "So, Steve Wellmer, explaining the nature of the injury. We'll be right back."
Next three: 1/17 vs. Illinois, 1/21 vs. Northwestern, 1/25 at Ohio State |
| |
| 9 |  |
Last Week: 14 |
USC's Daniel Hackett has a habit of getting elbowed in the face. The most famous blow was delivered by teammate O.J. Mayo, who broke Hackett's jaw in an offseason workout two summers ago. The party line had been that it was "unintentional," but anonymous Trojans players said it wasn't, and Hackett admitted as much -- without fully admitting it -- in a Q&A we did in October. "Maybe one day if you and me go out for a drink in New York," he said then, "I'll tell you about it." The latest incident came in UCLA's 64-60 win over USC on Sunday, in which Hackett was slugged by Drew Gordon, who said it was "completely accidental." This time, Hackett did not agree. "Did he [say he apologized]? His nose must be growing," Hackett said of Gordon. "I asked him if it was on purpose and he smiled. When a guy turns into and catches you in the face, you can't call it inadvertent. Obviously there was some purpose to it."
Next three: 1/15 vs. Arizona, 1/17 vs. Arizona State, 1/22 at Washington State |
| |
| 10 |  |
Last Week: 11 |
Ex-presidential candidate John McCain was sitting in the second row for the Hoyas' 88-74 rout of Syracuse on Wednesday night. The Syracuse Post-Standard's blog reported that the Maverick was "eating what appears to be a hot dog"; apparently there was too much security around McCain to allow for a full confirmation. Posters on the liberal blog DailyKos occasionally use the term "Rethugs" to describe nefarious GOP operatives, so it was an amusing coincidence that McCain appeared at the first game after ex-Georgetown coach John Thomspon Jr. remarked that the Hoyas needed rebounding "thugs" to cure their woes on the glass.
Next three: 1/17 at Duke, 1/22 vs. West Virginia, 1/25 at Seton Hall |
| |
| 11 |  |
Last Week: 11 |
The Orange have a chance to be the worst free-throw shooting team to make the NCAA tournament this season. They currently rank 299th in the country at 63.4 percent, and there are no candidates for at-large bids below them. The 'Cuse is not the only tourney-bound team struggling from the stripe, though; there are six squads outside the top 250 in free-throw percentage:Rk. Team FT%
299 Syracuse 63.4
283 Missouri 64.4
281 West Virginia 64.5
276 Texas 64.7
269 Arkansas 65.0
259 Pittsburgh 65.3
Next three: 1/17 vs. Notre Dame, 1/19 at Pittsburgh, 1/25 vs. Louisville |
| |
| 12 |  |
Last Week: 15 |
I particularly liked one of Patrick Christopher's postgame remarks following the Bears' 88-85, triple-overtime win over Washington on Saturday. He had just played 53 minutes of a wild, come-from-behind victory, scoring 27 points and grabbing 11 rebounds, but he said something that actually would have seemed more appropriate coming out of the mouth of a person at an Acid Test: "Everything is kind of blurry right now," Christopher said. "It feels great. I'm kind of speechless. I know I'm saying a lot, but I don't know if I'm making any sense."
Next three: 1/17 at Stanford, 1/22 vs. Oregon State, 1/24 vs. Oregon |
| |
| 13 |  |
Last Week: NR |
The transformation of Dominic James has been one of the season's more overlooked stories. Three years ago he was the Eagles' star and leading scorer at 14.9 points per game. James' assist-to-turnover ratio then was 1.9-to-1, and he was thought of as more of a shoot-first point guard. This season he's Marquette's fourth-leading scorer, at 11.8 points per game, his assist-to-turnover ratio has jumped to 2.7-to-1, and he's making a case for Big East Defensive Player of the Year, an award that teammate Jerel McNeal won in '06-07. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Marquette blog notes that James' lockdown resume already includes Villanova's Scottie Reynolds, Cincinnati's Deonta Vaughn, Rutgers' Mike Rosario and West Virginia's Truck Bryant.
Next three: 1/17 at Providence, 1/24 vs. DePaul, 1/26 at Notre Dame |
| |
| 14 |  |
Last Week: NR |
In this week's SI, Mark Beech chronicled the rather surprising rise of the Illini, and the rise of sophomore forward Mike Davis in particular. Of Davis, Beech writes, "There's little about [his] build or game that fits the conventional mold of a power forward. At 6'9", his reedy, 210-pound frame is more reminiscent of Beaker than Barkley, and his aversion to contact in the lane, which almost borders on the neurotic, would seem to disqualify him as both a dependable low-post scorer and a rebounder. Even his voice, quiet and adenoidal, doesn't fit the image of a man expected to bang in the paint for more than 30 minutes a game." And yet Davis is leading the traditionally bruising Big Ten in defensive rebounding percentage, at 23.6. 'Tis a strange year in that conference when the Nos. 1 and 3 defensive rebounders (Davis and Purdue's Robbie Hummel) have a combined weight of 418 pounds.
Next three: 1/17 at Michigan State, 1/20 vs. Ohio State, 1/24 vs. Wisconsin |
| |
| 15 |  |
Last Week: 16 |
Bulldogs wunderkind Brad Stevens is being mentioned on all the midseason Coach of the Year lists, and for good reason: No one expected the Bulldogs, with their overhauled roster, to be back in the Top 25 (or in the top 10 of the RPI). My early Coach of the Year ballot -- which is also heavy on those who are exceeding expectations -- looks like this: 1. Dino Gaudio, Wake Forest; 2. Stevens; 3. Bruce Weber, Illinois; 4. Mike Montgomery, Cal; 5. Oliver Purnell, Clemson
Next three: 1/15 at Loyola (Ill.), 1/17 at UIC, 1/22 vs. Wisconsin-Green Bay |
| |
| 16 |  |
Last Week: NR |
James Harden, who should be considered a Player of the Year candidate alongside Blake Griffin, Luke Harangody and Stephen Curry, averages 7.7 fouls drawn per 40 minutes, which ranks 10th in the nation. This brings us to our Power Rankings Trivia Question of the Week: Only three guards or wings rank ahead of Harden in fouls drawn/40 minutes. Can you name them? Check back next week for the answer.
Next three: 1/15 at USC, 1/17 at UCLA, 1/21 at Arizona |
| On The Cusp: Minnesota, Louisville, Notre Dame, Texas, Missouri, Xavier, Michigan, Purdue, Arkansas, Memphis, Texas A&M, Baylor, Ohio State, Kentucky, Gonzaga, BYU, Dayton, Tennessee, West Virginia, and all the other teams whose exclusion from this list makes you want to reenact a Daniel Hackett elbowing incident on my face.
(If you'd like to send the Power Rankings an e-mail, I'm here.)
|
Got a different view than Luke?
|
|
PRINT
EMAIL
RSS
SHARE
TCU, Boise Get the Shaft
World Cup bracket lucky for U.S. soccer - Grant Wahl - SI.co
Alabama WII face Texas in BCS title game nikes-jordan.com
2 Sticks + 0 Legs = Sled Hockey [pics]
Handicapped Runner Seen to Have Unfair Advantage
Police detain Tyson after LAX altercation with photographer
top 11 heisman winners with the best NFL careers
