Wednesday Links: We’ve-Got-(At-Least)-Top-20-Prestige Edition
Posted by kj on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
Drew Naymick is going to play pro ball in Poland. How do you say “blocked shot” in Polish?
Chris Allen is working hard this summer, knowing he’ll need to be a more consistent scorer next season (video clip).
Mark Hollis must have a really good PR guy. After the piece in the Lansing State Journal last week, the Detroit News and Free Press both have articles up about him this week. A lot of it is fluff, but I certainly like the energy/creativity he exudes and the fact he seems committed to building the MSU Athletic Department for the long haul.
College Hoops Net runs down the state of Big Ten basketball programs. Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa are on the decline. Minnesota, Ohio State, and Purdue are on the rise. Status quo for everyone else.
ESPN.com is counting down their college basketball “prestige” rankings based on a formula that accounts for various measures of team and individual success (hat tip to reader Dr. Huxtable). They’re only accounting for results since 1984-85 (when the tournament expanded to 64 teams), so we should finish higher than the #15 Beyond the Arc pegged us at. They’ve announced numbers 300 through 21 to date. Here are Big Ten teams’ rankings so far:
- 290. Northwestern
- 185. Penn State
- 68. Minnesota
- 49. Iowa
- 45. Wisconsin (I had forgotten that the Badgers didn’t make an NCAA appearance between 1948 and 1993.)
- 29. Purdue
- 27. Ohio State
- 23. Illinois
- 22. Michigan (Actually would have ranked ahead of #21 Florida if not for negative points awarded for NCAA sanctions.)
That leaves just MSU and Indiana for the top 20, which will be announced over the next two days, reflecting that no Big Ten program has really been consistently good for the entirety of the last quarter century.
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7 Responses to “Wednesday Links: We’ve-Got-(At-Least)-Top-20-Prestige Edition”
GBBoundon 24 Jul 2008 at 10:05 am 1That Michigan rating is a farce.
If you look at the point system, the individuals responsible for putting together the rankings count the two Final Fours in 92 and 93, the NIT title in 1997, and Big Ten Tournament title in 1998. That is 45 points right there.
However, as we are well aware, the UofM administration imposed the following penalty (which the NCAA accepted): The school vacated the entire 1992-93 season and every game it played from the 1995-96 season through the 1998-99 season. This included the 1997 National Invitation Tournament title and the 1998 Big Ten Tournament title. It also vacated its two Final Four games in 1992 and its entire NCAA tournament record in 1993, 1996, 1998 and 1999.
When a school vacates those games, it is the equivalent of those games never occurring.
As a result, Michigan is being awarded 45 points+ and only being assessed a -2 point penalty for what NCAA Infractions Committee Chairman Thomas Yeager calls, “one of the three or four most egregious violations of NCAA bylaws” ever.
DMPon 24 Jul 2008 at 11:35 am 2Yeah, it was weird that ESPN summarized the various violations into 1 or 2 point deductions to the violating teams. The various infractions Michigan, Kentucky, Minnesota, UNLV, etc, went through were major news infractions. Seems odd to continue to count the positives that came out from teams built through those infractions.
After seeing the 2-month Rodriguez media barrage in the Detroit papers, I have to think an astute promoter like Hollis must have decided that he had to get out and bring some focus back to MSU. Especially after the couple of articles suggesting MSU sports finances are in trouble. It can’t be mere coincidence that 3 major papers in the state ran lengthy favorable pieces on him within a short time span of each other. And now a bunch of Dantonio pieces are popping up too. Plus the news that MSU will keep ticket prices frozen for another year and the addition to the student section at Spartan Stadium. Promotion and visibility is one third of the game in running a successful athletic department, so I’m happy to Hollis showing up like that. I have high hopes that he can keep this up along with academics/compliance and actually winning games/matches/meets (the other two-thirds).
DMPon 24 Jul 2008 at 11:41 am 3Sorry for the double post…
I also wish ESPN did some type of opponent adjustment or something with these “prestige” rankings. Do we really need to spend time with Western Kentucky and Chattanooga?
GBBoundon 24 Jul 2008 at 12:57 pm 4MSU is ranked #11
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/.....id=3493766
SpartanDanon 24 Jul 2008 at 1:04 pm 5We got #11, highest in the Big Ten (Indiana was #13).
The rating system does seem screwy: losing in the first round as a 5 seed is worse than not making the tournament at all. (Sure, if you’re up that high you probably have some points coming your way for racking up 20+ wins and maybe a conference title … but I’d rather suffer a humiliating first-round upset loss in the NCAA than win the NIT.)
GBBoundon 24 Jul 2008 at 1:09 pm 6Nice to see you posting in the ESPN chat with Loucks.
kjon 24 Jul 2008 at 1:38 pm 7That’s me, baby. I’m my own PR agent!