HHS Top 25: Missouri State and West Virginia Are Just Fine
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After last week’s upset-fueled reshuffling, this week’s ballot was relatively calm. Only Oregon moved more than three spots from last week and 10 teams stayed put. The AP Top 25 is a different story. Only four teams remained in the same spot as last week, and 10 teams moved three or more spots.
Below is the ballot that we submitted to the Sport Tours International/Hoopfeed Top 25 Poll, which included games played from Tuesday, January 14 through Monday, January 20. Movement up or down from last week’s ballot is denoted in parentheses.
1. South Carolina
2. Baylor
3. UConn (↑2)
4. Oregon (↑4)
5. Stanford (↓2)
6. Louisville
7. Oregon State (↓3)
8. N.C. State (↑1)
9. UCLA (↓2)
10. Florida State
11. Texas A&M
12. Indiana
13. Gonzaga (↑1)
14. Maryland (↑2)
15. Arizona (↓2)
16. DePaul (↑1)
17. Northwestern (↑3)
18. Missouri State (↓3)
19. Kentucky
20. West Virginia (↓2)
21. Mississippi State
22. South Dakota
23. Iowa
24. Arizona State (↑2)
25. Princeton (↓1)
There were two teams that saw significant movement in the AP Poll that I kept in more or less the same spot. The first of those teams was Missouri State, who dropped out of the AP Poll after being No. 19 one week ago. Let’s compare the Lady Bears to Arkansas. Arkansas is No. 21 in the newest AP Poll, which is probably to absolute farthest I could understand Missouri State dropping. Below I have included their resumes against top-100 teams in the HHS Rating.
The Lady Bears are 4-0 against teams ranked between 20 and 40 in the HHS Rating, all of which are ranked higher than Vanderbilt, Arkansas’ best win. Additionally, their worst loss, at Southern Illinois, is 31 slots higher than the Razorbacks’ loss to California. I think some of this comes down to respect for mid-major conferences. Southern Illinois is a very solid team, but if you were to ask most AP voters, they would probably pick California as the better loss.
The final team is West Virginia. You could make a lot of the same comparisons between West Virginia and Arkansas—they have better wins and better losses—but I’m going to compare them to Mississippi State. Mississippi State is ranked 16 spots higher than the Mountaineers in the AP Poll. That is a large separation! Their resumes tell a different story.
The Mountaineers have a better best win and the head-to-head advantage on the road. Keep in mind, they were 16 spots apart before the Bulldogs’ two-point loss against No. 1 South Carolina which I consider to be a positive for Mississippi State. West Virginia will have plenty of opportunities to work their way back up the rankings, with nine of their last 13 games against teams in the top 50 of the HHS Rating.
How do you think we did with our ballot? Who did we miss? Who’s too high? Too low? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter (@herhoopstats), and keep an eye out for our rankings on the Hoopfeed website throughout the season.
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