We always say that the playoffs will clarify the rankings and we'd like that, but sometimes it seems they muddle things, too.
For this year, it really was the conference playoffs, where Georgetown unseated Villanova and Vermont unseated Norwich, which really switched things around. We moved teams up or down, perhaps a little too drastically, after those results. At the same time, we've been waiting on NC State as they haven't had a ton of competition. Meanwhile, Loyola, which lost 36-0 to Marquette in the Great Midwest playoffs, turned around and beat Marquette (albeit by "only" seven) in the national playoffs.
Ultimately we stick with IUP at #1 despite things being a little close for them. We put Principia at #2 because, well, it's a bit obvious as they crushed their opposition and could certainly be argued that they are the top team. We have jumped full-on onto the Principia bandwagon before. This might be the year for them, for sure, but let's see them beat one of those other guys, as well.
Yes Loyola is in the national semis, but we don't have them in the top four yet. That older loss to Marquette nags, and remember that Vermont lost to IUP by three, and Norwich, a team UVM beat, lost to NC State by two. Those teams are all very, very close and there's no room in the Top 4 for five or six teams. (We tried, they don't fit.)
Of course, if Loyola beats Principia, or, in fact, gets within 15 points, then we'll talk.
Did we over-value Auburn? Yes, a bit, but not a lot. UNC-Charlotte got dinged for a big loss to NC State to cap the Southern Conference season, and that's fair, but now we see that was more of an indication of NC State's quality than anything else. Charlotte moves up after a close loss to Marquette and beating Auburn. What about Marist? Well the thing here is that, yes, Marist lost to IUP and UNC-C lost to Marquette—the deficits were almost identical. Charlotte also got a consolation game (win over Auburn), and Miami didn't. We are hitting Miami hard for the forfeit—got to play the games—but it would be harsh to also penalize Marist. Also, given that Marist led IUP well into the second half and some weird stuff with yellow cards kind of added to IUP's points total, we're going to keep Marist up there, and in fact move them to #9.
For now.
Just a few more games to come, but they could heavily influence their conference mates.
