Illinois #23 in 2/3 AP Poll

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#1      

Dan

Dan
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Dan
Welcome to the Polls Thread
 
#6      
Old Farm Illini
I'll go with 22. Texas Tech, UConn, Missouri, and Maryland will leap us. I don't see Mississippi State dropping below us but it'll be close. Oregon will drop below us. Wisconsin will stay slight ahead of us. I think we stay ahead of Memphis since they barely squeaked out a win against Rice. We stay ahead of Ole Miss, Vandy, Louisville, Michigan, and I don't see anyone else receiving votes making a big enough leap to move ahead of us.
 
#7      
mysterio2525
Illinijoe said:
Probably 22-24 but should be higher. One of the best resumes in the country.

We know the press is mainly made up of people who have no idea about college basketball.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1886420385626804300
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Based off this analysis, I've come to the conclusion that we shouldn't lose any more games.

But this site is good at summing up a lot of info (Kemp, torvik, NET, quad win breakouts)

Illinois Fighting Illini Nitty Gritty at Bracketologists

bracketologists.com bracketologists.com
 
#8      
Fighter of the Nightman
Illinijoe said:
Probably 22-24 but should be higher. One of the best resumes in the country.

We know the press is mainly made up of people who have no idea about college basketball.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1886420385626804300
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Ugh, man. While the good news is we still have a good resume and if we can stack wins, we should still have a decent seed ... the bad news is simply remaining focus and avoiding stupid mistakes in the Nebraska and Northwestern road games could have us sitting at 17-5 overall and 8-4 in Quad 1 games, before any adjustments to the results vs. Tennessee or at MSU. :cry:
 
#9      
pruman91
road loss to nebby hurts , but we rebounded against osu at home for a Quad 1 win.......don't forget osu beat uk by 20 points so the win against them makes up for our stumble at nebby....

I'm feeling 17-19 .........or it's my joy from my deep tissue massage this morning as my back pain is not to be found right now....YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..............................
 
#10      
the juiceman cometh
Illinijoe said:
Probably 22-24 but should be higher. One of the best resumes in the country.

We know the press is mainly made up of people who have no idea about college basketball.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1886420385626804300
Click to expand...
It's a very good resume and we've played a tough schedule.

But quantity of losses is a thing that voters consider, and I think it's a fair consideration. If you look at the KenPom rankings, there are only 3 teams with 7 losses, Us at 13, Gonzaga at 11, and Baylor at 25.

Also looked the Quad1 resume of a bunch of teams. We are good, at 6-6, but there are plenty of teams with better records too. Iowa St. and Alabama are both 6-3 vs. Quad1. Duke is 5-2. Kentucky is 7-5. Texas A&M is 7-5. Wisconsin and Purdue are both 6-5. Oregon is 8-4. Auburn is 12-1. That last one made me throw up in my mouth a little.

All-in-all, I think we end up at around #21 and I think that'd be fair.
 
#11      
Fighter of the Nightman
the juiceman cometh said:
It's a very good resume and we've played a tough schedule.

But quantity of losses is a thing that voters consider, and I think it's a fair consideration. If you look at the KenPom rankings, there are only 3 teams with 7 losses, Us at 13, Gonzaga at 11, and Baylor at 25.

Also looked the Quad1 resume of a bunch of teams. We are good, at 6-6, but there are plenty of teams with better records too. Iowa St. and Alabama are both 6-3 vs. Quad1. Duke is 5-2. Kentucky is 7-5. Texas A&M is 7-5. Auburn is 12-1. That last one made me throw up in my mouth a little.

All-in-all, I think we end up at around #21 and I think that'd be fair.
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I think if we can replicate the effort and execution we had for the second half vs. OSU (which we won 51-37), I think we could reasonably lose only two more games:

1. One of at Wisconsin and at Michigan.
2. Duke at MSG.

That's a big if, of course, as we have been quite erratic lately. However, seeing the staff finally willing to shake up playing time, getting Tomislav back and seeing our guys make an actual, meaningful adjustment in our plan of attack on offense when the threes weren't falling are reasons for genuine optimism that we haven't seen in what feels like forever. In such an optimistic scenario, our current resume below...

15-7 record
#12 NET Ranking
6-6 vs. Q1
3-1 vs. Q2
0-0 vs. Q3
6-0 vs. Q4

... would look like this before the BTT:

22-9 record
#8? NET Ranking
11-8 vs. Q1
5-1 vs. Q2
0-0 vs. Q3
6-0 vs. Q4

Let's assume we are a hot team at that time of year and we make it to Sunday of the BTT like last year. Using the BTT seed simulator, we would be the #5 seed in the BTT and would beat #12 Indiana/#13 Iowa, #4 Michigan and #1 Purdue to make it to Sunday - good for two more Q1 wins and another Q2 win. So looking at this on Selection Sunday:

25-9 record
#7? NET Ranking
13-8 vs. Q1
6-1 vs. Q2
0-0 vs. Q3
6-0 vs. Q4

That's back into the #3 seed material conversation. We could of course finish even better than this if we can get our shooting back on track and we really catch fire like the 2021 team did to end the year. And, of course, we can continue to be a team that has inexplicable off days and loses games it shouldn't. But the point is the basketball gods keep prolonging our obituary, lol. No matter how many times we've screwed up, the opportunities are still in front of us. The OSU game was a line in the sand, and we won it ... thank God.
 
#14      
Fighter of the Nightman
ALWAYS good to have that number next to your name, and nobody can convince me otherwise. :cool: Fair or not, it's a badge of legitimacy to countless casual fans across the nation, and we want our program thought of as one of the annual contenders.

I'm concerned about far more than rankings right now, of course, but we have two winnable road games in front of us this week. If we can go 2-0 and head home with a 17-7 (9-5) record before UCLA and MSU come to town, I think we can really build some hype for those huge matchups and truly right this ship to a pre-USC loss spot.
 
#15      
NarrowJ
thefalcon5 said:
Continue to be surprised by the national love for this team. Metrics absolutely loving us definitely helps. Just such a reversal from years past.
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Its weird because I felt when we were top 5 in all metrics and only had the 1 questionable loss to NW that we were ranked too low in that 22-24 range, but now that we have a handful of questionable losses and have dropped in metrics I feel 22-24 is probably too high (unless folks are taking into account injuries or something, idk).
 
#16      
Fighter of the Nightman
thefalcon5 said:
Continue to be surprised by the national love for this team. Metrics absolutely loving us definitely helps. Just such a reversal from years past.
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I mean, I was one of the most pessimistic fans out there after the Nebraska debacle, but that is because I follow this team closely, desperately want them to win each game and am close enough to see troubling patterns develop. However, if you just look at it objectively...

1. These voters thought we were the #18 team in the nation at the beginning of the week.
2. We lost a Quad 1 game in OT at Nebraska, still without our starting center.
3. We came home and won a Quad 1 game vs. Ohio State, now with our full roster.

The vast majority would PROBABLY say OSU is better than Nebraska, so dropping us five spots for going 1-1 in those two games isn't exactly as overly forgiving as it might appear. I predict if we go 2-0 this week, we will be back closer to #18 or even higher (depending on other results) when UCLA and MSU come to town. However, if don't win twice this week, we will probably cement ourselves as undeserving of a top 25 ranking for too many voters ... can't go 1-1 every week.
 
#17      
mysterio2525
Fighter of the Nightman said:
I mean, I was one of the most pessimistic fans out there after the Nebraska debacle, but that is because I follow this team closely, desperately want them to win each game and am close enough to see troubling patterns develop. However, if you just look at it objectively...

1. These voters thought we were the #18 team in the nation at the beginning of the week.
2. We lost a Quad 1 game in OT at Nebraska, still without our starting center.
3. We came home and won a Quad 1 game vs. Ohio State, now with our full roster.

The vast majority would PROBABLY say OSU is better than Nebraska, so dropping us five spots for going 1-1 in those two games isn't exactly as overly forgiving as it might appear. I predict if we go 2-0 this week, we will be back closer to #18 or even higher (depending on other results) when UCLA and MSU come to town. However, if don't win twice this week, we will probably cement ourselves as undeserving of a top 25 ranking for too many voters ... can't go 1-1 every week.
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Voters are human and the fact that we lost every week in January finally caught up. I am actually surprised we are ranked. This is a human poll so emotions usually win
 
#19      
Old Farm Illini
Our resume is strong enough to help us weather through a few stumbles. If you look at who's receiving votes, their resumes just aren't strong enough to pass us without us dropping a few more AND if they also go on a big run. Our floor is still a 5 seed IMO if we're healthy.
 
#20      
Fighter of the Nightman
Also always interesting to look at our results this season vs. the current top 25 and not necessarily where those teams were ranked when we played them:

11/20 - L 87-100 vs. #3 Alabama (Birmingham, AL)
12/10 - W 86-80 vs. #21 Wisconsin
12/14 - L 64-66 vs. #4 Tennessee
12/22 - W 80-77 vs. #15 Missouri (St. Louis, MO)
1/19 - L 78-80 at #9 Michigan State
1/23 - L 71-90 vs. #18 Maryland

With remaining games...

2/15 - vs. #9 Michigan State
2/18 - at #21 Wisconsin
2/22 - vs. #2 Duke (New York, NY)
3/2 - at #24 Michigan
3/7 - vs. #7 Purdue

So we have almost as many remaining opportunities vs. the current top 25 than we have already played, with 3 of the 5 being against currently top 10 opponents.
 
#21      
21ChampaignSt
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Also always interesting to look at our results this season vs. the current top 25 and not necessarily where those teams were ranked when we played them:

11/20 - L 87-100 vs. #3 Alabama (Birmingham, AL)
12/10 - W 86-80 vs. #21 Wisconsin
12/14 - L 64-66 vs. #4 Tennessee
12/22 - W 80-77 vs. #15 Missouri (St. Louis, MO)
1/19 - L 78-80 at #9 Michigan State
1/23 - L 71-90 vs. #18 Maryland

With remaining games...

2/15 - vs. #9 Michigan State
2/18 - at #21 Wisconsin
2/22 - vs. #2 Duke (New York, NY)
3/2 - at #24 Michigan
3/7 - vs. #7 Purdue

So we have almost as many remaining opportunities vs. the current top 25 than we have already played, with 3 of the 5 being against currently top 10 opponents.
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Outside chance UCLA is ranked when we play them, too. Currently receiving votes and games at home this week against MSU and PSU.
 
#22      
the juiceman cometh
Bigtex said:
How about Houston losing at home to Texas Tech but going up 1 spot.
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It was a one-point loss in OT to a very good Texas Tech team, and they handled a good WV team away this week, so I don't think it's egregious. They're sitting at 17-4, and are still ranked lower than their NET and KenPom rankings. They jumped ahead of Florida and Iowa St. who had much worse losses, and got leapfrogged by Tenn. Not even sure who you would have moved ahead of them. Purdue? Texas A&M?
 
#24      
sacraig
#25      
BatteredWifeSchwartz
The placement of some of these teams above us is baffling. Don't understand the Wiscy love. Kansas didn't drop nearly as much as they should've and I think it's just because it's Kansas. Mississippi State has been awful recently.

Not arguing that we really should be much higher (Michigan and Ole Miss should be above us IMO), but man the AP voters are inconsistent.
 
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