The Curse of the #1 Rank

It has long been believed by college basketball fans that when a team is the number 1 seed in the country, there is a target on that team’s back.  Every team that plays the number 1 team in the country gives its best effort to knock off the top team.  This has been as evident as ever this season in college  basketball.  Over the past three weeks, each of the top seeds have lost.

3 weeks ago, Kansas lost to Tennessee, who had suspended a few of its best players prior to that game, and was relying on many walk-ons during that game.  Needless to say, even though this game was on the road and against Tennessee, losing to a team mostly made up of walk-ons was very unimpressive for the Jayhawks, and dropped them to #3 in the AP Poll, and #4 in my rankings.  Just last week, Texas lost twice as the top seed: to Kansas State and to UConn, both of whom lost their next games, to Oklahoma State and Providence, respectively.  Finally, this week, Kentucky lost on the road to South Carolina, who has had a mediocre season at best.  John Calipari has stated multiple times that his team has lost “7 or 8 times,” but has simply come up with wins in the last minute.  The Wildcats could not win at the end of the game this week.

As many of the top seeds go down, and these teams are filtered down in the rankings, how will the next #1 team fare?  In the AP Poll, the #1 seed will most likely be Kansas, given that the Jayhawks win out this week.  In my rankings, the current #2 team is Villanova, and with the Kentucky loss and a Villanova win tonight over Notre Dame with no games remaining before the rankings come out Monday, Nova will likely be #1 in my rankings next week.   

Nova plays Seton Hall at home next Tuesday, and will play Georgetown next Saturday, which I will have the privilege to attend.  Both these teams are very talented teams that have the opportunity to play with any team in the country.  Seton Hall has a horrendously difficult schedule, both in and out of conference, and 5 of the Pirates’ 6 losses are to ranked teams.  Jeremy Hazell is a premier scorer in the Big East who leads the team in scoring.  Georgetown is a top 15 team in the country, ranked 5th in my Top 25 this week, but lost to Syracuse and will drop.  Georgetown lost a thriller to Nova 2 weeks ago, after staging a huge 2nd half comback to tie the game at one point.  Villanova will have to play solid in order to stay #1 in my rankings after next week.

Kansas has to play Kansas State this Saturday, which is before the new ranking come out, at KSU’s Bramlage Coliseum.  Kansas State has recently beaten top seeded Texas at Bramlage, and beat top seeded Kansas at Bramlage during Michael Beasley’s only year at Kansas State.  KSU is always a difficult place to play, and Kansas will have to play very well to avoid a loss.  The next week, Kansas has a fairly weak schedule, with games against Nebraska and Colorado.  The following week, however, will be a potential Big XII regular season championship deciding game, as Kansas will travel to Austin to play Texas on Monday, February 8th.

Through the coming weeks, it will be interesting to see how the top teams fare after the recent lack of success by these teams.  Villanova, Kansas, and even Syracuse all have chances to be a top seed in the coming weeks, and all have challenging schedules remaining with just over 1 month till conference tournaments start.