One of these 12 teams will win it all

[ExitFlagger]

Why one of these 12 teams will win the national title​

John Gasaway, ESPN Insider
Dec 13, 2023, 09:00 AM ET

As of this week, we may know which 12 Division I men's college basketball teams are still in contention to win the 2024 national championship. Emphasis on "may."​

This is because the last 19 national champions have all been ranked in the top 12 in their respective season's Week 6 AP poll. In fact, Week 6 has outperformed polls from any other week over those nearly two decades, in terms of spotting the soon-to-be champion.

Beginning with the 2003-04 season, the average Week 6 ranking of the eventual national champion has been 4.7. No other week throughout the season ranks the eventual winner so highly, not even polls from March (e.g., Week 17, which averages out to 7.3).

Congratulations are therefore in order for the following teams, the top 12 in this season's Week 6 AP poll:

1. Arizona
2. Kansas
3. Purdue
4. Houston
5. UConn
6. Baylor
7. Marquette
8. Creighton
9. North Carolina
10. Gonzaga
11. Oklahoma
12. Tennessee

What is this strange, predictive power displayed by Week 6? Why would early December's conventional wisdom outperform evaluations from February or even March when it comes to picking champions?

Consider three factors that may help explain why this particular week's poll has outperformed all other weeks in terms of championship forecasting.

Our learning curve in any season may be more front-loaded than we think​

If we start in December 2023 and go back year by year, Week 6's streak of handing out top-12 rankings to eventual champions comes to a crashing halt with Carmelo Anthony and Syracusein 2002-03. The Orange were way down in the "also receiving votes" category in Week 6 that season.

Jim Boeheim's champions may have been outliers in terms of their early-season ranking, but they did illustrate half of the dynamic that powers Week 6's strong track record.

Once in a while, a team that is unranked in the preseason -- as Syracuse was in 2002-03, a phenomenon that continued until Week 10 -- will go on to win it all. In such instances Week 6 can also, the Orange notwithstanding, spot champions that were overlooked in the preseason.

For example, Florida followed the example set by the Orange and joined this same club in 2005-06, having been unranked to start that season. So too did UConn in 2011. And while the Huskies managed to secure a spot in the preseason poll a year ago, Dan Hurley's group jumped from an initial No. 25 ranking all the way to No. 2 by Week 6.

All of which merely highlights a common-sense point: After watching the first 10 or so games of any season, the AP's pollsters have learned a good deal about the best teams in the nation.

This knowledge is far from perfect, and countless surprises still await us after Week 6. Nevertheless, the learning curve that lifted UConn from No. 25 to No. 2 in a little more than a month at the beginning of last season reflected a sound evaluative conclusion. The Huskies did indeed turn out to be far stronger than pollsters anticipated before a single game had been played.

A learning curve can also confirm our priors​

Then again, if Week 6 benefits from an early-season version of twenty-twenty hindsight, this begs a simple question: Why don't subsequent polls do even better?

Sometimes that's exactly what occurs. Villanovawas, relatively speaking, a lowly No. 12 in Week 6 of the 2015-16 season. The Wildcats went on to hold down the No. 1 ranking for three straight weeks in February before winning the title in April. For its part, 2010 champion Dukebottomed out at No. 10 (Week 12) before peaking at No. 3 in the AP poll the day after Selection Sunday.

It just turns out that these Villanova and Duke teams constitute rather exceptional cases in their own right. The more common pattern has been that, instead of peaking either at Week 6 on the one hand or at the end of the season on the other, soon-to-be national champions sort of do away with peaking altogether.

Take Baylor in 2020-21, ranked No. 2 for 15 weeks and No. 3 twice. The Bears maintained the most statistically consistent ranking of any national champion since Duke was No. 1 in every poll from start to finish in 1991-92.

With some teams the evaluation just stays the same over the course of an entire season. Baylor was expected in the 2020-21 preseason to be one of the two or three best teams in the country. That's exactly what the Bears were.

That team from three years ago will be virtually invisible in any week-to-week comparison of which poll performs "best" at spotting champions. Such a comparison will instead be susceptible to reflecting, in large part, trajectories charted by the most extreme polling outliers.

One program in particular has compiled a remarkable body of work in the area of "polling outliers among national champions."

Week 6 gets an extraordinary lift from UConn's last three titles​

In both the 1998-99 and 2003-04 seasons, UConn's rankings looked very much like those that would be posted by a "normal" eventual national champion. The Huskies were ranked in the top 10 for the entirety of both seasons, a distinction carried by 21 of 38 champions since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

Titles won by UConn in 2010-11, 2013-14 and 2022-23, however, capped off seasons that displayed much more unusual trajectories as captured by the AP poll. Those three titles were won under three different head coaches, with a gap of no less than nine years between the second and third championships in that run.

Yet somehow each title season followed a strikingly similar sequence:

1. Enter the season unranked or, at best, No. 25
2. Go undefeated for the first nine to 14 games
3. Peak in the AP poll in Week 6
4. Suffer six to nine losses in conference play
5. Win the national championship

Bear in mind, Week 6 was already best-in-class among AP polls for championship forecasting prior to last season. Now, thanks to the uncannily consistent UConn Huskies, Week 6's preeminence is even more pronounced.

If we elect to remove UConn's three most recent titles from this discussion, the new forecasting superhero since 2004 turns out to be Week 11 (average eventual-champion ranking: 3.9). Last season's Week 11 poll dropped on January 16.

In other words, Week 11 arrives fairly early in the season, too. Whether we're correcting oversights from the preseason or confirming what we already suspected, 20 years of polling suggests there's a good deal to be learned before February.

It's only December, but we may already know more than we think we do about who will cut down the nets in April.

 

[boilerzz]

Why one of these 12 teams will win the national title​

John Gasaway, ESPN Insider
Dec 13, 2023, 09:00 AM ET

As of this week, we may know which 12 Division I men's college basketball teams are still in contention to win the 2024 national championship. Emphasis on "may."​

This is because the last 19 national champions have all been ranked in the top 12 in their respective season's Week 6 AP poll. In fact, Week 6 has outperformed polls from any other week over those nearly two decades, in terms of spotting the soon-to-be champion.

Beginning with the 2003-04 season, the average Week 6 ranking of the eventual national champion has been 4.7. No other week throughout the season ranks the eventual winner so highly, not even polls from March (e.g., Week 17, which averages out to 7.3).

Congratulations are therefore in order for the following teams, the top 12 in this season's Week 6 AP poll:

1. Arizona
2. Kansas
3. Purdue
4. Houston
5. UConn
6. Baylor
7. Marquette
8. Creighton
9. North Carolina
10. Gonzaga
11. Oklahoma
12. Tennessee

What is this strange, predictive power displayed by Week 6? Why would early December's conventional wisdom outperform evaluations from February or even March when it comes to picking champions?

Consider three factors that may help explain why this particular week's poll has outperformed all other weeks in terms of championship forecasting.

Our learning curve in any season may be more front-loaded than we think​

If we start in December 2023 and go back year by year, Week 6's streak of handing out top-12 rankings to eventual champions comes to a crashing halt with Carmelo Anthony and Syracusein 2002-03. The Orange were way down in the "also receiving votes" category in Week 6 that season.

Jim Boeheim's champions may have been outliers in terms of their early-season ranking, but they did illustrate half of the dynamic that powers Week 6's strong track record.

Once in a while, a team that is unranked in the preseason -- as Syracuse was in 2002-03, a phenomenon that continued until Week 10 -- will go on to win it all. In such instances Week 6 can also, the Orange notwithstanding, spot champions that were overlooked in the preseason.

For example, Florida followed the example set by the Orange and joined this same club in 2005-06, having been unranked to start that season. So too did UConn in 2011. And while the Huskies managed to secure a spot in the preseason poll a year ago, Dan Hurley's group jumped from an initial No. 25 ranking all the way to No. 2 by Week 6.

All of which merely highlights a common-sense point: After watching the first 10 or so games of any season, the AP's pollsters have learned a good deal about the best teams in the nation.

This knowledge is far from perfect, and countless surprises still await us after Week 6. Nevertheless, the learning curve that lifted UConn from No. 25 to No. 2 in a little more than a month at the beginning of last season reflected a sound evaluative conclusion. The Huskies did indeed turn out to be far stronger than pollsters anticipated before a single game had been played.

A learning curve can also confirm our priors​

Then again, if Week 6 benefits from an early-season version of twenty-twenty hindsight, this begs a simple question: Why don't subsequent polls do even better?

Sometimes that's exactly what occurs. Villanovawas, relatively speaking, a lowly No. 12 in Week 6 of the 2015-16 season. The Wildcats went on to hold down the No. 1 ranking for three straight weeks in February before winning the title in April. For its part, 2010 champion Dukebottomed out at No. 10 (Week 12) before peaking at No. 3 in the AP poll the day after Selection Sunday.

It just turns out that these Villanova and Duke teams constitute rather exceptional cases in their own right. The more common pattern has been that, instead of peaking either at Week 6 on the one hand or at the end of the season on the other, soon-to-be national champions sort of do away with peaking altogether.

Take Baylor in 2020-21, ranked No. 2 for 15 weeks and No. 3 twice. The Bears maintained the most statistically consistent ranking of any national champion since Duke was No. 1 in every poll from start to finish in 1991-92.

With some teams the evaluation just stays the same over the course of an entire season. Baylor was expected in the 2020-21 preseason to be one of the two or three best teams in the country. That's exactly what the Bears were.

That team from three years ago will be virtually invisible in any week-to-week comparison of which poll performs "best" at spotting champions. Such a comparison will instead be susceptible to reflecting, in large part, trajectories charted by the most extreme polling outliers.

One program in particular has compiled a remarkable body of work in the area of "polling outliers among national champions."

Week 6 gets an extraordinary lift from UConn's last three titles​

In both the 1998-99 and 2003-04 seasons, UConn's rankings looked very much like those that would be posted by a "normal" eventual national champion. The Huskies were ranked in the top 10 for the entirety of both seasons, a distinction carried by 21 of 38 champions since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

Titles won by UConn in 2010-11, 2013-14 and 2022-23, however, capped off seasons that displayed much more unusual trajectories as captured by the AP poll. Those three titles were won under three different head coaches, with a gap of no less than nine years between the second and third championships in that run.

Yet somehow each title season followed a strikingly similar sequence:

1. Enter the season unranked or, at best, No. 25
2. Go undefeated for the first nine to 14 games
3. Peak in the AP poll in Week 6
4. Suffer six to nine losses in conference play
5. Win the national championship

Bear in mind, Week 6 was already best-in-class among AP polls for championship forecasting prior to last season. Now, thanks to the uncannily consistent UConn Huskies, Week 6's preeminence is even more pronounced.

If we elect to remove UConn's three most recent titles from this discussion, the new forecasting superhero since 2004 turns out to be Week 11 (average eventual-champion ranking: 3.9). Last season's Week 11 poll dropped on January 16.

In other words, Week 11 arrives fairly early in the season, too. Whether we're correcting oversights from the preseason or confirming what we already suspected, 20 years of polling suggests there's a good deal to be learned before February.

It's only December, but we may already know more than we think we do about who will cut down the nets in April.

 

[lurkeraspect84]

 

[della]

Why one of these 12 teams will win the national title​

John Gasaway, ESPN Insider
Dec 13, 2023, 09:00 AM ET

As of this week, we may know which 12 Division I men's college basketball teams are still in contention to win the 2024 national championship. Emphasis on "may."​

This is because the last 19 national champions have all been ranked in the top 12 in their respective season's Week 6 AP poll. In fact, Week 6 has outperformed polls from any other week over those nearly two decades, in terms of spotting the soon-to-be champion.

Beginning with the 2003-04 season, the average Week 6 ranking of the eventual national champion has been 4.7. No other week throughout the season ranks the eventual winner so highly, not even polls from March (e.g., Week 17, which averages out to 7.3).

Congratulations are therefore in order for the following teams, the top 12 in this season's Week 6 AP poll:

1. Arizona
2. Kansas
3. Purdue
4. Houston
5. UConn
6. Baylor
7. Marquette
8. Creighton
9. North Carolina
10. Gonzaga
11. Oklahoma
12. Tennessee

What is this strange, predictive power displayed by Week 6? Why would early December's conventional wisdom outperform evaluations from February or even March when it comes to picking champions?

Consider three factors that may help explain why this particular week's poll has outperformed all other weeks in terms of championship forecasting.

Our learning curve in any season may be more front-loaded than we think​

If we start in December 2023 and go back year by year, Week 6's streak of handing out top-12 rankings to eventual champions comes to a crashing halt with Carmelo Anthony and Syracusein 2002-03. The Orange were way down in the "also receiving votes" category in Week 6 that season.

Jim Boeheim's champions may have been outliers in terms of their early-season ranking, but they did illustrate half of the dynamic that powers Week 6's strong track record.

Once in a while, a team that is unranked in the preseason -- as Syracuse was in 2002-03, a phenomenon that continued until Week 10 -- will go on to win it all. In such instances Week 6 can also, the Orange notwithstanding, spot champions that were overlooked in the preseason.

For example, Florida followed the example set by the Orange and joined this same club in 2005-06, having been unranked to start that season. So too did UConn in 2011. And while the Huskies managed to secure a spot in the preseason poll a year ago, Dan Hurley's group jumped from an initial No. 25 ranking all the way to No. 2 by Week 6.

All of which merely highlights a common-sense point: After watching the first 10 or so games of any season, the AP's pollsters have learned a good deal about the best teams in the nation.

This knowledge is far from perfect, and countless surprises still await us after Week 6. Nevertheless, the learning curve that lifted UConn from No. 25 to No. 2 in a little more than a month at the beginning of last season reflected a sound evaluative conclusion. The Huskies did indeed turn out to be far stronger than pollsters anticipated before a single game had been played.

A learning curve can also confirm our priors​

Then again, if Week 6 benefits from an early-season version of twenty-twenty hindsight, this begs a simple question: Why don't subsequent polls do even better?

Sometimes that's exactly what occurs. Villanovawas, relatively speaking, a lowly No. 12 in Week 6 of the 2015-16 season. The Wildcats went on to hold down the No. 1 ranking for three straight weeks in February before winning the title in April. For its part, 2010 champion Dukebottomed out at No. 10 (Week 12) before peaking at No. 3 in the AP poll the day after Selection Sunday.

It just turns out that these Villanova and Duke teams constitute rather exceptional cases in their own right. The more common pattern has been that, instead of peaking either at Week 6 on the one hand or at the end of the season on the other, soon-to-be national champions sort of do away with peaking altogether.

Take Baylor in 2020-21, ranked No. 2 for 15 weeks and No. 3 twice. The Bears maintained the most statistically consistent ranking of any national champion since Duke was No. 1 in every poll from start to finish in 1991-92.

With some teams the evaluation just stays the same over the course of an entire season. Baylor was expected in the 2020-21 preseason to be one of the two or three best teams in the country. That's exactly what the Bears were.

That team from three years ago will be virtually invisible in any week-to-week comparison of which poll performs "best" at spotting champions. Such a comparison will instead be susceptible to reflecting, in large part, trajectories charted by the most extreme polling outliers.

One program in particular has compiled a remarkable body of work in the area of "polling outliers among national champions."

Week 6 gets an extraordinary lift from UConn's last three titles​

In both the 1998-99 and 2003-04 seasons, UConn's rankings looked very much like those that would be posted by a "normal" eventual national champion. The Huskies were ranked in the top 10 for the entirety of both seasons, a distinction carried by 21 of 38 champions since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

Titles won by UConn in 2010-11, 2013-14 and 2022-23, however, capped off seasons that displayed much more unusual trajectories as captured by the AP poll. Those three titles were won under three different head coaches, with a gap of no less than nine years between the second and third championships in that run.

Yet somehow each title season followed a strikingly similar sequence:

1. Enter the season unranked or, at best, No. 25
2. Go undefeated for the first nine to 14 games
3. Peak in the AP poll in Week 6
4. Suffer six to nine losses in conference play
5. Win the national championship

Bear in mind, Week 6 was already best-in-class among AP polls for championship forecasting prior to last season. Now, thanks to the uncannily consistent UConn Huskies, Week 6's preeminence is even more pronounced.

If we elect to remove UConn's three most recent titles from this discussion, the new forecasting superhero since 2004 turns out to be Week 11 (average eventual-champion ranking: 3.9). Last season's Week 11 poll dropped on January 16.

In other words, Week 11 arrives fairly early in the season, too. Whether we're correcting oversights from the preseason or confirming what we already suspected, 20 years of polling suggests there's a good deal to be learned before February.

It's only December, but we may already know more than we think we do about who will cut down the nets in April.

I approve this message.

 

[ABVolsFan92]

Villanova I think was ranked 12 in 2018 at this time, that is a good sign for us

 

[Necessary Roughness]

Zona, Houston, or Uconn.

 

[kyjeff1]

Well, why don't we just go ahead and play out the season and see what happens.
But yeah, it'll prolly be one of those 12.
But I'm not buying UT, Baylor, Creighton and Oklahoma.

 

[della]

Well, why don't we just go ahead and play out the season and see what happens.
But yeah, it'll prolly be one of those 12.
But I'm not buying UT, Baylor, Creighton and Oklahoma.

Yeah, it will probably be one of the 12 and on the other hand it probably won't be on of the not 12.

 

[IUfanBorden]

Well, why don't we just go ahead and play out the season and see what happens.
But yeah, it'll prolly be one of those 12.
But I'm not buying UT, Baylor, Creighton and Oklahoma.

Could the year of the outlier---Duke, UK are young---Cats just getting an important piece back---maybe another here soon. And MSU has the talent. I never give up on Izzo.

With that being said---UConn and Arizona look nasty right now.

 

[ExitFlagger]

Villanova I think was ranked 12 in 2018 at this time, that is a good sign for us

 

[ABVolsFan92]

Well, why don't we just go ahead and play out the season and see what happens.
But yeah, it'll prolly be one of those 12.
But I'm not buying UT, Baylor, Creighton and Oklahoma.

why not Baylor? they are very deep this year and Scott Drew has won before

 

[Kevin Bryan]

Villanova I think was ranked 12 in 2018 at this time, that is a good sign for us

You're thinking of 2015-16.

 

[kyjeff1]

Could the year of the outlier---Duke, UK are young---Cats just getting an important piece back---maybe another here soon. And MSU has the talent. I never give up on Izzo.

With that being said---UConn and Arizona look nasty right now.

Yeah, it just seems like every year you have a group of teams that charge out of the gate like a rocket, peak too early and fade. Then there are the teams that fly under the radar, or just simply underachieve, then peak at the right time and go on a run.

There's no way I'm picking UK though, Calipari simply isn't a good enough coach. He has had 10 times the talent as anyone else and has fallen short all but 1 time. It took a generational talent + a transcendent kid, + an NBA lockout to make it happen. UK has the talent (so does duke), but Cal has other priorities and sucks at game management.

One other point though. These lists come out every year, does anyone recall if FAU, Miami and SDSU were on last years list? If they were good enough to get to the FF, they should have been on that 12 team list I would think.

 

[kyjeff1]

why not Baylor? they are very deep this year and Scott Drew has won before

I just don't see it when I watch them. They look like a sweet 16 team to me.
Depth means nothing unless you're dealing with injuries. If you are trying to play more than 7 guys, you're hurting yourself.

 

[della]

I just don't see it when I watch them. They look like a sweet 16 team to me.
Depth means nothing unless you're dealing with injuries. If you are trying to play more than 7 guys, you're hurting yourself.

Depth means a lot if you're dealing with team freshness and fouls too. If you can sub and avoid a huge drop off you have a distinct advantage.

 

[kyjeff1]

Depth means a lot if you're dealing with team freshness and fouls too. If you can sub and avoid a huge drop off you have a distinct advantage.

When you get to the NCAAT, you really should just roll with your best 7.
I mean yeah, if you have an injury, or foul trouble, you have to go with the 8th, or 9th guys, but you're really at a disadvantage when you do that in most cases.
It’s actually a rule that Wooden coached by.

 

[ABVolsFan92]

When you get to the NCAAT, you really should just roll with your best 7.
I mean yeah, if you have an injury, or foul trouble, you have to go with the 8th, or 9th guys, but you're really at a disadvantage when you do that in most cases.
It’s actually a rule that Wooden coached by.

A team that can go 9-10 deep with solid talent is going to outlast a team that can only go 7 deep

 

[kyjeff1]

A team that can go 9-10 deep with solid talent is going to outlast a team that can only go 7 deep

Too many commercial breaks and timeouts now, that whole "wear them down" thing is not much of a thing anymore.
Heck, in 2011, UConn won the Big East tournament, 5 games in 5 days, then won the NCAAT. They had a main 5 man rotation, then the 6th and 7th guys played 10-20 minutes.
There were a couple other guys that got 8 or nine minutes, but they went with 7 guys as their main rotation.

 

[kyjeff1]

So I gotta ask. Now that Creighton lost to UNLV by 15, do they now fall off the list?

Seems like these lists are always about who hasn’t lost to a bad team yet and with Creighton being a veteran team, they really don't have much of an excuse for losing.

Also, Marquette beat mighty St Thomas-MN by 5, are we sure they belong on the list?

 

[della]

So I gotta ask. Now that Creighton lost to UNLV by 15, do they now fall off the list?

Seems like these lists are always about who hasn’t lost to a bad team yet and with Creighton being a veteran team, they really don't have much of an excuse for losing.

Also, Marquette beat mighty St Thomas-MN by 5, are we sure they belong on the list?

The list is the list Jeff. But, don't feel bad, I have been authorized to tender you an honorary "Guest" Vol Fan membership for the 23-24 NCAA postseason. Notice, it's for postseason, so don't fret. You can still root for the Cats until they are knocked out and then you can seamlessly pull for the Vols as the battle through the dance.

You're welcome.

 

[lurkeraspect84]

The list is the list Jeff. But, don't feel bad, I have been authorized to tender you an honorary "Guest" Vol Fan membership for the 23-24 NCAA postseason. Notice, it's for postseason, so don't fret. You can still root for the Cats until they are knocked out and then you can seamlessly pull for the Vols as the battle through the dance.

You're welcome.

I'd rather have crabs.

 

[ExitFlagger]

So I gotta ask. Now that Creighton lost to UNLV by 15, do they now fall off the list?

Seems like these lists are always about who hasn’t lost to a bad team yet and with Creighton being a veteran team, they really don't have much of an excuse for losing.

Also, Marquette beat mighty St Thomas-MN by 5, are we sure they belong on the list?

Every team has the occasional game that’s closer than expected. It's not like players approach those games with the same intensity as they would a top 5 team. I think Marquette's clearly one of the top 12 teams. Hell, they were a legit top 10 team last year when they were a year younger.

 

[della]

I'd rather have crabs.

The offer wasn't extended to you, but if you throw some bleach on on your t-shirt and get it real clean, it should probably lighten up to a baby blue UNC shirt, so you can root for them.

 

[lurkeraspect84]

The offer wasn't extended to you, but if you throw some bleach on on your t-shirt and get it real clean, it should probably lighten up to a baby blue UNC shirt, so you can root for them.

I'm too slow to follow.

 

[boilerzz]

So I gotta ask. Now that Creighton lost to UNLV by 15, do they now fall off the list?

Seems like these lists are always about who hasn’t lost to a bad team yet and with Creighton being a veteran team, they really don't have much of an excuse for losing.

Also, Marquette beat mighty St Thomas-MN by 5, are we sure they belong on the list?

If you are going to play that game, the only teams that belong on the list are Houston, Arizona, Baylor and UConn. Everyone else has either a head scratching loss, too many losses or a closer than should have been win against someone they should have beaten handily.

 

[della]

I'm too slow to follow.

Ok, since you’d prefer crabs, no action is required, you already live in Memphis.

 

[kyjeff1]

The list is the list Jeff. But, don't feel bad, I have been authorized to tender you an honorary "Guest" Vol Fan membership for the 23-24 NCAA postseason. Notice, it's for postseason, so don't fret. You can still root for the Cats until they are knocked out and then you can seamlessly pull for the Vols as the battle through the dance.

You're welcome.

But what happens when UK sweeps the vols again?

 

[lurkeraspect84]

Amazing.

 

[kyjeff1]

Every team has the occasional game that’s closer than expected. It's not like players approach those games with the same intensity as they would a top 5 team. I think Marquette's clearly one of the top 12 teams. Hell, they were a legit top 10 team last year when they were a year younger.

Right, but what I'm getting at is, if UK waited a week to lose to uncw, they're easily on the list. Heck, they were poised to take a big jump a lot of teams ahead of them lost.
Again, I'm not saying UK should be on the lost, just saying they would have been if they beat a team they easily should have.

 

[kyjeff1]

If you are going to play that game, the only teams that belong on the list are Houston, Arizona, Baylor and UConn. Everyone else has either a head scratching loss, too many losses or a closer than should have been win against someone they should have beaten handily.

Right, but like I said, if UK beats Wilmington, which is something they would do 9 out of 10 times, they're not only on the list, they're extremely high on the list.

 

[della]

But what happens when UK sweeps the vols again?

Highly doubtful, regardless when y'all get peacocked or killed by some other critter you'll still have us to root for after the regular season is over.

 

[kyjeff1]

Highly doubtful, regardless when y'all get peacocked or killed by some other critter you'll still have us to root for after the regular season is over.

Come on now Della, you know the rules. When someone has scoreboard, especially after a season sweep, there shall be more respect than what you are showing right now.

 

[della]

Come on now Della, you know the rules. When someone has scoreboard, especially after a season sweep, there shall be more respect than what you are showing right now.

Jeff, you have clearly not boned up on the “ Kentucky compromise of 1912" which clearly states: reg season don’t matter.

 

[kyjeff1]

Jeff, you have cleared not bone up on the “ Kentucky compromise of 1912 which clearly states: reg season don’t matter.

Now Della, do you really want to talk about post season? Has UT ever earned NCAAT scoreboard on UK?
Going one round more than someone doesn't necessarily mean you were the better team, especially after you got swept.
I'm sure you’re going to bring up the SECT from 2 years ago, but really, who cares. UK trumped that when they smoked the big orange in TBA just last year and they weren't even at full strength.
I feel like the sweep is going to happen again this year. UT still has trouble scoring.
UK has better guards, that’s where UT struggles.

 

[ExitFlagger]

Right, but what I'm getting at is, if UK waited a week to lose to uncw, they're easily on the list. Heck, they were poised to take a big jump a lot of teams ahead of them lost.
Again, I'm not saying UK should be on the lost, just saying they would have been if they beat a team they easily should have.

 

[della]

Now Della, do you really want to talk about post season? Has UT ever earned NCAAT scoreboard on UK?
Going one round more than someone doesn't necessarily mean you were the better team, especially after you got swept.
I'm sure you’re going to bring up the SECT from 2 years ago, but really, who cares. UK trumped that when they smoked the big orange in TBA just last year and they weren't even at full strength.
I feel like the sweep is going to happen again this year. UT still has trouble scoring.
UK has better guards, that’s where UT struggles.

UT has outperformed Uk last year, the year before that and the year before that.

 

[kyjeff1]

 

[kyjeff1]

UT has outperformed Uk last year, the year before that and the year before that.

LOL, y'all went one more round in a different bracket and lost to a mid major after getting swept by the cats. You can't possibly justify it, but I have to remember, I am talking to the ever reaching Della.

Chubby Checker: "oh baby lets twist again… "

 

[della]

LOL, y'all went one more round in a different bracket and lost to a mid major after getting swept by the cats. You can't possibly justify it, but I have to remember, I am talking to the ever reaching Della.

Chubby Checker: "oh baby lets twist again… "

I like to dance Jeff, but I'm more into latin tunes. Anywho, I'm pulling for UK to win enough as to not rob us out of two quad 1 wins. So, y'all have some work to do as of right now you're only a quad 2 win in knoxville.

 

[lurkeraspect84]

UT has outperformed Uk last year, the year before that and the year before that.

What do you mean by outperformed? UK swept UT last year and you were the advocate of if you don't win it all in the NCAAT, you don't win shit.

Are flip-flops the official state shoe in Tennessee?