Musketeers Enter Top 10

[XtremeXfan]

XU comes in at #10 in new CBS poll. AP and Coaches out tomorrow.

[stewiex]

As much as I like to read it I think were more realistically around 13-18. The top 10 ranking will help with a better seed come march but it also gets everyone gunning for you.

[tacitus]

where were we last week in their poll? I never look at that one...

For the coach's and associated press polls, I anticipate 3-4 spots respectively, to put us just outside of the top 10. After dropping St. Louis and St. Joe's this week, we will have a firm claim to the top 10 in the country next week.

After that, we will be fighting to stay that high, just like all the other contenders.

[xudash]

Here we are at half time of the Super Bowl.

The stakes are high, to say the least.

But the stakes couldn't be higher for Xavier. It is all about seeding now for the NCAA Tournament. Obviously, we need to keep winning and another A10 crown would be sweet.

I really want these guys to punch back into the Round of S16. Then I want for X to bottle some lightening, gain a little luck and play well enough, avoiding bad calls or offsetting their effect to break the ceiling: F4.

[XU-XHI]

The ranking is nice and the recognition is nice but it will have no bearing, especially this poll on seeding. Just keep winning winning winning, just keep winning.

[XU84]

Lets hope all this team is worried about is SLU on the 7th.

[CarlosTheJackal]

I'm getting vertigo. Rather be 10th in a month.

For all the years we were getting ignored, we sure are getting the love this season. Does anyone give any credence to the theory that the voters pick one non-BCS team to champion so everyone will get off thier backs? Still think URI deserves a rank right now.

[xudash]

I'm getting vertigo. Rather be 10th in a month.

For all the years we were getting ignored, we sure are getting the love this season. Does anyone give any credence to the theory that the voters pick one non-BCS team to champion so everyone will get off thier backs? Still think URI deserves a rank right now.

Interesting.

I don't believe they do it deliberately. I do believe some of them pile on because they are essentially lemmings. You see it in business and you see it in the media. It's like the early stages of popcorn. You get enough kernals to strike and people start to notice and they take the time to write something. After all, it's gist for their mill; it's material - a story. The press is your friend, most of the time, when you're winning and winning the right way and you otherwise represent a compelling story.

We'll see this notch up again next week, when the on court success leads to sufficient enough investigation on ABC's part to air a story about how we win the right way.

[mhettel]

Interesting dynamics going on here between, non-con SOS, pre-season rankings, and Conference affiliation.

A simple fact is that once you are ranked, you CANNOT drop unless you lose. Even if you don't really play anyone that great, if you win, the WORST you can do is stay still...

...which is where Conference affilation comes in. While were getting average wins against SBU, GW and laSalle, all (most) of the teams above us are playing each other in cnference, assuring at least oneof those teams will lose, ands giving us a place to move up to. This is a HUGE benefit of the A-10. If we finish out strong, we'll probably jump 1-2 spots per week, giving us plenty of time and an accomodating schedule to get entrenched into the top 10. In my view, 2 losses, to good teams, and well spaced, is fine for us to absorb and still get a top 10 ranking for selection sunday.

if you think about SJu in 2003, they were a VERY good team, but they were not ever really considered a national champion contender in preseason. they played a good non-con schedule, emerged flawless, and then walked through a pretty bad A-10 conference schedule. The result of not losing any games was the SOLE reason they got a #1 ranking and a #1 seed. That #1 seed is awfully nice for those first 2 rounds in the tourney.

We could be positioned similarly. get into the top 10, stay there until the end, and sneak away with a 2/3 seed.

[tacitus]

Agree totally about how the rankings work. The thing that sucks is that losing late can really drop you. If you lose early and drop (as is what happened to us), you can work your way back in/up the rankings. But toward the end of the season, you keep getting fewer and fewer chances. We are in prime position. We can lose one if it happens sooner than later, and we don't have to win the A10 tournament to be in good position on selection Sunday. And if finish really well...

I'm liking our chances at a 2 seed...

Less than a 3 would be the result of a bad spell in the next few weeks. But the boys won't let that happen...