GoldenWarrior11 wrote:JohnW22 wrote:I'm obviously missing something here but why is Wichita State in all these polls as top 5 when they're returning everybody from a team that didn't even beat a tournament team last year. If they're top 5 Providence should for sure be ranked
Wichita State is incredibly overrated. Their record against teams from the major conferences (ACC, B1G, Big 12, Big East, PAC-12, SEC) isn't impressive. They improve the AAC, no doubt, but their issue will continue to be the fact that Memphis, UConn, Tulsa and Temple remain down (along with Tulane, East Carolina and USF).
looking at it- their record the last 5 years vs those conferences is 16-14. 6-5 in the NCAA tourney. Hardly bad.
The thing with their schedule is that it's going to improve massively by not having the round robin. using last years RPI's, they should wind up scheduled with only 3 games with RPI's over 200 from this past year next season(ECU, Tulane, and USF). 4th worst game would be Tulsa... at 140. Compare that to the MVC where of their 18 conference games- 8 were over 200, and only 2 Illinois St games were better than Tulsa.
The AAC will have 2 top 25 teams easily. SMU won't fall off much. UCF and Houston will have real shots at making the tourney. If the league can get even 1 of UConn or Temple good, they could possibly see 5 or 6 in the tourney next year.