March 11, 2008
The List
Week of March 10, 2008

by Joe Sheehan

The rankings have stabilized over the last couple of weeks, and I’m as comfortable with this ranking as with any I’ve done this year. They’re also getting closer to the objective metric, at least towards the top. There are outliers, but I look at this and I’m comfortable.

An ordinal list doesn’t give you a sense of tiers, of course. There’s a break after North Carolina, with the top four teams in their own league. There’s another after Texas, with Xavier on an island. Then there’s a large clutch of similar teams; I have Wisconsin 10 spots ahead of Purdue, and there’s an argument that because the Boilermakers swept the Badgers, that’s insane. It’s not a great argument—it’s two games—but it’s an argument.

This is the last ranking of the season, since a week from now the teams will be in the only order that matters. I’ll start The List earlier next season, but not much; I still think preseason and early-season rankings are essentially meaningless in a sport where a third of the participants turn over from year to year.

As always, all records are Division I games only, through Sunday, and the second number in parens is a team’s rank in last week’s poll. No comments this week, either.

1. Memphis (28-1) (1).
2. UCLA (25-3) (2).
3. Kansas (25-3) (3).
4. North Carolina (27-2) (4).
5. Tennessee (25-3) (5).
6. Georgetown (25-3) (7).
7. Duke (24-4) (6).
8. Texas (25-4) (10).
9. Xavier (24-4) (8).
10. Wisconsin (23-5) (12).
11. Connecticut (24-4) (11).
12. Stanford (24-4) (9).

13. Washington State (24-6) (15).
14. Butler (27-3) (14).
15. Louisville (22-7) (13).
16. Drake (20-7) (18).
17. Marquette (23-6) (16).
18. Gonzaga (23-4) (19).
19. Notre Dame (24-6) (21).
20. Purdue (24-5) (17).
21. Indiana (22-6) (20).
22. Southern California (24-5) (NR).
23. Davidson (24-5) (24).
24. Brigham Young (22-6) (NR).
25. West Virginia (20-7) (NR).

Writing Nasty Letters: Kansas State, Oklahoma, Ohio State, New Mexico, Syracuse

Leaving: Vanderbilt (22), St. Mary’s (23), Clemson (25)

The “numbers only” ranking

1. Memphis
   
2. North Carolina
   
3. UCLA
   
4. Kansas
   
5. Duke
   
6. Wisconsin
   
7. Tennessee
   
8. Georgetown
   
9. Texas
   
10. Louisville
    
11. Xavier
    
12. Washington State
    
13. Stanford
    
14. Marquette
    
15. Michigan State
    
16. Indiana
    
17. Connecticut
    
18. Drake
    
19. Clemson
    
20. Notre Dame
    
21. West Virginia
    
22. Gonzaga
    
23. Southern California
    
24. Kansas State
    
25. Purdue

Joe Sheehan is an author of Basketball Prospectus. You can contact Joe by clicking here or click here to see Joe's other articles.