The Low Major Poll, Week 5
Downballot mid-majors galore in our first poll of December!
Welcome back to The Low Major Poll: our weekly look at the top 25 teams in college basketball as determined by four of our writers and one of our good friends.
Our voters:
Reppin’ Conference USA, the UTSA sleeper agent: David Peterson! (@depeterson61)
Reppin’ the American, a firm believer in East Carolina supremacy: Eli Powell! (@wellitseli)
Reppin’ the Mountain West because the Summit League isn’t a G5 conference: maddy! (@maddybutsports)
Reppin’ the MAC, noted Bowling Green hat wearer: Ret! (hides his socials)
And reppin’ the Sun Belt while insisting up and down that they’re called Louisiana-Lafayette, joining us on a weekly basis from :
!
Our Week 5 poll is as follows.
Unless specified otherwise, all rankings are per KenPom.com on the morning of December 5.
Eli: Looks like our top two are in line with consensus no matter how you slice it. Reddit agrees with us and has Texas #1, while the AP kept Houston in the top spot. We have three ties in the rankings this week, which is a lot more like I expected this to look on a weekly basis.
Preston: I find it funny that one of them is between Kansas and Tennessee.
Eli: That one loss to odd-game Colorado weighing down heavily on the Vols.
Preston: But we are already getting to the point in the season where head-to-head can’t be used consistently, with how many games top teams have played against each other.
Eli: See also: UCLA directly above Illinois. The most intriguing tied team to me is the one tied with UCLA: Baylor. Seems like we either like them or hate them. They beat Gonzaga again, I guess proving once and for all that Scott Drew has ownage on Mark Few. They also got dismantled by 26 at #38 Marquette. I think I’m already at the point where I’m willing to let single-game results wash over me a little more easily than some others given I have Baylor all the way up at #10.
Preston: I feel a bit better about Gonzaga as a win of quality this week than last. Texas and Purdue have not collapsed (…yet, though I’m not ruling it out) and the wins over Kentucky and Xavier + close loss to Baylor give Gonzaga a high floor for me.
Eli: You know what’d make them look a lot worse? If they lost that Michigan State game.
Preston: Yeahhh…
Eli: It was just two weeks ago I said I feel confident Michigan State is firmly within the top 25.
Preston: Although, there is the boat asterisk.
Eli: The masterisk, if you will.
They wouldn’t.
Eli: Let’s talk about the corn states. Everyone but me has Iowa State ranked and everyone but me has Creighton unranked. I was the biggest Creighton hater on the planet in the preseason, so I’m not quite sure how that happened.
Preston: One (really bad) loss might not have dropped Creighton out for me, but they really just don’t have a lot in their favor aside from a win over Arkansas. Losing to Arizona also got a good deal worse this week, although in their defense, it was by two in Maui.
Eli: The home loss to Nebraska looked like the clunky Bluejays I remember watching last year, and is exactly why I was so wary of ranking them high in the preseason. They’d just have so many performances where the shots wouldn’t fall at all and they’d almost always end up as losses. They almost had that happen on opening night against #234 St. Thomas and you could argue that they also win at Texas if they could shoot even a little better.
David: This was my skepticism with them from the off and so I’m feeling capital-V Vindicated.
Eli: I also feel vindicated! And yet I still ranked them. Curious!
Preston: Iowa State also falls into the category of severely lacking really impressive wins, but losing by 18 to UConn is…maybe okay? This week for me was defined by a lot of reevaluating existing wins/losses that are getting better or worse.
Eli: That explains Mississippi State all the way up at #9.
Preston: Yep, the Marquette and #51 Utah wins could not have gotten better this week.
Eli: I considered raising them a bunch for the same reason but I thought a little harder about the Bulldogs’ performance in those games and they weren’t necessarily dominant or anything, so I held them pretty steady for now.
Preston: That’s fair. They’re in the middle of a long stretch where they shouldn’t be challenged at present. On December 20, they hit #71 Drake and kick off ten of the next eleven games against top-100 teams, but they don’t have any between now and then.
Eli: I said this last week too, but I’m so glad Chris Jans is succeeding at his new post already. He was such an underrated coach at New Mexico State.
David: They may not have won many tourney games but by god they were a force to be reckoned with.
Eli: Speaking of that state, we ranked New Mexico! Richard Pitino is back!
Preston: I had three Mountain West teams in my top 30 and…completely missed UNM!
Eli: The conference still has three unbeaten teams and all three of them got some downballot votes. Not to mention San Diego State still ahead of all of them. KenPom has them as the best mid-major conference easily right now.
David: I realize I’m very high on consensus against UNM but man the Mountain West looks feisty this year.
Preston: I don’t know that I would’ve ranked them just because the résumé rests so heavily on the Saint Mary’s win, but they’re in the conversation for sure.
Eli: Simply also rank Saint Mary’s.
David: Saint Mary’s pulled themselves back into 25 by virtue of keeping it so tight against Houston.
Eli: That was about my reasoning as well. They still look like a top-25 team to me despite the recent results. Charleston breaks in as well.
Preston: I’m doing my part! The loss to UNC has gotten worse, which is a point against them. On the other hand, the Virginia Tech win is getting better. VT itself is undefeated outside of Charleston and has wins over UNC and #36 Penn State.
Eli: I will admit I’m getting closer to thinking about Charleston than I used to be. They’ve played a lot of teams with a pulse and beaten all but one of them, even if not super convincingly. If I was ranking on résumé, they would probably be in the top 25. As it stands, they’re in this pod a couple rungs below with Iowa State and Virginia Tech, all teams whose case to be ranked relies pretty heavily on how they performed against a Carolina team that isn’t as elite as we once thought. They all also have other good performances, but without the Carolina win, there’s zero chance Iowa State sniffs the top 25. Charleston even won their MTE but a whole lot of people still point to keeping it close against Carolina as evidence they’re good.
Preston: My feeling about all of those teams, and why I ranked all of them, is mostly due to my belief that UNC is still pretty solid. They’re 5-4, but none of the losses are really bad exactly, and beating #80 James Madison and Charleston is some evidence of quality. #110 Portland too.
Eli: I think they’re good too. If I had to guess, they’ll be back in the top 25 sooner or later, Bacot willing. I’m not sure I think Hubert is a good in-game coach, but the talent looks pretty undeniable when it’s firing on all cylinders.
Preston: They’re not a top-five team like they started as, but yeah, they will get back in the top 25 at some point if they click.
David: Just want to say that I’m still really low on Auburn just because I don’t see a ton that’s got me outwardly psyched, as much as I respect that they haven’t lost yet. 43-42 is just a depressing sore of score to reward, even if that #64 Northwestern win is looking like their best.
Eli: Northwestern might be rankable if they didn’t get blown out by #79 Pitt. What a weird B1G-ACC Challenge it was.
David: Yeah that was funky. I’m gonna miss it!
Eli: It’s okay, now the B1G gets to play two random California schools every year, so that’s like its own little challenge.
David: I’ll also say that #39 UAB missed by about the slightest margin you can miss by, and I’m a little bit surprised they’re nowhere for us.
Maddy: Go Seattle!
Thanks again to Preston Pack for joining us. If you like reading our stuff, you’ll love their newsletter The Wild Pitch, especially The SoCon Lowdown: their weekly recap series on Southern Conference basketball. Give 'em a sub!
Have an amazing week. See you next time!
 | A guest post by
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ret is the only based voter this week sadly