Of course, it’s still early. But now that we’ve gotten a few games under our belt (as have our SEC brethren), computer rankings like this are starting (I said “starting”) to take some shape. My “go to” has always been Sagarin, although there are others that have merit.
As of today, right after our win at CSU, we are #32 overall in his rankings, which is fifth among SEC teams. I haven’t done a detailed analysis of all the other teams in the Conference, but that sounds right to me after watching each of our early games - much closer than the 10th place finish predicted by the media in the pre-season.
Obviously, we’ll have a more accurate and confident feel for just where we stand after we’ve played a few Conference games. But for now, this feels like a pretty good picture of where we are.
BTW, we are ranked ahead of Texas, our only loss. That’s one reason that loss rankled me so much; for one thing, well - it’s Texas! But beyond that, the Horns just aren’t all that good this year. I thought during the game that we were better than them. They were just lucky to catch our almost ALL new team in Game #1. If we played them now (or later in the season), we beat them 8 or 9 out of 10 times.
Sagarin is OK, but we do have access to the be-all and end-all of ratings.
No, it’s not the RPI any more. It’s the NET rating. NCAA updates it every day. Well, today’s update isn’t there as of 9:45 a.m., but the Wednesday numbers had us #35, and again #5 among SEC teams (Allbarn, EOE-K, Jellycats and Moo U above us).
Interestingly, although we beat Indiana, they’re well above us (#22). Close home win, IU gets the SOS bump from also getting drilled at Duke, and we didn’t have any true road games yet (we do now). Will be looking to see what a road win over #218 ColoSt does.
I think we’re better than anyone thought. These rankings which ever one you look at will change in the next month or two.
The Texas Loss is looking like it may turn out to be a bad loss. The charity stripe is where we lost that one. Since that game they have taken better care of the ball and Gafford has realized that he has teammates that can help him on the offensive end of the floor. The player that need to get into game shape is Phillips. He can help a lot once he settles in.
The depth of our youthful hogs is a pleasant surprise.
This is the most talented team we’ve had in a long time.
Espn has a “match up predictor.” If you open our schedule, you can click on any given game and it gives you what they predict as the chances of winning. This probably isn’t news to anyone but me. After I found that last week I went though our whole schedule and looked at the predictions. They have us winning 6 SEC games. Six.
I think we are better than that.
By the way, they had us losing to Western Kentucky when I looked last week, now they say we have a 54.8% chance of winning.
I don’t have any direct knowledge of that ESPN predictor, but I read someone say elsewhere that it’s static - it still has the same predictions that it did before the seasons started.
If that’s true, I’d totally disregard it until and unless they start updating it.
I prefer Pomeroy, I think they are the best. Just personal preference. Hogs are 44th and 6th in the SEC. Teams have not even played 10 games yet, power ratings will flux around untill you get more numbers recorded.