Michigan Basketball stays #2 in AP & USA Today Poll

Submitted by Wettin 3's on

Michigan received two first place votes (AP) and one first place vote from USA Today, but remain #2 behind Duke. #3 Syracuse had a major drop to #9, after their first loss to Temple. Also nice to see Pittsburgh and Kansas State make the poll at #24 and #25 respectively, since we beat them in the NIT Preseason tourney at Madison Square Gardens. Happy Holidays Michigan Family!!

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rankings

hoota122

December 24th, 2012 at 2:28 PM ^

Our chance of being at the top is on January 12th, when Duke takes on NC State at NC State. Upset anyone? (Assuming we win our games prior to that). We take on Ohio the day after at their place.

GOLBOGM

December 24th, 2012 at 3:31 PM ^

Look at the teams other top 10 teams have lost to this year already and in the past- it's not as easy as looking for the next top 10 team on the schedule and saying we or any other team won't lose until then.

Plus rankings matter very little- just keep taking care of business and the rest wil lfall into place- way too early to be caught up too much into who is number 1 and projections at this point.

go16blue

December 24th, 2012 at 2:28 PM ^

Exactly where we deserve to be at this point imo. Not sure who gave us a first place vote, until Duke loses or we get well into the conference season (and we prove ourselves against OSU/Indiana/etc) I don't think we deserve one. Duke's schedule has been extremely difficult thus far and they've passed every test.

LSAClassOf2000

December 24th, 2012 at 2:47 PM ^

Purely informational stuff here:

According to Pollspeak.com - (LINK) - the breadown for all AP poll voters for the most recent poll is here. Two first place votes from Cormac Gordon (Staten Island Advance) and Fletcher Mackel (WDSU in New Orleans), four #3 votes, two #4 votes, and a sole #5 vote. Interesting distribution. Fifty-six #2 votes. 

Very interesting site if you want to see who voted a particular team into what position  in a given week. Personally, I like the #2 ranking - that seems about right for how we have performed to date, now at the cusp of the conference stretch. 

 

Mr. Yost

December 24th, 2012 at 3:40 PM ^

We should play ND every year...I think it would be cool to have a home and home series with them where our home games are at the Palace (Pistons) and their are at Bankers Life Fieldhouse (Pacers).

OR

Play all of the games in the United Center (Bulls) as a neutral site game.

...very "Brandon" of me to suggest such a thing.

Mr. Yost

December 24th, 2012 at 3:31 PM ^

Honestly, I think we've played like a #5-#8 type team in most years. And maybe that's where we end up if we continue to play like we have. With that said, there's only one team in the country that has played better than us THIS year and that's Duke. So with that said, I think we're right on.

But I haven't seen enough to feel like Indiana and maybe 1 or 2 other B1G conference games are going to be our only challenges all year. If we play at our best for longer stretches of games...then I'll feel more comfortable that Indiana, MSU an OSU will be our only true tests. I want to feel 100% or maybe even 90% sure we can beat the Illinois, Minnesota, N'Western type teams with relative ease before I go crazy about us being a top 5 team.

You win what you're supposed to win and go .500 vs. the other "Big 3" and that's a 3-loss season. That's a top 5 team and a likely #1 seed in the tournament.

With all that said, I think if we play our best, Duke is the only team that can stay with us...maybe IU in Bloomington.

Consistency is all I want to see - and not even Duke has shown that as of late. I thought we did for a good amount of the WMU and EMU games, and for the first 30 minutes of the WVU game. 1/13 is going to be the first real test, IMO...on the road @ OSU. I'm not saying we have to win by 20+, but if we can just play smart and execute to our level for 35+ minutes...we'll win and I'll be ready to move this team from potential Final Four to TRUE National TITLE contender.

jonvalk

December 25th, 2012 at 1:07 AM ^

Just watched Fab Five again and it got me all excited for the possibility of a #1 seed and a deep tourney run. Also, we have the potential to see three Freshman starters very soon - pretty cool.I personally think McGary is starting to feel it at this level and GRIII and Stauskas already deserve starting roles. Man, I get goosebumps just considering how awesome it is that Michigan is sooo close to being the iconic sports god I grew up with.