#23 in new AP poll this week.

[stormspencer]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/ncaa/men/polls/

And with two wins this week, we have a legitimate to chance to jump considerably this week. The teams immediately in front of us (and their opponents this week) are:
#22 Michigan State - Iowa, @Ohio St.
#21 New Mexico - @ San Diego St.
#20 Memphis - @Cincinatti, SMU
#19 Connecticut - @Louisville
#18 SMU -Louisville, @Memphis

I know rankings mean virtually nothing...but it's nice to be recognized.

 

[skyvue]

KU stinks it up against oswho and falls all the way to #8. Not bad for a seven-loss team.

 

[Sooner04]

I know rankings mean virtually nothing...

Atta boy! Preach on, brother!

 

[BigTime]

Atta boy! Preach on, brother!

I disagree. Being ranked in the AP poll gets your team on Sportscenter/Fox equivalent, named on the updates of sports radio and on the scores on the front of ESPN.com.

It is great for program visibility which helps with recruiting.

For those reasons, it matters.

 

[DenverSooner]

I completely agree. Being ranked is very important for the program. It may not matter much for the NCAA Tournament but it has other benefits.

Being ranked in basketball is a much bigger deal than football. There are almost 3 times as many basketball teams as football teams.

 

[Sooner04]

I disagree. Being ranked in the AP poll gets your team on Sportscenter/Fox equivalent, named on the updates of sports radio and on the scores on the front of ESPN.com.

It is great for program visibility which helps with recruiting.

For those reasons, it matters.

Valid points. And I'm with you on all of them. As long as we're ranked I'm happy. I grow weary of "we're ranked this but we should be higher because of this and we beat that." That gets old.

All that said, our last two classes (very productive classes, obviously) signed on with a program that hadn't spent a day ranked the previous season. The only thing more meaningless than seasonal rankings are recruiting rankings. If you've got full trust in the staff (and Lord knows I do) then you've got to know that whoever is coming in is going to help.

 

[Max Power]

Espn has us at 20 in their daily RPI

 

[MNsooner]

At this point I am not thinking about ranking, but seeding. Can we get 2nd in the big 12 tourney? Can we get a 4 or 5 seed in the NCAA? Rankings are fun at the beginning of the season, but we're about at the time when the only rankings that matter come into play.