in latest ESPN/USA poll.
Go gophers!
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/usatpoll.htm
Go gophers!
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/usatpoll.htm
2. Notre Dame loses to a weak St. John's team and is still pretty high at #13? The Irish have beaten Texas, that's it. Even with playing Texas & UNC in Maui, the Irish's nonconference schedule is almost as weak as the Gophers' nonconference schedule. Until proven otherwise, the Irish are a "paper tiger."
Gonzaga falls from #17 to #37 after playing 1 game this week (losing at Utah by 1 point.)
The Las Vegas Sports Consultants poll comes out later today, which is the only real poll I could care less about.
These guys set the lines, their livelihood depends on how well they know the teams, not some coaches or media who see two games a week.
Perfect example is the Gopher football team. When the Rodents made it to 7-1 and were ranked for a couple weeks, getting as high as around 19th or 20th in the polls, the LVSC still had them ranked 39th or so. Seems they were dead on with that one.
I'm curious to see where they fall this week, if they're ranked in the LVSC top 30 for college basketball.
Interesting--I hadn't heard about that poll.
I do know that when the lines are set, it's not based solely on ability. The lines take inot account betting proclivities by the fans of the schools, in order to try to keep even the amounts be on both sides of the line. Do you know if that proclivity reflected in the poll, or is that com poll results when determining the line?
For example, I don't think the 39th ranking was accurate either. While I do think they were ranked too high, the loss of Decker had a huge effect on the gophers' results. But if I take what I think is a reasonable ranking for the gophs (somehwere around 30?) and add the fact that Minnesotans tend to be small bettors, I might end up at 39.