Because they haven’t beaten a single high-major team yet this season, the Arizona Wildcats didn’t get any votes in the Associated Press Top 25 for the third straight week Monday.
Yet the computers still love them.
Arizona, which finished its nonconference season at 6-5 after beating Samford and Central Michigan last week, sits at No. 25 in the NCAA’s NET ranking, No. 24 at Kenpom.com, No. 18 in EvanMiya.com and a high flying No. 13 at BartTorvik.com.
How?
The secret may be in the margins. Arizona has beaten its six mid-major opponents by an average of 40.3 points and all five of its losses have come to high-major opponents — and by an average of only 8.8 points. That counts an overtime game with West Virginia that was ultimately decided by seven points.
Evan Miyakawa, the Ph.D. statistician who runs EvanMiya.com, said he felt UA’s final scores had a lot to do with it.
“Losses have been close versus good teams, wins have been dominant,” Miyakawa said. “If you flip a few possessions here and there they would have 2-3 more wins and would still have convincingly beat the other teams.”
The metrics have also incorporated the Wildcats’ respectable nonconference schedule. Kenpom rates it at No. 49 despite the presence of two early games against 300-plus rated teams in Canisius (0-13) and Old Dominion (4-8) and UA’s nonconference schedule ranks as the 16th toughest among high major teams (many low-major teams intentionally schedule difficult road games in order to produce revenue for their athletic departments).
The fact that the metrics tend to be more predictive than backward-looking might also be a good sign for the Wildcats, because they have a lot more work to do.
As of now the Wildcats are 0-5 in Quad 1 games, haven’t played a Quad 2 game and only have wins in Quads 3 and 4. And, with just six wins in nonconference play, the Wildcats will probably have to win at least 12 games between Big 12 regular-season and tournament play to just to get on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
Baylor re-enters Top 25
As expected before the season, Arizona will have plenty of opportunities for Top 25 and Quad 1 wins throughout Big 12 play. Five conference teams landed in Monday’s Top 25 poll and another three received votes.
Baylor (7-3) returned to the poll at No. 25 while Iowa State remained at No. 3, Kansas moved down one spot from No. 7 to No. 8, Houston (8-3) stayed at No. 15 and Cincinnati moved up two spots to No. 17.
Of those also receiving votes, West Virginia had the 34th most points, while ASU had the 39th most and Texas Tech received the 43rd most.
Arizona will face Cincinnati, West Virginia, Baylor and Texas Tech over its first six conference games.
Big 12 honors Williams
Texas Tech’s Darrion Williams beat out Arizona’s Caleb Love and other nominees for the Big 12 Player of the Week award Monday.
Williams averaged 16.5 points, 7.0 assists, and 5.5 rebounds while shooting 55.6% from 3-point territory in the Red Raiders’ wins over Oral Roberts and Lamar.
In UA’s wins over Samford and Central Michigan, Love averaged 23.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists while hitting 6 of 17 3s (35.2%).
Meanwhile, ASU freshman Jayden Quaintance picked up the Big 12 Newcomer of the Week award after being named MVP of the Springfield Hall of Fame Classic. Quaintance had 19 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks to lead the Sun Devils past UMass in the game at Springfield, Mass.
