MRISports.com: MRI 2008 - Rankings Week 5

MRI 2008 - Rankings Week 5

January 5, 2009 | By Benjamin Miraski

DeJuan Blair and Levance Fields celebrate hanging on to the No. 1 ranking in the MRI. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez) Two weeks pass and you would think nothing ever changes around the MRI. Pittsburgh still leads the pack. The ACC still maintains its jumble at the top. And Indiana still continues to struggle.

Yes, the more time passes, the more we see the field of contenders really take shape. Just look at how UCLA has vaulted itself into the tops of the rankings with its 8-game winning streak.

Not that it has been that easy for all of them.

Take Georgetown, who beat Connecticut on the road, only to return home and lose to Pittsburgh, the continuing No. 1 team in the MRI.

It seems you just can't catch any breaks if you are the Hoyas.

Or how about Syracuse who is on a 5-game win streak since dropping its game against Cleveland State at the buzzer, but they still can't crack back into the top 25.

And if you look at the MRI scores, we have quite a bunching from No. 7 through No. 28. This could be a very interesting tournament if things continue to go the way they have been. Teams will be so similar in stature and quality, we may see quite a number of upsets in March, just because seeding all of these doppelgangers will be so difficult.

Now that the new year has started, it is time for the teams to prove themselves in conference. I will have my eyes on the ACC, which has come out of the gate hard (and already seen one upset with UNC losing to Boston College last night), and on the Big East where the teams will continue to just beat each other up.

Yes, it should be an interesting two months.

The MRI correctly predicted 73.64 percent of the games over the past two weeks, making it 73.21 percent correct on the season. All time the MRI has correctly predicted 71.79 percent of the games.

Check out all the ratings in week 5 of the MRI.

MRI Top 25 Rankings

Rank	Team	Record	MRI	LW
1	Pittsburgh	13-0	145.69	1
2	Duke	12-1	142.74	3
3	North Carolina	12-1	140.23	2
4	West Virginia	11-2	136.89	6
5	Connecticut	12-1	121.09	5
6	Memphis	10-3	119.31	25
7	Clemson	14-0	113.82	4
8	Marquette	13-2	110.43	24
9	UCLA	12-2	106.51	NR(27)
10	Wake Forest	13-0	105.25	9
11	Arizona State	12-2	105.13	NR(31)
12	Louisville	9-3	102.23	13
13	Washington	10-3	101.36	16
14	Missouri	11-2	101.22	8
15	Cal	13-2	100.85	23
16	Illinois State	14-0	99.83	NR(37)
17	Villanova	12-2	99.75	14
18	Texas	11-2	99.12	15
19	Kansas State	9-3	98.90	22
20	Michigan State	11-2	98.33	NR(34)
21	Oklahoma	13-1	98.30	7
22	BYU	11-2	97.29	10
23	Kansas	10-3	94.57	11
24	Georgetown	10-2	93.07	20
25	Maryland	11-2	92.09	NR(29)

Teams Dropped From The Top 25: Gonzaga (LW #12, TW #40), Illinois (LW #17, TW #26), Purdue (LW #18, TW #34), Northwestern (LW #19, TW #57), LSU (LW #21, TW #32)

Other Teams People Might Care About

Rank	Team	Record	MRI	LW
26	Illinois	13-2	91.25	17
30	Boston College	13-2	89.61	58
33	Dayton	13-1	88.34	32
34	Purdue	11-3	88.03	18
37	Miami	9-3	83.02	54
38	Kentucky	11-4	82.88	39
42	Vanderbilt	11-3	79.74	64
56	Notre Dame	9-3	72.76	69
57	Northwestern	8-4	72.73	19
59	Wisconsin	10-3	72.39	62
62	Auburn	9-4	70.49	84
63	Florida State	13-2	69.66	72
68	Iowa	11-4	65.75	66
74	Michigan	10-3	63.43	80
82	Arizona	9-5	59.02	89
85	Georgia Tech	8-5	57.87	51
87	Illinois-Chicago	7-5	55.74	70
115	Texas Tech	9-4	44.37	95
126	Drexel	5-6	38.67	154
134	Wofford	3-5	36.54	136
135	Northern Iowa	7-6	36.19	168
150	Ohio	7-6	33.91	189
214	Ball State	4-7	17.36	177
225	Indiana	4-8	12.22	192
269	Pennsylvania	2-7	1.61	271
299	Valparaiso	2-10	-11.22	294

Last Place this week: North Carolina Central (0-16) at -75.01. 4th week in a row.

Biggest Gain this week: Memphis gained 38.60 points. (Beat Drexel (87-49), Cincinnati (60-45), Northeastern (80-48) and Lamar (108-75))

Biggest Loss this week: Cal State Sacramento lost 29.47 points (Lost to George Washington (47-59), Southern Utah (51-76), Pacific (51-70), Portland State (67-79) and Eastern Washington (74-87))

Conference rankings this week: ACC, Big East, Big 12, PAC-10, Big Ten, SEC, Mountain West, C-USA, MVC, Atlantic 10, WAC

The MRI Rankings are copyright 2009 by MRISports.com. Ben Miraski is a reporter for the Medill News Service, edits and writes for MRISports.com and is a featured blogger on FanIQ. Readers can contact Ben at bmiraski@mrisports.com

Posted January 5, 2009 11:50 AM

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