MRISports.com: MRI 2008 - Rankings Week 9

MRI 2008 - Rankings Week 9

February 2, 2009 | By Benjamin Miraski

Coach K knows that Duke's lead over the
rest of the field is quickly shrinking
(AP Photo/Sara D. Davis)

Apparently no one wants to be No. 1 this season. Duke climbs to the top of the polls, only to fall to Wake Forest, the team they replaced.

Pittsburgh has a chance to take back the top spot, but they trip up against Villanova.

This isn't necessarily something for these teams to worry about. They are still among the best 10 teams in the country. But they are coming back to the pack.

Just look at the latest MRI numbers.

Duke, North Carolina and Pittsburgh were the top three teams last week, with room to spare should any slip-ups occur.

But a 27-point gap has now almost half of what it once was. Connecticut, Memphis and the rest of the country are moving in on the three leaders.

But despite the closing field, there is still room for major upsets.

Until this week, the largest upset ever featured Clemson, at the time the No. 1 team in the MRI a few years ago. The Tigers lost a home game to Elon, effectively starting the destruction of Clemson's season that year.

The downward spiral that the Tigers experienced after that has been come to be known as the Clemson effect here at MRI Sports.

Yet that isn't the upset that occurred this year. This 1-in-100 shot victory came from teams far down the MRI's rankings.

Alcorn State, currently No. 342 -- next to last -- in the MRI, scored a major upset by beating No. 211 Alabama State 79-74 on the road. The chance of the victory according to the data compiled by MRI was only 1 percent given the futility of Alcorn State this season.

So now Clemson can share the biggest upset title with Alabama State, two teams that couldn't be more different in terms of make up and skill.

But they have one thing in common -- the ability to trip up in a game that should be absolutely no problem.

The MRI correctly predicted 73.40 percent of the games this week, despite the major upset. For the season, the MRI has predicted 71.65 percent of the games.

All-time, the computer has been 71.69 percent correct.

Check out all the rankings in week 9 of the MRI (through games of 2/1/09):

MRI Top 25 Rankings

Rank	Team	Record	MRI	LW
1	Duke	19-2	186.01	1
2	North Carolina	18-2	178.88	2
3	Pittsburgh	18-2	168.63	3
4	Connecticut	20-1	154.57	5
5	Memphis	18-3	148.58	4
6	Oklahoma	21-1	142.74	8
7	West Virginia	15-6	141.69	6
8	Missouri	17-4	136.63	7
9	Marquette	19-2	136.58	9
10	UCLA	17-4	134.43	19
11	Louisville	17-3	131.14	10
12	Kansas	17-4	129.84	11
13	Washington	16-5	126.08	12
14	Michigan State	17-4	124.74	13
15	LSU	17-4	123.42	20
16	Clemson	18-2	122.28	14
17	Xavier	19-2	120.52	16
18	Villanova	17-4	120.35	NR(27)
19	Gonzaga	15-4	118.29	23
20	Florida	18-4	118.19	17
21	Purdue	17-4	115.93	25
22	Wake Forest	17-2	114.24	15
23	BYU	15-5	112.41	NR(26)
24	Arizona State	16-5	111.06	18
25	Davidson	17-3	110.41	NR(29)

Teams Dropped From The Top 25: Illinois (LW #21, TW #27), Texas (LW #22, TW #26), Kentucky (LW #24, TW #33)

Other Teams People Might Care About

Rank	Team	Record	MRI	LW
26	Texas	15-5	109.99	22
27	Illinois	18-4	107.30	21
31	Dayton	20-2	100.80	37
33	Kentucky	16-6	100.75	24
41	Syracuse	16-5	91.88	34
47	Miami	13-7	86.95	42
50	Boston College	17-6	85.63	50
52	Maryland	14-7	84.22	49
63	Wisconsin	11-9	77.58	56
69	Florida State	16-5	73.60	61
71	Arizona	14-8	72.35	88
72	Auburn	12-8	72.16	62
79	Vanderbilt	13-8	68.44	73
82	Michigan	13-8	65.53	65
85	Northern Iowa	15-6	65.12	83
91	Northwestern	12-7	62.30	80
92	Notre Dame	11-8	62.13	79
105	Georgia Tech	10-10	53.22	115
106	Drexel	12-8	53.08	112
118	Iowa	12-10	47.82	107
141	Illinois-Chicago	9-11	37.12	128
151	Ohio	10-10	33.77	131
163	Texas Tech	10-10	30.80	145
182	Ball State	9-9	24.09	193
193	Wofford	8-10	20.70	180
238	Pennsylvania	5-11	5.56	249
241	Indiana	4-15	4.68	235
288	Valparaiso	4-16	-17.21	291

Last Place this week: North Carolina Central (1-21) at -115.99. 2nd week in a row.

Biggest Gain this week: UCLA gained 20.06 points. (Beat Cal (81-66) and Stanford (97-63))

Biggest Loss this week: Kennesaw State lost 25.63 points (Lost to Lipscomb (78-90), Mercer (75-88) and Campbell (44-87))

Conference rankings this week: ACC, Big 12, Big East, 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 freelance reporter, edits and writes for MRISports.com and is a featured blogger on FanIQ. He also is the Northwestern Wildcats Examiner for Examiner.com. Readers can contact Ben at bmiraski@mrisports.com

Posted February 2, 2009 1:54 PM

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