MRISports.com: MRI 2008 - Rankings Week 13

MRI 2008 - Rankings Week 13

March 2, 2009 | By Benjamin Miraski

Tyler Hansbrough is concentrating
on keeping his team flying high in
the MRI (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

With just two weeks to go before the tournament, it appears thing have gotten quite interesting in the MRI.

Pittsburgh stumbled against Providence to knock it back down from challenging North Carolina, who became the first team this season to break the 200-point mark. Pittsburgh is now back within striking distance of other challengers Memphis, Duke and Connecticut, making the run to the Final Four very dependent on how the final bracket pairings turn out.

After those five and potentially Kansas, the rest of the league drops off quickly. So at this point, do we have a six-team race for the title?

I think so. While we can see teams like Oklahoma, Michigan State and dark horse West Virginia going to the Elite Eight, I think the Final Four will only come from the top six teams in the MRI.

Of course, in two weeks, things could be a lot different, but right now, I can't see it any other way.

You might say that Oklahoma with Blake Griffin back is a real challenge. But without Griffin, Oklahoma has looked pedestrian and against the better teams, easily beatable. Shut down Griffin, win the game -- it seems a simple formula.

And past them, I can't see another team that can really challenge. Maybe Marquette before the loss of Dominic James. Maybe Louisville if they didn't have the tendency to implode. Maybe someone from the Pac-10 if I didn't doubt that the strength of the league beyond the first three.

Basically, there is no one.

And even the contenders have their issues so the race is anywhere but finished. But this is a big change from just a few weeks ago when any of the top ten could have made a run for the title.

If you go straight by the MRI, the cut-off for an at-large bid (at least a more likely chance at one) would have been at No. 50.

The computer predicted 69.00 percent of the games this week putting it at 70.56 percent of the games on the season. All-time the computer is 71.51 percent correct.

Check out all the rankings in week 13 of the MRI:

MRI Top 25 Rankings

Rank	Team	Record	MRI	LW
1	North Carolina	24-3	203.57	1
2	Pittsburgh	25-3	195.51	2
3	Memphis	26-3	186.66	3
4	Duke	24-5	182.53	4
5	Connecticut	27-2	175.32	5
6	Kansas	24-5	169.29	7
7	West Virginia	20-9	158.75	6
8	Missouri	23-5	155.16	8
9	Oklahoma	26-3	153.53	9
10	Michigan State	23-5	152.89	11
11	UCLA	22-7	150.32	12
12	Louisville	23-5	145.97	14
13	Clemson	22-6	145.73	10
14	BYU	21-6	141.39	18
15	Marquette	23-6	138.68	13
16	Washington	22-7	138.57	16
17	LSU	25-4	137.73	17
18	Purdue	22-7	133.82	20
19	Gonzaga	22-5	133.23	19
20	Villanova	23-6	132.13	15
21	Wake Forest	22-5	129.15	23
22	Xavier	23-5	129.02	22
23	Davidson	23-6	125.37	NR(26)
24	Utah State	25-4	118.97	25
25	Arizona State	21-7	118.91	21

Teams Dropped From The Top 25: Florida (LW #24, TW #27)

Other Teams People Might Care About

Rank	Team	Record	MRI	LW
26	Texas	19-9	116.79	27
27	Florida	21-8	116.50	24
28	Butler	24-4	116.01	32
31	Illinois	23-7	114.44	29
33	Syracuse	20-8	111.44	47
39	Kentucky	19-10	104.18	33
40	Dayton	24-5	103.19	39
47	Wisconsin	17-10	96.80	44
52	Miami	16-10	94.55	49
57	Auburn	18-10	89.22	68
58	Maryland	18-10	86.91	58
62	Boston College	20-9	82.18	66
63	Florida State	22-7	81.93	63
69	Notre Dame	15-12	78.66	69
71	Ohio State	18-9	77.28	70
72	Arizona	18-11	76.30	62
78	Michigan	17-12	71.86	86
83	Vanderbilt	17-11	70.12	82
84	Northern Iowa	19-10	69.84	87
101	Northwestern	16-11	60.99	103
108	Drexel	15-13	56.49	105
134	Illinois-Chicago	14-14	42.87	141
137	Iowa	14-15	41.82	127
150	Georgia Tech	10-17	36.62	144
159	Ohio	14-14	33.53	179
182	Wofford	14-13	25.28	198
204	Texas Tech	11-17	16.29	194
206	Ball State	12-14	14.05	204
243	Pennsylvania	9-16	-2.68	243
277	Indiana	5-22	-17.23	268
279	Valparaiso	7-21	-18.06	277

Last Place this week: NJIT (1-28) at -149.30. 2nd week in a row.

Biggest Gain this week: Syracuse gained 16.57 points. (Beat St. John's (87-58) and Cincinnati (87-63))

Biggest Loss this week: Kennesaw State lost 17.65 points (Lost to East Tennessee State (46-81) and USC Upstate (51-80))

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 March 2, 2009 2:09 PM

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