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Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Go figure
Not arguing Bucknell belongs in the Mid Major Top 25, but will admit to being a little confused how a team can pick up a road win at Xavier and actually lose votes in the poll.

With Holy Cross' recent slide, this week's version of the Mid Major rankings has no Patriot League teams included among the Top 25. Army leads all PL vote-getters with 76 points, good for an unofficial No. 27 ranking. Navy unofficial No. 32 with 43. Holy Cross dropped out of the top 25 and received only 20 points in this week's voting. Bucknell barely in the others receiving with 2 points.

Taking nothing away from either service academy, but does anybody think the Cruaders or the Bison would not have as good, or better, records if they played Army or Navy's schedules?

It seems pretty obvious voters are paying more attention to records than who those records come against. Just look at No. 14 Akron as an example. The Zips have exactly one win over a team with a winning record -- 6-4 Binghamton. Their other six wins came against an 0-10 NAIA school (Tiffin), an 0-14 provisional Division I (Winston Salem State), 1-8 Gardner Webb, 4-6 Oral Roberts and 3-7 Saint Francis (Pa.), and 4-6 Niagara. Only one loss came against a team with a winning record -- 9-1 Nevada beat Akron at Akron. The other two losses came to Illinois Chicago (5-8) and Arkansas Little Rock (5-7). No, Akron has not played any SUNY schools. (As a couple of e-mailers have reminded us, Binghamton actually is a SUNY school, just does not use SUNY in front of its name anymore.)

Here is the best part - before losing by two to Nevada, that schedule actually had Akron ranked in the top 10. The Zips dropped from No. 9 to 14 after that loss.

Like we said, go figure.

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Published at 6:17 PM by Hoop Time.
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