Week 14 NCAAB Power Rankings Keeping Us Sane

With the New York Giants winning Super Bowl 46 last night, it is now time for fans and handicappers alike to turn their attention to the college basketball betting lines. With just over a month to go until the greatest tournament in betting history, the power rankings are keeping diehards such as us sane. In the last three weeks, things have stayed relatively quiet at the top of the rankings. However, as fans betting March Madness know, just because you are ranked highly does not mean you can’t be knocked off the pedestal. Today we’ll look at the week 14 power rankings, and why they can help us with our wagers.

Over the past month, the top of the power rankings has stayed relatively the same, as the Kentucky Wildcats and Syracuse Orange occupy the top two seeds. Both Kentucky, the preseason favorite to be ranked number one going into the tournament, and Syracuse, the top seed for almost two months, share identical 23 and one records. From the third ranked Ohio State Buckeyes downwards, things are open to debate, as plenty of teams deserve higher and lower rankings.

Comparable to the top 25 AP rankings for college football, bookie software handlers could make the argument, that the rankings aren’t useful, since they are as much of a popularity contest as anything else.

For example, despite having a worse record then, Murray State, Missouri, Baylor, and Saint Mary’s, the aforementioned Ohio State Buckeyes, along with ACC heavyweights North Carolina and Duke, all have higher ranking. In other words, it appears as though, the Big 10 leading Buckeyes and co-leading ACC schools, are receiving higher praise from the AP 25 voters then teams that for all intents and purposes, deserve greater ranking. Now, instead of turning this article into an NBA campaign about crooked voting, we’d like to point out, that a lot of the voting has to do with strength of schedule, rather then popularity.

In essence, Ohio State, North Carolina, and Duke all may have worse records then Murray State, Missouri, Baylor and Saint Mary’s, but the level of competition they face in comparison, is much more difficult to win against. There is a huge difference, between Murray State being winning all 23 games, while facing the likes of Tennessee Tech and Jacksonville State, then for North Carolina to be 20 and three on the season, while facing Duke, Florida State and Virginia. While both teams have impressive records, Murray State has only faced one ranked opponent this season, while North Carolina has faced seven ranked opponents. The power rankings keep fans such as us sane, because it takes into account, the level of competition the schools we intend to wager upon. With this in mind, we can keep a level head, instead of accuse the NCAA of playing favorites.