Just ending the second week of the season, so it's still early, but starting to warm up. So, thought we should have a thread tracking the conference teams in the top 100 and notable (also top 100 or close) opponents. I'll use Kenpom in this post (#), but others could also be utilized. Obviously, Kenpom and other ratings will change through the season. But as of now, and with notable games coming up this week:

Houston (3); four solid wins but no notable opponent yet. Plays at Oregon (34) 11/20.

Memphis (29); win over Vanderbilt (76) loss to St. Louis (36) both away. Play home games with
VCU (87) 11/20 and Seton Hall (43) 11/24.

Tulane (64); no notable opponent to-date. Plays home with Nevada (102) 11/21.

Cincinnatti (65); no notable to-date. Plays Arizona (12), neutral 11/21. Will also have one or two more top 100 opponent opportunities in Maui.

UCF (70); beat Ok State (39) at home; Plays home Miami (41) 11/27.

Temple (89); Win at home vs Villanova (31), and beat Rutgers (46) neutral, loss at home
to Vanderbilt (76). Plays home St. Johns (36) 11/21.

WSU (92); Win at Richmond (90); Plays Grand Canyon (96) neutral 11/21, and possibly
San Francisco (91) 11/22.

So, per Kenpom, AAC with 7 teams currently in the top 100 and all have at least one notable game coming up this week, so a big week for the conference coming up.
So far Temple with the most notable games and wins, followed by UCF, then Memphis, and then WSU.

Also of note, UAB (45), UNT (77), and FAU (82) currently in the top 100.

Alot of ifandsorbuts to come!

i get you are using top 100 kenpom but if we are considering gcu, Nevada and Richmond as notable games so are probably florida st and oral roberts in a real life evaluation...both could end up top 100

side note florida st is dealing with injuries and ncaa suspension.. they are down 5 guys but 3 are expected to return by conference play.. it wont be a great will but will look alot better down the line


also you are missing ucf vs santan clara tomorrow (For mte championshio)... arizona for uc, st johns for temple and nevade for tulane, are all part of an mt

usf also playing uab in a mte,

Just looking at top 100 rated teams per Kenpom as of right now. Yes, Santa Clara (101) is close enough.
Florida State and Oral Bob are under 110 right now so not close enough.
Again, things will continue to evolve and some teams will rise and others will fall out of the top 100.
Other ratings services can also be referenced as you like. I invite anyone to share those also as well as the evolution of team ratings through the season with this thread to gain a better sense of how the league is measuring up with an eye toward post season opportunities.

After strangling the Ducks in Eugene, Houston moves up to #2 in Kenpom.

Memphis moved up to #27 after besting VCU and has Seton Hall at neutral for another good win opportunity on Turkey Day.

Tulane falls to #74 after stumbling over Nevada, and will fall like a stone if they lose any of their remaining OOC games. Even winning them all will not likely move them up much.

Cincinnati wasn't harmed much by it's loss to AZ dropping only two spots to #67 and has a very good chance to take down #31 Oh St and move up.

UCF still at #70 with a home game against Miami on Sunday that could improve their standing with a win.

Temple's loss to St. John moved them down two spots to 91, and they should beat a still top 100 Richmond team which would move them a bit in the right direction.

Wichita State moved up to 81 with it's win, but needs to take down San Francisco today in order to maintain a decent ranking.

(11-22-2022 10:18 AM)Shockdaminkey Wrote:  After strangling the Ducks in Eugene, Houston moves up to #2 in Kenpom.

Memphis moved up to #27 after besting VCU and has Seton Hall at home for another good win opportunity on Turkey Day.

Tulane falls to #74 after stumbling over Nevada, and will fall like a stone if they lose any of their remaining OOC games. Even winning them all will not likely move them up much.

Cincinnati wasn't harmed much by it's loss to AZ dropping only two spots to #67 and has a very good chance to take down #31 Oh St and move up.

UCF still at #70 with a home game against Miami on Sunday that could improve their standing with a win.

Temple's loss to St. John moved them down two spots to 91, and they should beat a still top 100 Richmond team which would move them a bit in the right direction.

Wichita State moved up to 81 with it's win, but needs to take down San Francisco today in order to maintain a decent ranking.

The Memphis vs Seton Hall game is in Orlando. https://gotigersgo.com/sports/mens-baske...le/2022-23

(11-22-2022 11:13 AM)Tiger1983 Wrote:  

(11-22-2022 10:18 AM)Shockdaminkey Wrote:  After strangling the Ducks in Eugene, Houston moves up to #2 in Kenpom.

Memphis moved up to #27 after besting VCU and has Seton Hall at home for another good win opportunity on Turkey Day.

Tulane falls to #74 after stumbling over Nevada, and will fall like a stone if they lose any of their remaining OOC games. Even winning them all will not likely move them up much.

Cincinnati wasn't harmed much by it's loss to AZ dropping only two spots to #67 and has a very good chance to take down #31 Oh St and move up.

UCF still at #70 with a home game against Miami on Sunday that could improve their standing with a win.

Temple's loss to St. John moved them down two spots to 91, and they should beat a still top 100 Richmond team which would move them a bit in the right direction.

Wichita State moved up to 81 with it's win, but needs to take down San Francisco today in order to maintain a decent ranking.

The Memphis vs Seton Hall game is in Orlando. https://gotigersgo.com/sports/mens-baske...le/2022-23

Thanks for the correction!

Tulane is at 76 and needs to win over Western Kentucky today to maintain; probably their best remaining OOC game, so need to run the table to stay top 100.

Cincinnati drops to 81 and cannot lose to Louisville without dire consequences as they have no more strong OOC opponents.

UCF move up to 68 and still has 3 notable opponents in their OOC schedule in Miami, Missouri, and Ole Miss, so alot of opportunities to move up or recover from a bad loss if necessary

Temple falls to 94 and will need to win most of their remaining OOC games, especially VCU and Ole Miss to stay top 100 going into conference play.

WSU is at 85 and still has 3 strong teams to play OOC at Kansas State, Mizzou at home, and Ok State.

Memphis at 29 plays Seton Hall Thursday for it's next opportunity to move up.

Also of note, all AAC teams are now below 200 Kenpom. If ECU, USF, and Tulsa can win enough of their remaining OOC schedules to get around or under 150, and SMU stay below 150, that would help our conference a great deal toward earning post season tournament play as some of the current top 100 AAC teams will take losses to these teams in conference play, so the hope is to lessen the damage to the league's standing.

Tulane has now dropped to 82 after losing to Western Kentucky and has fallen the furthest of any AAC team in the Kenpom rankings to-date.

Cincinnati stopped its plunge by taking care of Louisville, but have fallen to 74.

UCF is at 68 with a good opportunity against Miami on Sunday.

Temple is at 95 now and at risk for falling out of the top 100, but has games they can win to improve their standing.

WSU stands at 88 and will likely need to win at least 2 of their 3 notable OOC opponent games and all the rest in order to retain a top 100 team.

The same 7 AAC teams remain in the kenpom top 100 with very little change in ranking since 11/24 (see above)
(waiting on UCF vs Miami outcome for effect on UCF ranking)

Grass Crown WINS:
Currently those same 7 teams own all of the conference wins over other top 100 OOC teams, 10 in all.
Memphis currently owns 3 (Stanford-66, Vanderbilt-77, and VCU-96).
Houston has 2 (Oregon-55, and Kent St.-80).
Temple has 2 (Villanova-47, Rutgers-34).
UCF has 2 (Ok. St.-35, and Santa Clara-94).
WSU has 1 (Richmond-81).

Neither Cincinnati nor Tulane have a top 100 win to-date. Cincinnati has one more opportunity with Xavier(31), and Tulane has none.

Memphis, Houston, and WSU each have 3 more top 100 OOC opponents remaining.
UCF and Temple each have 2 more such opportunities.

Grass Crown and Crown of Thorn LOSSES:
The current AAC top 7 also have 10 total losses to other top 100 OOC teams to-date, and 7 bad losses currently.

Cincinnati has 2 top 100 losses(Arizona-9, Oh. St.-20). UC also currently has two Q3 losses.
Temple has 3 top 100 losses (St. Johns-40, Vandy-77,Richmond-81). Temple also has one Q3 loss.
Tulane has 1 current top 100 loss(Nevada-91) and has two Q3 losses.

Wichita St. has 1 top 100 loss(San Francisco-89). WSU has one Q4 loss.

UCF has 1 top 100 loss (Miami-49). UCF has one Q4 loss.

Memphis has 2 top 100 losses (Seton Hall-44, St. Louis-46). No bad loss.

Houston has no top 100 loss and no bad loss to-date.

SMU (148) also has 1 top 100 loss (Dayton-58) and has 2 Q4 losses.

The other 3 AAC teams are currently below 170 with ECU falling below 200 again.

Based on games to this point a hierarchy seems to be taking shape, though conference games could change such a presumed hierarchy. But based on games to-date Houston and Memphis have strong NCAA bids so far. UCF, Temple, and WSU at least have the opportunity to create a NCAA worthy OOC resume. Cincinnati is not without hope in that regard but comes down to their OOC rivalry game. Tulane is going to have to spoil other AAC team resume's to make it's NCAA case at this point.
But 5 teams to this point are still NIT possibilities at worst.

For further perspective, consider to-date strength of schedule rank:

Memphis: 18th
Temple: 60th
Cincinnati: 102
Houston: 193
UCF: 226
WSU: 227
Tulane: 321
_____________
SMU: 319
Tulsa: 121
USF: 277
ECU: 292

Only two AAC top 100 opponents on tap for this week:

WSU vs. Missouri (38) tonight, and SMU @ TX A&M (48) tomorrow night.

AAC currently the 7th NET ranked MBB conference not far behind Pac12, and MWC a good ways back in 8th. Every top 100 or even 150 win for any team in the conference will move the AAC closer to surpassing the PAC as long as we take no bad losses. It could happen, and I'd love to see it, but not betting on it.

As of end of November the Kenpom 100 retains the same 7 AAC teams:

Houston- 2
Memphis- 26
UCF- 71
UC- 74
Tulane- 85
WSU- 86
Temple- 98

In comparison, Torvik top 100 has the same 7 AAC teams, and while similar it is less similar at the moment toward most of the second tier teams:

UH- 1
UM- 21
TU- 75
UC- 80
Temple- 81
UCF- 82
WSU- 97

We still have VCU and Ole Miss OOC, so we have a real shot to jump up if we get our **** together.

The AAC has 4 top 100 matchup games this Saturday:

Houston vs. St. Mary's (29) "neutral" site game in Ft. Worth
Memphis vs. Mississippi (51)
Wichita State @ Kansas State (60)
Temple vs. VCU (96)

The home teams (including Houston) have an excellent chance at picking up good wins and perhaps vaulting the league into 6th with these games.

Not a top 100 match, but Tulsa vs. Oral Bob (111) is a good opportunity for Tulsa to pick up a win that would move them up the chart a bit and help our conference ranking.

Ranking models vary early in the season and tend to become more aligned late in the season, but some models are better early than others, for my money those are Kenpom then torvik. But at this stage of the season I think the strongest ranking variables are relative strength of schedule with record, and prominent opponent wins.

A to-date strength of schedule rank (kenpom) looks like this:
SOS / Record / KP rank / Prominent Opponent wins

Memphis: 25 / 6 & 2 / 25 / Mississippi-53, Stanford-68, Vanderbilt-85

Temple: 88 / 5 & 4 / 92 / Rutgers-30, Villanova-52, VCU-101

Wichita: 117 / 4 & 4 / 87 / Grand Canyon-108, Richmond-109

Houston: 152 / 8 & 0 / 1 / St.Mary-27, Oregon-43, Kent St.-72,OralBob-104

Cincinn: 224 / 6 & 3 / 69 / None

UCF: 225 / 6 & 2 / 74 / Ok. State-34, Santa Clara-106

Tulane: 344 / 5 & 3 / 98 / None

While Houston and Memphis clearly show up high in both ranking and results based on schedule, it looks like Temple is arguably the current third best AAC team based on schedule/results, with UCF fourth, WSU fifth, UC sixth, and Tulane seventh.

Comparing Kenpom/torvik/NET current rankings for top 7 AAC teams:

UH: 1 /1 / 1

UM: 23/ 15/ 38

UC: 72/ 78/ 152

UCF: 74/ 84/ 95

WSU: 87/ 94/ 98

Temp: 92/ 80/ 157

Tulane: 98/ 92/ 191

Best of luck to SMU as they get #49 AZ St. at home tonight. Last best chance for a notable win, and should they do so would maybe give them a confidence boost before they take on TCU their next outing. Come on Ponies, the AAC needs you to get this one.

Net always ranks Memphis lower than any of the other rankings for whatever reason. Been that way for a long time now

(12-07-2022 07:49 PM)Fluke Wrote:  Net always ranks Memphis lower than any of the other rankings for whatever reason. Been that way for a long time now

Okay, but NET is ranking the entire AAC lower than the other rankings excepting Houston.
I'm fairly sure that is the common experience of all AAC teams save for Houston this year and perhaps last.