a) youth, b) team commitment on defense. When they are playing together they are a load--having Stanford beaten at Stanford, destroying Texas on a nuetral site (granted Texas was at the time trying to find an identity post-TJ). It is hard to understand why this Arizona team isn't a great defensive team as last years was good but they replaced less athletic players (Anderson, Walton) with more PT to athletic ones (Igudala, Adams, Rogers and Shakur). Their team mindset on defense just isn't there unless they are really motivated. But they will be motivated come turney time, and if you are a #1 or 2 seed you sure hope not to catch them int he 2nd round because their raw talent is top 5.
I like St. Joe's going into the Sweet 16, but that's about it...They can shoot and JNelson, "the best point guard in America"...
I agree. I think there are several teams that could handle St. Joe's. Probably around 10. I don't know what their RPI or SOS is, but it should be ridiculous considering they played a bunch of scrub A10 teams and Gonzaga w/o Turiaf. They really should be ranked more aroung #10-15.
RPI = 2 SOS = 32 (very respectable) As a point of comparison, Stanford has an RPI of 5 and SOS of 102. That's "one hundred and two." Look, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to see St. Joe's go down in the Sweet 16, but it's just not true that they've played some creampuff schedule. Yeah, the A10 is no ACC, but St. Joe's has beaten 4 tourney-bound teams (Gonzaga, BC, Boston U, and Dayton) as well as a decent Cal team on the road. They also went undefeated in Philly's Big 5. While Penn/Temple/Nova are down this year, teams always get up for the Big 5 here in Philly, and those games aren't gimmes. The fact is that, if going undefeated in the regular season was so easy, some other team in a "scrub" conference would have done it in the past 13 years. I agree that St Joe's is overrated at #2 and will have problems with a lot of teams. But they're a legit top 10 team, IMO.
Good points. Think about this though, if Stanford lost, they'd be #1. That's ridiculous. They might be legit top 10 on the bottom of the list. Going undefeated is impressive no matter who they play, but how many top 25 teams did they play? Top 50? They wouldn't have beaten Gonzaga w/ Turiaf and BC, BU, and Dayton are mediocre. Cal is decent though, but basically IMO anyone in league play in the Big XII, ACC, SEC, or PAC 10 has a harder schedule by far. Then there's teams that not only play that tough league schedule but also play a couple of tough OOC games. St. Joe's schedule does look pretty weak compared to them considering they're ranked #2. I sort of liken this to TCU. A solid team that kept moving up the rankings because everyone else was losing, not because they're so great. Then people got mad because they were overrated, but wouldn't give them credit for still winning all the games that they had.
And now reality. Wow, St Joe's is going to be #1. I agree that it's ridiculous -- they're more like 5-10. But, living in Philly, it's kind of fun to have the #1 team in town. The ironic thing is that I was going to buy Nova/Connecticut tickets during the preseason because I thought it would be cool to see the #1 team. Who knew that my St. Joe's/Temple ticket was going to be the game featuring the #1 team?
