Syracuse Basketball No. 7 In Coaches Poll, No. 9 In AP Poll

A little late but we should catch up. After losing to the Temple Owls over the weekend, the Syracuse Orange probably did us all a favor and moved away from the No. 1 ranking as to avoid all those impending "Overrated Syracuse Is Overrated" columns that would have come with it.

In the AP, the Orange dropped down to No. 9 overall. That seems fair, we DID lose to an unranked team that just lost to Canisius after all. The drop puts us behind two Big East teams, No. 4 Louisville and No. 8 Cincinnati. Duke and Michigan remain the top two while Arizona slides up to take our place after holding off San Diego State, 68-67. Other ranked teams of note include No. 15 Georgetown, No. 17 San Diego State, No. 21 Notre Dame and No. 24 Pittsburgh.

In the Coaches Poll, the Orange only dropped four spots to No. 7, which even I have to admit is a little too...little. I mean, I'm not complaining, but, you know... Duke, Michigan, Arizona, Louisville, Indiana and Kansas are the teams ahead of us and Cincinnati gets stuck behind us at No. 8. San Diego State checks in at No. 16, Georgetown at No. 18, Notre Dame at No. 20 and Pittsburgh at No. 24. Welcome back, Panthers.

In other rankings...

Sagarin Rankings: No. 8

Colley Matrix: No. 15

Massey Ratings: No. 10

RPI: No. 15

ESPN Power Rankings: No. 7

The AP Voter You Arbitrarily Hate This Week? Jon Wilner, who plummeted the Orange all the way down to No. 22! Wilner even ranked UConn ahead of us at No. 21. Ron Morris must be jealous. (Ron only dropped us to No. 12, BTW, and he's the closest one to Wilner).

The AP Voter You Arbitrarily Love This Week? The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's Bob Holt, who kept the Orange all the way up at No. 5 despite the loss. We must have really left an impression on him a few weeks ago.

The ESPN Ranker Who Just Says Generic Things About Syracuse Over And Over goes to Jay Williams, who is on a roll recently. Two weeks ago he said Syracuse didn't deserve credit for the San Diego State win because it was 1. outdoors and 2. they played zone defense (seriously). Then, following his ranking of SU 10th this week (which seems fine) he went out of his way to say the reason he dropped Syracuse so much was because MSG is a home game. That's the trifecta right there (neutral court doesn't count + zone defense dig + neutral court home game). Congrats!