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This week's arbitrary rankings by coaches and media have arrived,and following a second straight difficult week, Syracuse drops again -- this time to No. 7 in both the AP Poll and Coaches Poll, respectively Considering how poorly Syracuse has been playing lately, it's tough to really fault anyone for dropping us at least a few spots, if not more. Though obviously there were extremes to that drop as well...
The AP Voter(s) You Arbitrarily Love This Week: Three different voters kept Syracuse in the top four overall: Doug Haller (Arizona Republic), J.P. Butler (Olean Times Herald) and Matt McCoy (WTVN-AM, Columbus, OH). Thanks for keeping the faith, guys! Also notable, both Dick Vitale and Ron Morris (among a few others) had Syracuse at No. 5.
The AP Voter(s) You Arbitrarily Hate This Week: As mentioned, some extremes are a bit ridiculous. Syracuse is still a top 10 team at the moment, unless you're Scott Mansch (Great Falls Tribune), who knocked the Orange all the way down to 11th place. Dave Borges (New Haven Register), Randy Rosetta (New Orleans Times-Picayune) and Seth Davis (CBS Sports) all had Syracuse at 10th this week, too. That may seem a bit low and we can all disagree because of injuries, etc., though I wouldn't get worked up about it either.
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It's too difficult to say who was "right" or "wrong" here. Yes, Syracuse's only loss this week was to a very good Virginia team on the road. But despite Jerami Grant's absence in the second half, the team looked putrid for much of the final 20 minutes. Additionally, SU has beaten two of the teams listed in front of them, Duke and Villanova. If we're looking at how teams are doing lately though -- and this is always the issue with poll construction (rank by overall, or right now?) -- it's tough to argue the Orange are a higher quality squad than those two today.
For those curious where the rest of the ACC teams were slotted in this week's polls, Duke is fourth in both polls and Virginia rocketed up to fifth in both, respectively. North Carolina is a uniform 14th in the AP and Coaches Polls. Pitt also grabbed votes in the AP rankings, though nowhere near the top 25.
Thoughts? I know we're all in a very bad state of mind, so it's tough to blame non-fans for feeling the same way. But share your own #hotsportstake below.
