Here is the week 5 top 25. VT is sitting with some decent votes at #31. Nice to see Buzz and the Boys (an awesome band name) on the edge of cracking a nice number by their name!
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Wow, that choke against aTm REALLY killed us. I thought for sure we'd at least crack top 25 after Mich.
We dropped from 31 ish votes before the Texas A&M game to only one vote before the Michigan game. No way we jump that much after one comeback victory.
Keep winning our non conference slate in the manner I know we're capable of, and the Duke game will be a ranked matchup.
It's December. It's the AP poll. It's basketball.
Unfortunately, you pretty much have to be ranked before ACC play really gets going because everyone loses games in the ACC, you need that pre-emptive ranking to help you survive the ACC slugfest.
I hope I'm proven wrong.
Coaches Poll has us at #33, and kenpom rankings has us at 32
That sucks.
considering where we've been the past 4-5 years i'd say it's pretty good
for reference, last year we finished in kenpom rankings at 63rd,
I didn't mean the effort of the team, I meant were the computers and others selected to rank us. I feel like we deserve better. Ok. So let's do some damage.
No idea how much winning the next five games will do to our status, but it obviously won't hurt to do so.
I #TrustInBuzz
I think we should just go ahead and win at least our next 6 games just to make sure that we get a couple more votes
Just bought tix for the Miss game this weekend. First game I'll have been to since the Greenberg days, and I can't wait. I hope Cassell can still get hype
As long as I see a number between 1 and 16 come March, I'm couldn't care less about the AP rankings currently.
Careful what you wish for, the NIT seeds teams using some of those numbers too.
I'm excited to see us anywhere on the list even in others receiving votes. Getting into the polls and finishing there would be a very good sign that we won't need to hold our collective breaths come Selection Sunday.
I'm fine with another NIT berth, especially one with a deep run.
To each his own, I guess. I just still have a bad taste in my mouth for the Not-In Tournament after all the Greenberg disappointments
I just think that we have some pretty apparent flaws in our game that are likely to be exposed in ACC play. Unless Blackshear gets back, I see us struggling in conference play. That's not to say we can't win 10 games, but if we don't hit that mark, I can understand why. We're somewhere between 25-40 in the nation. Top end of that scale and we're dancing, bottom end and we're high NIT seed.
With the depth that the ACC has this year, going .500 in conference play should get us into the tournament.
I definitely don't expect us to finish super high in the ACC standings, but I think .500/10-8/11-7 is definitely obtainable, and would look better than last year's 10-8 simply because of ACC depth.
There will be games where we're off and we lose to teams we should lose to, but I fully believe that this year's team can pull off the necessary wins against other bubble-ish teams that we just didn't get last year (@Pitt, Cuse in OT, ND) to push us into the Dance.
As long as we don't drop another OOC, I think we'll be where we need to be starting ACC play
Note: I'm a full-on Sy fanboy. I've seen enough with my untrained eye that I think he's going to hold his own well enough. Albeit not as well as Blackshear probably would, but I don't think the dropoff is too significant.
I think Sy is a future All-ACC center, fwiw. Just think the lack of depth in front court will hurt us down the road. I'd love to be wrong.
agree about Sy, he is smooth in the paint.
Usually the 40th best team in the country earns an at-large bid. The last at-large teams are usually between 11 and 13 seeds, meaning somewhere between
#42#43 and #54 nationally. Though there was one year when the two "First Four" games featuring at-large teams were 12-seeds and 14-seeds, no idea how they ended up so low there.Math...it'll get after ya!
Fixed.
Sorry! This was meant as me not doing good math on my 25-40 comment! Was not intended for you!
Even so, it spurred me to check my own "math" and I caught a mistake haha
Had to look up last year's results. Didn't realize that we were just one game in ACC play behind Duke and ND. It was the 10-7 OOC record that really hurt us. Sitting at 6-1 with 5 winable games coming up before conference play is looking mighty sweet right now. Another 10-8 in the ACC would have to get us there, maybe 9-9 depending on how the rest of the league shakes out.
9-9 was good enough for Cuse and Pitt last year, but at 10-8, we and Clempson missed out. As long as we take care of business in these last 5 OOC, I think 9-9 gets us in. That said, I don't want there to be any question, let's just go
11-7 and lock it down18-0 and shock the world.ACCCT is also in March, and even Boston College gets a 15 next to their name for that one. Just sayin'.
That's great. Hopefully won't be long.
Lunardi has us as the 11th seed in Midwest as of 1 December. FWIW.
Meanwhile... for the first time in a looooooooooong time (January, 2006), VT Women's Basketball cracks the AP Top 25 at #25 this week!
Looks like hiring Brooks was yet another reason why The Whit is The Man!
Excellent...being ranked 25, no matter the sport, has a nice ring to it for VT
Too bad the haves/have-nots divide in NCAAWBB is about as wide as it gets, or I'd be pretty hyped about a potential natty in a few years.
Honestly, we're pretty close to that point in college football.
I think Alabama is more beatable than UConn's WBB team, but it's certainly close.
Can you really use a plural when you're talking about the "haves?" It's basically UConn then a huge gulf, then the other "top tier" schools. After that, there may be an even bigger gulf to the "have-nots."
Alabama Football wishes it could have the kind of dominance that UConn Women's BBall has.
In the last 21 years, there have been only seven different champions in Women's basketball.
UConn - 11 titles
Tennessee - 5 titles
Baylor - 2 titles
1 Title Each
Maryland
Notre Dame
Purdue
Texas A&M
And Connecticut is riding a 4 game streak. Like I said, Alabama wishes it had this kind of dominance
From http://www.ncaa.com/history/basketball-women/d1
Meanwhile, Tennessee wishes their football program had the same success as their WBB program.
Curious that UConn has never been the runner up. Championship or bow out early....
Early only UConn Women's basketball standards. Their worst finish since the '93-'94 has been the Sweet Sixteen twice. Bounced in the Elite 8 five times.
We are currently sitting at 6-1.
Two years ago we finished 11-22.
I'm fine with our ranking right now. Should be favored in everything leading up to Duke.
Similarly, at this point last year we were 5-3 with losses to Alabama State, Iowa State, and Northwestern.
Yeah, I'm satisfied with where we are.
let's not forget the ladies and the great job Coach Brooks has done to earn the #25 ranking prior to playing Gardner-Webb
Now if only I could get this kind of traffic on a game thread.....

What were we talking about?
Probably Pie or Cake or Cookies .....where do Donuts on a String fall in terms of the dessert spectrum?
Foster said after the BC game that he likes donuts.
Therefore, if you put donuts on a string in front of Foster, he will chase them.
Bud Foster chasing anything is terrifying.
Fear. Donuts on a string fall in the category of fear on the dessert spectrum.
As someone who's been knocked over by Bud I can confirm that him chasing anything is terrifying.
Can't say stuff like this and not tell the story...
Second
Eh it's nothing overly exciting, I was coming out of D2 one day, turning to go into the convenience store, and Bud was running to somewhere. We just kind of bumped into each other and I wound up on my butt. Had a really nice conversation with the man and aaaaaalmost returned the favor while I was driving on campus and saw Bud in a crosswalk. Ultimately decided against it because A) I didn't want my car to be totaled from the force of impact and B) I liked living.
Long story short, Bud is an awesome guy and my butt was bruised for a while
Huh, so that's the origin story of your username.
And possibly the origin of one of the jerseys hanging in my closet ;D
I'll take Jap-Anus relations for $200, Trebek
Just reminded me of something funny/sad I heard about the BC game. The BC offense was using the same hard count cues as we were last year. That is partially why our defense was having a field day against them. Also that's just terrible that Loeffler put the offensive line in that situation.
LOLOFFLER
Somewhere near the breakfast end
Speaking of which, don't we have a game tonight??
/s
Yeah, let's get a game thread going. I got some shitposting to do.
Thanks, now all I can think about is this:

Great now I'm homesick and I'm not even from Blacksburg
VTMO: One ticket for the self-service station

Carol Lee: What?
VTMO: Money is on the counter so technically I paid!
Really nice article on Buzz's recruits showing dividends. It does a good job of highlighting the metrics that define Buzz's teams.