March 4, 2008
The List
Week of March 3, 2008

by Joe Sheehan

Starting this week, the pools become meaningless. Who cares what writers, coaches or some guy on the Internet thinks? Save for the Ivy League—which crowned a champion and NCAA tournament participant over the weekend in undefeated Cornell—and a handful of independents and uninviteds, every Division I team will have a chance to win eight, nine or 10 straight games and be crowned National Champion. It’s a beautiful thing.

With that—and a killer travel/promotion schedule on the baseball side—in mind, here’s a late and short edition of The List. We’ll continue to run The List the next two weeks, but my focus will shift to a feature that parallels the process of selecting 34 at-large teams for the tournament. I’m pretty sure there’s no way to avoid using the word “Bubble” in there, but I’ll try.

All records are Division I games only, through Sunday, and the second number in parens is a team’s rank in last week’s poll. No comments this week.

1. Memphis (28-1) (1).
2. UCLA (25-3) (2).
3. Kansas (25-3) (4).
4. North Carolina (27-2) (5).
5. Tennessee (25-3) (3).
6. Duke (25-3) (6).
7. Georgetown (24-4) (7).
8. Xavier (25-4) (8).
9. Stanford (24-4) (10).
10. Texas (23-5) (9).
11. Connecticut (24-4) (11).
12. Wisconsin (24-4) (12).

13. Louisville (24-6) (13).
14. Butler (27-3) (16).
15. Washington State (22-7) (15).
16. Marquette (20-7) (17).
17. Purdue (23-6) (19).
18. Drake (23-4) (14).
19. Gonzaga (24-6) (23).
20. Indiana (24-5) (18).
21. Notre Dame (22-6) (20).
22. Vanderbilt (24-5) (21).
23. St. Mary’s (24-5) (22).
24. Davidson (22-6) (NR).
25. Clemson (20-7) (NR).

Writing Nasty Letters: Pittsburgh, Baylor, Brigham Young, Mississippi State, Nevada-Las Vegas

Leaving: Southern California (25)

The “numbers only” ranking

1. Memphis
   
2. North Carolina
   
3. UCLA
   
4. Kansas
   
5. Duke
   
6. Wisconsin
   
7. Texas
   
8. Tennessee
   
9. Georgetown
   
10. Louisville
    
11. Xavier
    
12. Marquette
    
13. Stanford
    
14. Washington State
    
15. Michigan State
    
16. Indiana
    
17. Clemson
    
18. Connecticut
    
19. Notre Dame
    
20. Drake
    
21. Purdue
    
22. Pittsburgh
    
23. Gonzaga
    
24. Arizona
    
25. West Virginia

Joe Sheehan is an author of Basketball Prospectus. You can contact Joe by clicking here or click here to see Joe's other articles.