We finally have conference play! Teams will have weekly chances to make a statement with quality wins, the competition will rise, dreams will be crushed and we will finally get a solid picture of who could be dancing. One week of conference play has already resulted in some drama, with the ACC, of course, front and center. Let us not waste time… here is the new top 25!

Rank	School	EVTB Score	Eff Rank	SOS Rank	MOV Rank	Luck Rank
1	Kansas	27.514	1	1	4	226
2	Duke	26.909	2	16	1	139
3	Michigan State	24.005	3	12	7	257
4	San Diego State	23.804	11	108	3	88
5	Gonzaga	23.276	7	160	2	122
6	Auburn	23.036	13	72	12	66
7	Maryland	22.921	8	12	24	173
8	Butler	22.747	12	47	16	124
9	West Virginia	22.624	10	5	43	158
10	Dayton	22.547	6	80	5	205
11	Oregon	22.325	9	4	44	188
12	Arizona	22.204	4	26	6	313
13	Baylor	22.026	15	87	10	135
14	Ohio State	21.677	5	18	11	312
15	Wichita State	21.137	21	94	17	113
16	Florida State	21.116	18	50	30	147
17	Rutgers	20.235	24	46	23	247
18	Louisville	19.988	16	62	19	248
19	Seton Hall	19.977	14	6	52	263
20	Arkansas	19.771	29	96	25	182
21	Memphis	19.359	19	109	13	252
22	Michigan	19.309	17	11	54	246
23	Penn State	19.288	27	61	38	211
24	Brigham Young	19.184	20	8	51	278
25	Kentucky	18.975	22	56	35	243

Conference play finally brought some movement to the top 25. The biggest story of the week were the Ohio State Buckeyes, who managed to drop 3 straight games. Although each loss came against a strong opponent, Ohio State has probably dashed all hope of a 1 or 2 seed with that performance, and dropped 11 spots in the rankings. Piling on top of the football team’s playoff game, makes for a dreary week in Columbus. On the other hand, Rutgers rocketed up 12 spots to debut in our top 25 after 3 solid wins this week. At 12-3, Rutgers is starting to get some early tournament buzz and our model strongly agrees. Finally, a familiar face in the Kentucky Wildcats, is back in our top 25 after downing ACC rival Louisville. 

Hokies Continue to Slide Around the Bubble

Currently, the Hokies come in our rankings at #59. The slight drop was the results of an up and down week. Quantitatively, the blowout in Charlottesville hurt bad, but the road win against Syracuse was a big bandaid. Models across the board are still widely in agreement that the Hokies are bubble boys. Kenpom, NET and EVTB all have Blacksburg’s finest in the 50-60 range. For the Hokies to find themselves on the right side of the bubble, they need to keep sucking up mid-range wins. There is a big lack of quality wins in the ACC, so we are projecting that they will need well above 20 wins to have a shot at dancing. Looking to this week, winning 2 of 3 is almost a must.

The ACC Is A Cannibalistic League

If you’re a big ACC fan, you would probably say its a highly competitive league with parity. If you’re objectively assessing the conference at this point, it’s a below-average power 5 league where anyone can win, because no one is really that strong of a team. Currently, the ACC still projects only 5 tournament teams, and ACC play may hurt that projection. We already saw the last place BC Eagles take down UVA, UNC completely crater the season and bubble teams beat each other up in a round-robin fashion. Just this week, UVA beat VT, VT beat Syracuse, Clemson beat NC State, Miami beat Clemson, NC State beat Notre Dame, Notre Dame beat Syracuse, and Wake Forest Beat Pitt. You get the idea here. For the ACC to have a chance at more than 5 tournament teams, someone needs to separate themselves, and at this point, no one is stepping up. Outside of Duke, Louisville and Florida State, there are no quality wins in this league and I am going to say it… we only have 3 tournament locks right now.

ACC Rank	Team	EVTB	EVTB Δ	AP	NET	Kenpom	Bracketology
1	Duke	2	0	2	3	1	1
2	Florida State	16	5	10	18	13	4
3	Louisville	18	-3	13	16	6	4
4	NC State	52	-6	–	49	45	11
5	Virginia	56	4	18	64	36	7
6	Virginia Tech	59	-11	–	51	61	–
7	Notre Dame	79	6	–	80	58	–
8	Pittsburgh	85	1	–	69	67	–
9	Miami (FL)	101	-22	–	90	89	–
10	Syracuse	106	-17	–	95	70	–
11	Clemson	116	30	–	99	93	–
12	Wake Forest	117	5	–	97	95	–
13	North Carolina	128	-36	–	106	71	–
14	Georgia Tech	144	20	–	96	85	–
15	Boston College	172	22	–	131	132	–

Team	Eff Rank	SOS Rank	MOV Rank	Luck Rank
Duke	2	16	1	139
Florida State	18	50	30	147
Louisville	16	62	19	248
NC State	49	75	70	223
Virginia	61	89	92	218
Virginia Tech	53	117	60	259
Notre Dame	67	180	58	301
Pittsburgh	77	83	129	150
Miami (FL)	94	15	239	20
Syracuse	62	64	112	330
Clemson	71	49	146	324
Wake Forest	101	37	222	91
North Carolina	86	6	237	83
Georgia Tech	84	3	252	87
Boston College	129	71	246	30