College Basketball Rankings Turned Upside Down in Week of Upsets

Later today, the college basketball rankings will come out from both the AP and the ESPN/Coaches poll. So far this year, the college basketball rankings have been pretty predictable, especially at the top. All year, North Carolina, Uconn, Oklahoma and several other teams have been at the top. Many thought North Carolina would be on top of the college basketball rankings all season. But not only did North Carolina get shocked this week, so did most of the top 5.

The Tar Heels completed an upside down, topsy turvy week of college basketball last night with a stunning loss to Boston College at home. All the talk of North Carolina going undefeated has stopped before it could gain serious momentum. Now the Tar Heels won't even be the number one team, at least for a week.

Connecticut was poised to be number one if the Tar Heels slipped, but those hopes ended very quick to start the week, when Big East play finally began. The various top teams in that conference finally went head to head, with Connecticut failing its first test, in getting blown out by Georgetown at home last Monday.

Georgetown themselves even slipped up, losing their second Big East showdown of the week to Pitt by a lopsided margin on Saturday- at home, of course.

This means that Jamie Dixon's Pitt Panthers, at number three last week, will likely be the number one team in the college basketball rankings this week. Pittsburgh almost never gets taken seriously as a national title contender, as the Panthers threaten every year but never go beyond the Sweet 16.

Pittsburgh always plays a schedule of cupcake teams before Big East play, so they were expected to falter this week. But due to such a convincing win over Georgetown, and due to slipups from other top teams, the Panthers seem poised to be the new number one.

The madness didn't end there this week, as number four Oklahoma also got upset, losing to Arkansas. Top teams like Purdue and Notre Dame also lost as well.

Pittsburgh and Duke will probably be the top two teams left in this week's college basketball rankings. Unbeaten Wake Forest will probably enter the top 5 as well. North Carolina and Uconn probably won't slip far despite their losses.

Georgetown, after beating Connecticut and losing bad to Pitt, could be anywhere in the top 10, or even outside of it.

Sources

ESPN- "2009 NCAA Men's Basketball Rankings" sports.espn.go.com/ncb/rankings

Bloomberg- "Boston College Sends North Carolina to First Basketball Loss" www.bloomberg.com/apps/news