You heard it here first.
Last week Georgetown was ranked No. 12 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll and Syracuse was ranked No. 8.
This week Georgetown fell to No. 14 and Syracuse remained at No. 8.
What happened in the intervening week?
Well, Georgetown trampled Syracuse 88-74. Then Georgetown lost to No. 2 Duke at Duke 76-67, and Syracuse beat then No. 13 Notre Dame at home.
Yes, it's true that Georgetown lost to Notre Dame earlier in the season 73-67, but that was playing at Notre Dame, the location of the longest current home winning streak in college basketball. Playing Notre Dame at home and playing Notre Dame on the road are fundamentally different things. In Big East play this season, the Fighting Irish are 3-0 at the Joyce Center and 0-3 away from home.
In any case, I really don't understand the math here. If you are the No. 12 team in the country, you should lose to both the No. 8 team and the No. 2 team. If you beat one of those teams then you should move up in the rankings. If you are the No. 8 team, you should beat the No. 12 and No. 13 teams in the country. If you lose to one of them you should move down in the rankings.
If they had my phone number, I'm sure the folks at ESPN would lecture me on how they are taking into account a whole bunch of "intangibles" that explain the discrepancy. I'm skeptical.
People who waste their time writing about sports just aren't that smart.
