I was born in Indiana where high school basketball was the biggest deal going. High school basketball took a drop down when the IHSAA decided to have 5 champions instead of one.
I moved to North Carolina where college basketball is king. That state has several schools that hold National Championships and the whole state watches college basketball and neighbors align with one of the several choices: UNC, Duke, NC State, Wake Forest, UNCC, etc...
I then moved to Kentucky, which worshiped UK Basketball at the time. Now it seems like the fans are tearing it apart piece by piece.
One of the things that happens in Lexington is that SEC is elevated above every other conference in order to make everyone believe that UK Basketball has a harder time than say a team like Purdue.
As Purdue faces Wisconsin tonight to battle for the top position in a lesser conference like the Big Ten, I thought I would look at the rankings and I noticed that there were 4 teams from Indiana in the Top 25.
It looks like basketball in Indiana has moved from High School to College in the last 20 years.
I wish I knew which teams were in the SEC so I could count them.
| Rank | Team | Record | State | ||
| 5 | UCLA | 21-2 | CA | ||
| 9 | Stanford | 19-3 | CA | ||
| 19 | Connecticut | 17-5 | CN | ||
| 6 | Georgetown | 19-2 | DC | ||
| 16 | Marquette | 16-5 | WI | ||
| 10 | Butler | 20-2 | IN | ||
| 14 | Indiana | 19-3 | IN | ||
| 22 | Notre Dame | 17-4 | IN | ||
| 24 | Purdue | 18-5 | IN | ||
| 15 | Drake | 21-1 | IA | ||
| 4 | Kansas | 22-1 | KS | ||
| 20 | Kansas State | 16-5 | KS | ||
| 11 | Michigan State | 19-3 | MI | ||
| 2 | Duke | 20-1 | NC | ||
| 3 | North Carolina | 21-2 | NC | ||
| 13 | Xavier | 19-4 | OH | ||
| 21 | Pittsburgh | 18-5 | PA | ||
| 1 | Memphis (72) | 22-0 | TN | ||
| 7 | Tennessee | 20-2 | TN | ||
| 23 | Vanderbilt | 19-4 | TN | ||
| 12 | Texas | 18-4 | TX | ||
| 18 | Texas A&M | 19-4 | TX | ||
| 17 | Washington State | 17-5 | WA | ||
| 8 | Wisconsin | 19-3 | WI |
6 comments:
Tennessee and Vanderbilt are the SEC Teams
Thanks Nicholas.
Well put my brother. I too noticed that there were no Kentucky teams in the top 25. For a state that worships basketball, their god must be, as Elijah the prophet would put it, IN THE BATHROOM. Anyway, congratulations to the Boilermakers for taking sole possession of 1st place in the Big Ten and beating Wisconsin on their homecourt. They are only the second Big Ten team to do so in many years.
Mike
Thanks Mike, as Nicholas pointed out, there were only two teams in the top 25 from the SEC.
As of this weekend, there are 4 Indiana teams in the top 20 and only one SEC team in the top 20.
Purdue has a huge game tomorrow against Michigan State.
I did notice that Louisville broke into the top 25 this week. Maybe Louisville and Purdue can both make a run at beating those state favorites.
marquette is not in il, it is in wisconsin
Thanks for the anonymous tip about Marquette. It's caused me to reconsider all the cardinal connections because I didn't know Illinois had a cardinal for its state bird...
Cardinal - Illinois
Cardinal - Indiana
Cardinal - Kentucky
Cardinal - North Carolina
Cardinal - Ohio
Cardinal - Virginia
Cardinal - West Virginia
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