A New Basketball Rankings System On The Block

With RPI proving itself to be outdated and almost useless, there has been a mass exodus and a new focus on other NCAA basketball rankings systems. My former Economics professor (Scott Beaulier) has teamed up with one of his colleagues to create the "Dominetrics" rankings system. Before the analysis even begins, it's safe to say that this system rules the roost when it comes to awesome names.

Check out the rankings below (The website for the rankings is here for future reference), and I will make sure to do a post-tournament breakdown of how accurate they were throughout the tournament. Make sure and leave any opinions in the comment section. These things always create a healthy debate.

An in-depth explanation of the formulas can be found here.

Rank	Team	Dominetric	Conference	Recommended Seed	NCAA Seed
1	Kansas	337	Big 12 Champions	1	1
2	Florida	332	SEC 1	1	2
3	BYU	323	Mountain West 1	1	3
4	North Carolina	322	ACC 1	1	2
5	San Diego St.	321	Mountain West Champions	2	2
6	Connecticut	316	Big East Champions	2	3
7	Georgetown	315	Big East 2	2	6
8	Ohio State	315	Big 10 1	2	1
9	Texas	315	Big 12 2	3	4
10	Duke	313	ACC Champions	3	1
11	Kentucky	310	SEC Champions	3	4
12	Pittsburgh	302	Big East 3	3	1
13	Notre Dame	301	Big East 4	4	2
14	UNLV	299	Mountain West 3	4	8
15	Syracuse	296	Big East 5	4	3
16	St. John's (NY)	287	Big East 6	4	6
17	Vanderbilt	287	SEC 3	5	5
18	Purdue	286	Big 10 2	5	3
19	Old Dominion	277	Colonial Champions	5	9
20	West Virginia	273	Big East 7	5	5
21	Texas A&M	272	Big 12 3	6	7
22	Tennessee	268	SEC 4	6	9
23	Louisville	267	Big East 8	6	4
24	Kansas State	266	Big 12 4	6	5
25	Xavier	262	Atlantic 10 1	7	6
26	Arizona	252	Pac 10 1	7	5
27	Memphis	251	Conference USA Champions	7	12
28	Villanova	251	Big East 9	7	9
29	Wisconsin	248	Big 10 3	8	4
30	Georgia	247	SEC 5	8	10
31	Washington	245	Pac 10 Champions	8	7
32	Butler	240	Horizon Champions	8	8
33	Colorado State	239	Mountain West 4	9
34	George Mason	238	Colonial 2	9	8
35	Penn State	238	Big 10 4	9	10
36	UAB	236	Conference USA 2	9	12
37	Michigan	232	Big 10 5	10	8
38	Boston College	231	ACC 3	10
39	Utah State	225	Western Athletic Champions	10	12
40	Wichita State	223	Missouri Valley 1	10
41	VCU	221	Colonial 3	11	11
42	Cincinnati	220	Big East 10	11	6
43	St. Mary's (CA)	214	West Coast 1	11
44	Temple	214	Atlantic 10 2	11	7
45	California	211	Pac 10 3	12
46	Gonzaga	211	West Coast Champions	12	11
47	Marshall	210	Conference USA 3	12
48	Michigan State	209	Big 10 6	12	10
49	Virginia Tech	208	ACC 4	13
50	UCLA	205			7
51	UCF	203
52	Cleveland St.	202
53	Florida St.	202			10
54	Miami (FL)	201
55	Marquette	199			11
56	Dayton	196
57	Oakland	196	Summit Champions	13	13
58	Richmond	194	Atlantic 10 Champions	13	12
59	Minnesota	192
60	Southern California	191			11
61	Tulsa	187
62	Missouri	186			11
63	Oklahoma St.	184
64	Illinois	183			9
65	Iona	178
66	Valparaiso	177
67	Missouri St.	175
68	Harvard	173
69	Washington St.	173
70	East Carolina	169
71	Indiana St.	169	Missouri Valley Champions	13	14
72	Clemson	168			12
73	New Mexico	166
74	UTEP	163
75	Mississippi	162
76	Colorado	157
77	Kent St.	153
78	Seton Hall	151
79	Milwaukee	150
80	Hofstra	147
81	Long Beach St.	143
82	Col. of Charleston	140
83	James Madison	140
84	Northwestern	138
85	Drexel	128
86	Princeton	127	Ivy Champions	14	13
87	St. Peter's	127	Metro Atlantic Champions	14	14
88	Utah	124
89	Wofford	124	Southern Champions	14	14
90	Miami (OH)	123
91	Morehead St.	120	Ohio Valley Champions	14	13
92	Rhode Island	120
93	Maryland	118
94	East Tenn. St.	111
95	Mississippi St.	109
96	Air Force	108
97	Baylor	108
98	IUPUI	105
99	Oregon	105
100	UNI	100
101	Duquesne	99
102	Rutgers	98
103	North Carolina St.	97
104	San Francisco	96
105	New Mexico St.	94
106	Rider	91
107	Robert Morris	88
108	Boise St.	87
109	Massachusetts	85
110	Alabama	84
111	Bucknell	82	Patriot Champions	15	14
112	Portland	82
113	South Fla.	81
114	Vermont	80
115	Akron	77	Mid-American Champions	15	15
116	George Washington	77
117	St. Bonaventure	75
118	Delaware	69
119	Ohio	69
120	Austin Peay	68
121	Fla. Atlantic	68
122	La Salle	68
123	Oklahoma	67
124	Oral Roberts	67
125	South Carolina	61
126	Nebraska	57
127	San Jose St.	57
128	Idaho	56
129	Murray St.	56
130	Northern Colorado	56	Big Sky Champions	15	15
131	Virginia	56
132	Arizona St.	55
133	St. Louis	54
134	Iowa St.	53
135	North Florida	52
136	Northeastern	52
137	St. Joseph's	52
138	Long Island	50	Northeast Champions	15	15
139	Wright St.	48
140	Fairfield	46
141	Rice	44
142	UNC Asheville	43	Big South Champions	16	16
143	Belmont	42	Atlantic Sun Champions	16	13
144	Furman	35
145	Georgia Tech	34
146	Montana	34
147	Detroit	33
148	Southern Miss.	31
149	Sam Houston St.	29
150	Iowa	27
151	Wagner	25
152	UC Santa Barbara	24	Big West Champions	16	15
153	Arkansas	23
154	Creighton	23
155	Evansville	23
156	Boston U.	22	America East Champions	16	16
157	Santa Clara	22
158	Nevada	18
159	Coastal Caro.	17
160	Lipscomb	16
161	Texas Tech	11
162	Southern U.	10
163	Stanford	10
164	Yale	10
165	Weber St.	8
166	Green Bay	4
167	North Texas	-1
168	UALR	-5	Sun Belt Champions	16	16
169	Loyola (IL)	-6
170	Loyola Maryland	-7
171	American	-8
172	TCU	-8
173	Penn	-11
174	Quinnipiac	-15
175	Western Ky.	-15
176	Pacific	-19
177	Siena	-19
178	DePaul	-20
179	South Dakota St.	-21
180	Cornell	-22
181	William & Mary	-23
182	Canisius	-24
183	Hawaii	-25
184	LSU	-27
185	Tennessee Tech	-27
186	Appalachian St.	-33
187	Jacksonville	-33
188	Hampton	-35	Mid-Eastern Champions	16	16
189	Indiana	-35
190	Chattanooga	-37
191	Providence	-38
192	Davidson	-43
193	Presbyterian	-43
194	Arkansas St.	-44
195	Ball St.	-44
196	Liberty	-46
197	Western Mich.	-46
198	Bradley	-47
199	Charlotte	-48
200	Lafayette	-48
201	Central Conn. St.	-49
202	Columbia	-50
203	Western Caro.	-50
204	Buffalo	-52
205	IPFW	-52
206	McNeese St.	-54
207	Georgia St.	-55
208	Winthrop	-58
209	Fordham	-61
210	Mercer	-62
211	Oregon St.	-63
212	Maine	-67
213	Pepperdine	-70
214	VMI	-71
215	Northern Ariz.	-72
216	Bethune-Cookman	-73
217	SMU	-77
218	Fresno St.	-79
219	Texas St.	-79
220	Towson	-79
221	Bryant	-81
222	Mt. St. Mary's	-81
223	Wake Forest	-86
224	UTSA	-87	Southland Champions	16	16
225	Middle Tenn.	-88
226	Troy	-88
227	Drake	-94
228	Albany (NY)	-95
229	Texas Southern	-96
230	Lehigh	-97
231	Cal Poly	-100
232	UNC Wilmington	-103
233	Southern Utah	-104
234	Loyola Marymount	-105
235	Tulane	-107
236	UMKC	-107
237	Auburn	-110
238	Wyoming	-110
239	A&M-Corpus Christi	-111
240	Houston	-113
241	UNC Greensboro	-113
242	Manhattan	-116
243	Stony Brook	-116
244	Morgan St.	-117
245	St. Francis (PA)	-118
246	Ill.-Chicago	-121
247	Marist	-121
248	Southeastern La.	-122
249	Louisiana Tech	-123
250	Monmouth	-124
251	N.C. A&T	-124
252	Brown	-125
253	La.-Lafayette	-134
254	North Dakota St.	-134
255	UC Riverside	-135
256	Charleston So.	-136
257	Tennessee St.	-136
258	Citadel	-140
259	Cal St. Northridge	-141
260	Nicholls St.	-142
261	St. Francis (NY)	-143
262	Army	-145
263	Youngstown St.	-145
264	Denver	-146
265	Bowling Green	-147
266	Gardner-Webb	-150
267	Stephen F. Austin	-150
268	High Point	-151
269	Binghamton	-152
270	Holy Cross	-154
271	Eastern Wash.	-156
272	Idaho St.	-156
273	Illinois St.	-156
274	Norfolk St.	-156
275	Savannah St.	-156
276	Elon	-157
277	FIU	-159
278	Utah Valley	-161
279	Northwestern St.	-162
280	Mississippi Val.	-163
281	San Diego	-163
282	Montana St.	-165
283	Samford	-167
284	Eastern Ky.	-169
285	Fla. Gulf Coast	-169
286	Jackson St.	-170
287	North Dakota	-170
288	Niagara	-171
289	S.C. Upstate	-171
290	Campbell	-172
291	UT Martin	-175
292	Dartmouth	-176
293	Alabama St.	-177	Southwestern Champions	16	16
294	Coppin St.	-179
295	Hartford	-180
296	UC Davis	-184
297	Sacred Heart	-185
298	Stetson	-187
299	UMBC	-189
300	Navy	-194
301	South Ala.	-197
302	Texas-Arlington	-201
303	N.C. Central	-204
304	New Hampshire	-204
305	Colgate	-205
306	Lamar	-209
307	Southeast Mo. St.	-209
308	Portland St.	-211
309	Eastern Ill.	-214
310	South Dakota	-214
311	SIU Edwardsville	-216
312	Radford	-219
313	Grambling	-222
314	Seattle	-222
315	Kennesaw St.	-228
316	Southern Ill.	-231
317	NJIT	-232
318	Delaware St.	-236
319	Toledo	-236
320	UC Irvine	-238
321	Cal St. Fullerton	-239
322	Fairleigh Dickinson	-240
323	Alabama A&M	-245
324	Central Mich.	-245
325	La.-Monroe	-245
326	Md.-East. Shore	-246
327	Cal St. Bakersfield	-247
328	Central Ark.	-250
329	Longwood	-250
330	Eastern Mich.	-252
331	Howard	-254
332	Centenary (LA)	-262
333	Northern Ill.	-266
334	Florida A&M	-268
335	Sacramento St.	-272
336	Ark.-Pine Bluff	-275
337	Prairie View	-280
338	Ga. Southern	-282
339	Jacksonville St.	-284
340	Western Ill.	-285
341	South Carolina St.	-302
342	Alcorn St.	-306
343	Chicago St.	-307
344	Tex.-Pan American	-316
345	Houston Baptist	-331

A Dark Cloud In Columbus

I don't think it's a stretch to consider today one of the worst days in Ohio State athletics history. Let's do a quick summary of the facts at hand. Ohio State head football coach, Jim Tressel, has admitted to hiding knowledge of major infractions (Read about them here) from the NCAA. Tressel found out about the infractions on April 2, 2010 and never relayed his knowledge to the NCAA. It wasn't until this week (Eleven months later) that the allegations surfaced due to a leak somewhere in the OSU athletic department. If not for that leak, it's unlikely anyone would have ever known that Tressel was aware of what his players were doing.

So, Tressel is guilty of intentionally hiding his players' infractions in order for them to be able to participate in the 2010 season. Anyone think he would have done that if the guilty players weren't among his most talented? You have to imagine that the NCAA interviewed Tressel during their investigation of the memorabilia sales and free tattoos, and that means that he lied to the NCAA about a major infraction. To say that Tressel is in trouble might be an understatement. To sum it up, he lied to NCAA investigators about a major infraction, he tried to hide the infractions so that his players could stay eligible, and he worked behind the scenes to obstruct parts of a drug trafficking investigation (Evident in the emails below). Bruce Pearl just got one-upped in a major way. Oh, and by the way, Ohio State's sanctions of Tressel? $250,000 fine and a suspension that keeps him out of the Akron and Toledo games. Way to throw the book at him.

The press conference held by the OSU athletic department may have been one of the worst press conferences in history. The athletic director began the circus by saying:

‎"We acted on this quickly, unlike other programs across the country who take forever to respond."

Apparently, he thought it would be a good idea to throw stones at other programs when his own coach sat on the story for an entire season so his players would remain eligible. It took eleven months for Tressel's knowledge to come out, and that's somehow acting quickly?

Jim Tressel's excuses took the cake, though.

First, he claimed that he thought that the emails were confidential so he couldn't tell anyone. Yet, he told/warned his players but hid the information from the rest of athletic department and the NCAA. The original email also never mentioned confidentiality, and the first mention of confidentiality (Which was in the second email) came two weeks after the original email. Even if his confidentiality claim is to be believed, he still had a two week window (Between original receipt of the information and the first confidentiality request) in which he should have reported the infractions.

Next, his reason for not disclosing the infractions was that he didn't know who he should tell. Huh? All athletic departments have a compliance office for a reason. That's a terrible excuse.

Lastly, he said that he kept the players eligible because he didn't want to interfere with the ongoing drug investigation. So basically, Tressel knew his players had committed major NCAA infractions AND were under investigation for drug-trafficking and he still let them play. Wow.

I can guarantee that the NCAA will not look kindly on Tressel's actions so I'm very interested to see what they decide is appropriate punishment.

The best analysis of the whole ordeal has to be from Tennessee sports reporter, Clay Travis. View his Twitter account here.

Here are the emails themselves courtesy of Sports By Brooks. I will update more as the situation gets sorted out, but these emails are must read material.

Has Peter Gammons Gone Off The Deep End?

In the past year or so, Peter Gammons has become increasingly vitriolic for no apparent reason. Of course, he's a media legend and had a stroke a few years ago, but at what point do we hold him accountable for the things that he says?

 I think he crossed the line today by publicly accusing Mike Huckabee of being a member of the KKK.

For those of you who aren't aware, Orval Faubus was the Governor of Arkansas who ordered the Arkansas National Guard to keep schools from integrating in disobedience of the Supreme Court's desegregation order. 

We'll see if anyone else is willing to criticize such a revered sports reporter. He should be held responsible for his words, and it might help him to get that kind of wake up call.

Good For Carson

When I first heard the developing story of Carson Palmer wanting out of Cincinnati and threatening retirement, my immediate reaction was that he shouldn't be making those types of demands after his horrible 2010 season. After giving it further thought, I think Carson may be the victim here.

Everything about the Bengals organization is a joke. It's no secret that they have one of the worst front offices in football. Mike Brown seems hell-bent on running the team, that his father helped create, into the ground. Since he owns the team and acts as the GM, he can micromanage all that he wants without having to worry about job security. This has lead to a situation where the Bengals seem unafraid to bring in bad character/team cancer type players, regardless of the preferences of head coach Marvin Lewis.

We can only speculate as to the impact these players have had on the locker room atmosphere, but it is no coincidence that the best teams in the league give major weight to character issues when deciding on which players to draft/sign. There may be the occasional Randy Moss to the Patriots type of deal, but that was a judgment call based on the veterans' ability to keep him under control. Once he became a problem, Moss was shipped out immediately. You can imagine the type of locker room atmosphere present with a cast of characters such as Chad Ochocinco, Terrell Owens, Carlos Dunlap, Cedric Benson, Tank Johnson, Andre Smith, and PacMan Jones. Whereas the Patriots were able to keep Moss in check with a strong veteran presence, many of the Bengals' veterans are the problem themselves.

To go slightly off-topic for a second, how impressive is it that Palmer has been financially responsible enough to have $80 million in the bank? The NFL has an 80% bankruptcy rate among retired players and an absurdly high percentage of players that live paycheck to paycheck. Obviously financial responsibility isn't one of a normal NFL player's best qualities. It makes it extremely hard to make the case (In which I fully believe) that NFL players are actually underpaid in an economic sense when you see idiots like Bryan McKinney spending $100,000 on alcohol in one night at a Hollywood club. Then there's the famous story where Palmer's teammate, PacMan Jones, made it rain with $80,000 in a Las Vegas strip club. I think Carson Palmer should be lauded for his responsibility and intelligence which have led him to a point where he can make the important decisions in his life without having to become a slave to the NFL paycheck.

Returning to the issue at hand, it sounds like the character/attitude issues that were prevalent among the Bengals players have driven Palmer past the point of no return. We don't know how much nonsense he had to put up with from Ochocinco and T.O., but you can pretty much guarantee it was a ton, especially when the season went in the tank. If Palmer was miserable due to the locker room dynamic that naturally results from having that many poor character guys, it's very easy to see how his preparation and focus could suffer. Is it a coincidence that Palmer had his best game of the season with Ochocinco and T.O. out due to injury? It says a lot that Palmer is willing to retire to keep from having to play another snap for the Bengals organization. Keep in mind that the Palmer is not the type of player to complain through the media. The only time I've ever heard him criticize anyone with the Bengals was when he stated his displeasure with Ochocinco not being in training camp. Imagine how powerful the negative atmosphere around an organization must be for a player to be willing to walk away from the game he loves just to avoid playing for that team.

Situations constantly arise throughout sports where a player becomes disgruntled due to issues with coaches or management. The one bond that is supposed to keep a player focused and competing is the idea that you play for your teammates. No player wants to let his family (and your teammates become family very quickly in sports) down, but what if the teammates are the ones causing most of the problems? That's when there are no viable options. In a poisonous atmosphere, it's not healthy for a player to continue fighting battles he'll never win. With Mike Brown at the helm, Carson Palmer will never be able to right the Bengals ship. Therefore, his only option is to move on, whether be with a trade or retirement.