It wasn’t a good week for the ACC bubble teams. Maryland and Virginia both slipped in almost every poll while Miami and Florida State basically spun their wheels. For Miami and UVA, their only chance was to make some big gains in the final few weeks of the season, and that didn’t happen this week. Maryland loss to Clemson dropped them from a high bubble team to a low one. Florida State sort of treaded water in most of the computer polls, but somehow impressed the RPI enough to bump them up seven notches. They still have some work to do in that department, but if just winning the games they should win and losing the ones they should will keep them moving up, then they should feel pretty safe.
That FSU bump is yet another piece of evidence that the RPI is a crappy rating system. I mean, they lost on the road – fairly convincingly – to a good NC State team and then won at home – also fairly convincingly – against a mediocre Virginia team. Neither outcome was unusual or unexpected in any way. The power ratings reflected that; the Noles dropped two spots in the Pomeroy ratings, but stayed the same in both Sagarin and Greenfield. The RPI however really liked that week and jumped them from 67 to 60. Miami had a similar week, losing at home to UNC and on the road at Duke, but yet jumped 10 spots in the RPI!
I just don’t get why the NCAA uses that system.
And now for the standings …
| Team | prev/cur | Avg. | Postseason Prediction | Trend | ||||
| Duke (25-1, 13-0) | prev | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Absolute lock for a 1 seed |  |
| cur | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| NC State (21-5, 10-3) | prev | 17 | 15 | 15 | 21 | 17 | Either a 3 or 4 seed | |
| cur | 12 | 11 | 10 | 18 | 12.75 | |||
| UNC (17-6, 8-4) | prev | 19 | 16 | 21 | 23 | 19.75 | A dangerous 4 or 5 seed | |
| cur | 18 | 12 | 20 | 19 | 17.25 | |||
| BC (21-5, 8-4) | prev | 20 | 19 | 20 | 29 | 22 | Either a 5 or 6 seed |  |
| cur | 21 | 18 | 17 | 34 | 22.5 | |||
| FSU (16-7, 6-6) | prev | 28 | 36 | 34 | 67 | 41.25 | Strong 10 seed | |
| cur | 30 | 36 | 34 | 60 | 40 | |||
| Maryland (16-9, 6-6) | prev | 36 | 34 | 40 | 41 | 37.75 | 9 seed or NIT |  |
| cur | 44 | 37 | 42 | 45 | 42 | |||
| Virginia (13-10, 6-6) | prev | 65 | 62 | 55 | 56 | 59.5 | NIT and happy | |
| cur | 70 | 62 | 62 | 71 | 66.25 | |||
| Miami (14-12, 6-7) | prev | 58 | 73 | 52 | 82 | 66.25 | NIT, but could finish .500 and get shut out | |
| cur | 58 | 73 | 56 | 72 | 64.75 | |||
| Clemson (15-10, 4-8) | prev | 81 | 71 | 73 | 73 | 74.5 | Squeaks into NIT | |
| cur | 72 | 62 | 66 | 66 | 66.5 | |||
| VA Tech (13-12, 3-9) | prev | 63 | 81 | 76 | 114 | 83.5 | Catching up on missed episodes of Lost | |
| cur | 68 | 81 | 82 | 120 | 87.75 | |||
| GA Tech (10-14, 3-10) | prev | 104 | 100 | 109 | 136 | 112.25 | Paul Hewitt can go shopping for some more gold ties | |
| cur | 101 | 99 | 108 | 141 | 112.25 | |||
| Wake Forest (13-13, 1-11) | prev | 89 | 89 | 93 | 109 | 95 | Eric Williams falls asleep during NBA workout. | |
| cur | 92 | 92 | 99 | 105 | 97 |
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