How do you come up with a ranking for the Wisconsin Badgers after a wild week where they dominated for three halves: two against Illinois and one against Oregon, but fell apart to finish the week? In that final half of basketball, it seemed like the Badgers had forgotten how to score or even pass. It makes the ranking prediction even more difficult when you notice there were 10 total losses inside the top 15 this week, and a few of the teams in that range lost twice, looking at you, Purdue, Texas Tech, and Texas A&M.
Swapping Wisconsin and Michigan State on 2/3 line. Michigan State now leads in all three resumes metrics + has the outright lead (half a game) in Big Ten.
— JBR Bracketology (@JBRBracketology) February 23, 2025
4 line still a work in progress with Purdue and St. John's playing big games today.
Wisconsin came into the week at 11 what will their AP Top 25 rank be now?
Wisconsin came into the week ranked No. 11, and even though they dismantled Illinois, it is almost assured they will see some sort of a drop, but how far? Or is there a case where they don't drop? Let's look at the teams around them and see what the AP voters are looking at.
No. 7 Texas A&M - Lost to No. 21 Mississippi State and No. 6 Tennessee
No. 8 Iowa State - Beat Colorado and lost to No. 5 Houston
No. 9 Texas Tech - Lost to TCU and West Virginia
No. 10 St. John's - Beat DePaul and UCONN
No. 11 Wisconsin - Beat Illinois and lost to Oregon
No. 12 Michigan - Lost to No. 14 Michigan State
No. 13 Purdue - Lost to No. 14 Michigan State and Indiana
No. 14 Michigan State - Beat No. 13 Purdue and No. 12 Michigan
No. 15 Missouri - Beat No. 4 Alabama and lost to Arkansas
That's a lot of chaos. Only two teams in that range won both teams this week, St. John's and Michigan State. The rest at least split or lost two games. This means that, realistically, Wisconsin shouldn't move much. However, AP voters are never all that predictable and often do a "what we saw most recently" or "our current perception of you."
However, if we are going for a prediction, I bet that Wisconsin and Michigan State swap not only seed lines in the NCAA Tournament projections but also rankings. Michigan State will get to around 10 or 11, and Wisconsin will move to 14.