re: Official Week 7 SEC Basketball Power Rankings

All fair points, but a couple things. Illinois, if you've ever seen the game, yes we're well aware STL is in MO, but it is a split crowd right down the middle. I don't ever hear the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party being referred to as a UF home game because it's played in Florida. And Illinois, for all their struggles, right now today is still neck and neck with Georgia and Vandy in terms of RPI, all of them are in the mid-80s. Those three are Mizzou's "worst" losses on the year - UGA, Illinois and Vandy. We in fact don't have any losses to sub-100 RPI teams.

Georgia on the other hand has several losses to sub-100 RPI teams, and that again is part of the problem they face in terms of respect for overall body of work. They've lost to Auburn whose RPI is 151. They've lost to Davidson whose RPI is 157. They've lost to Temple whose RPI is 167. They've lost to Georgia Tech whose RPI is 146. That's the stuff that murders Georgia's NCAA chances and in my view does differentiate Mizzou's non-con resume quite a bit. You can scoff at neutral court games Mizzou played outside the state of Missouri against teams like Northwestern and Nevada, but those teams have better RPIs than some of the above teams I mention that Georgia in fact lost to.

I would add though that there's no question Mizzou, and the whole SEC, need to schedule in the non-con better. It's critical now with the league so down. Illinois is a yearly series we can't back out of and the Illini are NCAA tournament caliber more often than not, they're just down this year. NC State is only a couple years removed from a Sweet Sixteen so it seemed like a nice series but we need more games like that. The Big 12-SEC challenge needs to quit screwing us and let us at least play a K-State or Iowa State if we can't play ku. We've played another border rival in the Iowa Hawkeyes in the non-con sometimes in years past, might be time to give them a call again since they are good now. Play road games at Duke and Syracuse and Arizona hell I don't care. We need to ramp it up. But all the same, I do like our body of work this year better than UGA's up to this point. The game between us in Athens upcoming should put all the debate to rest once and for all though.