Everybody desires to root for a Cinderella story. School basketball thrives at creating these underdog tales. A bunch of youngsters taking part in at impartial websites in a single-elimination event actually places the “insanity” into March Insanity.
Thus far this season, the highest of the nation is deeper than ever, with each workforce within the top-10 solely having one or fewer losses. Attributable to how top-heavy the game at present is, many are looking for their subsequent St. Peter’s to latch onto. And plenty of are discovering that within the Miami Redhawks.
The Redhawks are at present 19-0 and boast the most effective offenses within the nation, scoring 88.2 factors per sport, rating 14th within the nation. Head coach Travis Steele additionally suits the Cinderella story archetype this workforce is creating.
Steele was the top coach of Xavier for 4 seasons, throughout which he underwhelmed, by no means making the event and compiling a 70-50 file. Steele has discovered new life in Oxford and has created one of the high-powered offenses on the mid-major stage.
Sadly, I’ve to play the position of the evil stepmother on this Cinderella story as a result of Miami has no enterprise being anyplace close to the highest 25.
Why Miami (OH) should not be ranked
Miami is at present twenty ninth within the AP ballot, and after one other undefeated week, they may rise when the brand new rankings drop this week. The Redhawks have performed completely no one this season. I do know the previous adage is “you’ll be able to solely beat the groups in your schedule”, however the groups on their schedule are hardly division one caliber.
They’ve performed one of many best schedules out their at present ranked 350th out of 365 within the nation. Of their non-conference slate, they performed one workforce that’s at present above .500.
Travis Steele has argued that no energy convention groups have been keen to play Miami throughout non-conference play, however solely two different groups within the MAC are above three hundredth when it comes to energy of schedule. The remainder of the convention was capable of finding aggressive video games on the schedule, in order that shouldn’t be an excuse for Miami.
Then, when you think about how simple their schedule has been, they haven’t actually dominated it. They’re 94th within the nation in KenPom web ranking, two spots beneath Steele’s former workforce in Xavier, which has 4 losses of 20+ on their resume.
This isn’t some workforce dominating their simple schedule; they’re barely scraping by the groups in entrance of them.
Within the MAC, they aren’t even the highest-rated workforce based on KenPom; they’re effectively beneath Akron when it comes to web ranking. Nevertheless, they did beat Akron 76-73 at residence, of their solely regular-season matchup towards the workforce many nonetheless consider is the very best within the convention.
It’s nonetheless enjoyable watching a workforce like Miami hold this win streak alive, however this workforce even sniffing a rating subsequent to their title is a whole fugazi.
Any workforce to come back out of the MAC this yr will nonetheless must win in Cleveland when March rolls round.
