How would you prefer to think of UCLA? RealTimeRPI and the Associated Press put the Bruins in the top 10, whereas NET ranks UCLA #26.
Larry Sheppard — NCAA official of the year (1994) in women’s basketball — was always quick to tell me that sportswriters don’t know anything. Maybe you can’t trust the AP. And the NCAA deprecated RPI itself, when it implemented the NCAA Evaluation Tool.
The UCLA that came back from -11 in the 4th quarter to win at Southern Cal last Sunday limited the Trojans to four offensive rebounds and two second chance points all afternoon.
The proverb “A man with one watch knows what time it is, but the man with two watches is never sure” sort of applies to three manners of assessing a basketball team.
We’d rather rely on ourselves, so I regret drifting in and out of sleep during the USC game. It doesn’t reflect on the quality of play as much as it does my lifestyle.
We’ll have a clearer picture of the Bruins after the Bay Area teams pass through.