We have a couple of shifts in this ranking while we still wait for some major matchups.
Cal could be #1 at this point, but we still wait. Really the basis of their ranking right now is two wins over UCLA. We need more data. Chances are, however, that if things go as we expect, they will move to #1 at some point.
Arizona gets a little nudge up and here's an interesting discussion on throwing out results. The biggest reason to throw out an earlier result is because it was a close game and other results and performances just seem to make that one loss or that one win an outlier.
We might see that further down the rankings at some point. But what about a lopsided loss? It's very hard to throw out the loss part of it, but the lopsided we can perhaps let slide, usually because (as is the case with Arizona vs Saint Mary's earlier this year) one team has just been on the field and playing more than the other. Arizona was a bit cold coming off winter break, and Saint Mary's, a very good team, caught them still thawing.
So we're keeping that loss but the magnitude we're kind of pushing aside, and thinking on how an Arizona team now, or in a few weeks, might be closer to the Gaels. The Wildcats get Cal in two weeks, so we'll see what happens there.
Same deal, to a certain extent, with Cal Poly.
At the lower end of this list we have the opposite thing, with Long Beach State's close loss to UCLA now brought back as evidence they should be ranked now the CSULB has beaten UC Santa Barbara. Really all of those teams in the California Conference have an argument, and if UC Davis had been close-ish to U. San Diego, we might have seen them nudge into the Top 25.
As it is, look at this (just using conference record):
UCSB 1-3-1
CSULB 1-3
SDSU 1-3
UC Davis 1-4
UCSC 1-3
Sacramento State 1-2
Santa Clara 1-2
Twelve of those 20 losses were to Cal Poly, UCLA, or Saint Mary's.
Take those out and you see records like this:
UCSB 1-1-1
CSULB 1-0
SDSU 1-1
UC Davis 1-4
UCSC 1-1
Sacramento State 1-1
Santa Clara 1-0
So you see that one of the reasons Davis isn't in there is they haven't played the big dogs.
