It is time. Most area teams have played at least five games and thus it is time to introduce the Big Apple Buckets Power Poll.This will be an occasional thing this season. Each of the writers ranked their Top 10 area teams. The results aren’t particularly surprising.
The Top 10:
- St. John’s – 28 points (2 first place votes)
- Seton Hall – 28 points (1)
- Rutgers – 25 points
- Iona – 20 points
- Stony Brook – 19 points
- LIU Brooklyn – 15 points
- Wagner – 10 points
- Fairfield – 9 points
- Princeton – 6 points
- Manhattan – 3 points
Others receiving votes: Rider (2), Monmouth (1)
On the cusp: Columbia, Marist
Judging by the comments of the Ryans there are two teams that could be moving up in the near future: Manhattan and Wagner. Both teams struggled early in the season after high expectations. The Jaspers in particular got George Beamon back and are playing competitively, but not winning. The Seahawks will have to find an offense at some point. Columbia, which might have the area’s most impressive win at Villanova, isn’t even being considered right now due to losses to LIU and Marist. The Lions could shoot up the rankings eventually.
It’s been a rough start to the season in general. As Ryan Peters pointed out NYC area schools are just 6-36 against the Pomeroy Top 100. Still, thanks to auto bids, there are definitely a number of potential NCAA teams amongst the 10.
A few choice quotes:
On Iona -
“As this team comes together, they could jump above the Big East teams.”
On Rutgers –
“They’ve recovered after the inexplicable loss to St. Peter’s. Seriously, how did that happen? St. Peter’s ending up losing to Binghamton and FDU later on.”
Where is SFC? Surely they deserve to be in this list just because of Jalen Cannon carrying the team on his back.
I think SFC has a few too many losses right now to be considered in this group. They’re probably pretty close though, especially after Marist’s ugly loss last night. If I could revise I’d say that Army and SFC are hanging around the bottom of the Top 10.
Cannon on the other hand would have to be on any area first team. He’s been great.