KenPom Weekly Movers: Air Force Flying High

We’re deep in the weeds of conference play and that’s helping (and hurting) a lot of teams. That’s reflected in this week’s KenPom movement as teams are rocketing up and down the rankings. There’s a pretty big slate of Sunday action that’ll probably help next week’s rankings be pretty interesting as well.

Biggest Movers This Week:

1. College of Charleston: +39 (138)
2. Air Force: +38 (88)
3. Eastern Michigan: +33 (247)
4. South Carolina: +32 (174)
5. Northern Kentucky: +30 (249)

Long Beach St. is also moving on up. As are Georgia and Georgetown. The Bulldogs rose 27 spots and the Hoyas 22 spots all the way to 37. Southern Miss also rose 22 spots to 31 overall. Eastern Michigan’s defense crept into the Top 100 after holding Northern Illinois to 25 points in 52 possessions on Saturday. (If you haven’t seen that box score, you should check it out.) Air Force has managed to win with an efficient offense. It scored 90 points in two consecutive games this week and then managed 57 points in 57 possessions while winning at Wyoming.

Biggest Fallers This Week:

1. Central Michigan: -38 (225)
2. San Jose St.: -37 (270)
3. Idaho: -33 (162)
4. Virginia Military Institute: -32 (281)
5. UNC Greensboro: -31 (289)

Columbia was one of the biggest fallers this week after losing to Cornell at home on Saturday. The Lions fell 23 spots to 166th overall. Also dropping down the rankings was Utah St., which has been hampered by injuries. That same NIU team that scored 25 points against Eastern Michigan, scored 74 in a 13-point road win over Central Michigan, which is why the Chippewas are on this list.

Biggest Movers This Season:

1. Southern: +199 (133)
2. Utah: +198 (111)
3. Eastern Kentucky: +176 (116)
4. Canisius: +172 (104)
5. Towson: +148 (190)

Every team on this list except for Canisius gave back some ground this week. Southern suffered its first SWAC loss and Towson lost three straight games in CAA play, including a two-point home loss to Georgia St. and a seven-point road loss at a not very good William & Mary team. Arizona St. is creeping up the list. The Sun Devils are seventh now, having risen 141 spots since preseason to 77. They’re coming off a big home win over UCLA on Saturday night, 78-60. The Sun Devils are 5-2 in Pac-12 play thanks to two overtime victories.

Biggest Fallers This Season:

1. Cleveland St.: -158 (266)
2. Old Dominion: -155 (285)
3. Penn St.: -135 (210)
4. North Texas: -121 (236)
5. East Tennessee St.: -119 (311)

Since a surprising home win over Detroit on Jan. 12, CSU has lost four consecutive Horizon League games, none closer than eight points. Blowout losses to Loyola (IL) and Youngstown St. dropped them into the bottom spot this week. According to Pomeroy, ODU has a 1.8% chance of going winless in CAA play now that it’s started 0-7. The best chance for a win? UNCW at home on Feb. 20.

Conference Movement:

Now that we’re in conference play there isn’t a ton of movement amongst the conferences. They’ve pretty much established where they’re going to be now for the remainder of the season. The biggest gains this week came from the Mountain West, which rose an average of four spots per team. The Big West moved up an average of three spots per team to hold onto the top spot, while the Atlantic Sun dropped two more spots on average. Each A-Sun team has fallen an average of 67 spots this season.