OSU #1 in fairly meaningless poll

For all the huss and fuss over the BCS, the AP rankings, the Coaches’ poll, the Harris poll, etc., that now goes hand-in-hand with college football, it’s nice to see that college basketball provides the casual fan with the sort of rankings that are super meaningful in college football but are ultimately meaningless in college basketball. I mean, how are we supposed to know which teams are good in basketball without these rankings? We’d be lost, that’s for sure, until the middle of March, when things become clear in a way that they can never be clear in college football.

Ohio State is the #1 team in the country in the new USA Today/Coaches’ poll. OSU is riding that rare mix of 1) a super recruiting class (the prime piece of which has not yet played), 2) not playing anyone (and therefore not losing to anyone), and 3) watching other teams lose games, all the way to the bank. I have no idea what to make of this ranking — it seems to be based more on what other teams are doing and the potential of what OSU could do in the future — but with the Buckeyes also #1 in the BCS, this marks the first time in school history in which both the men’s basketball and football teams have been ranked #1 in the same week.

So we have that going for us.