clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Whelan Watch: Week 5

Xavier walk-on Tim Whelan has announced that he is not going to get his damaged tooth repaired until the Muskies are ranked. With the polls coming out on a weekly basis, we'll use this space to track Whelan's progress towards once again being dentally whole.

By Joel D
The polls.
The polls.

They say no news is good news, but that's often not the case. When General Custer did not receive a response to his dispatches requesting aid from Major Marcus Reno at the Battle of Little Bighorn, for instance, he likely didn't receive that silence as positive. Likewise, if Neil Armstrong had never gotten back in touch with his home planet as he stepped onto the moon, our edifices in his memory would likely read with a more somber tone. How did a week without any "news" in the form of game results serve X in the polls?

Whelanwatch5_medium

About how you would expect, really, which is not good. Xavier's undefeated week was not enough to distract the voters from the fact that Xavier also didn't win any games on the week. X took the backdoor route to a win over a ranked team, however, with Butler leaping into the Top 25.

Butler's leap into the rankings provides some home for Muskie fans. The Bulldogs sprung from 5 to 361 votes in the AP Poll and from 4 to 89 votes in the USA Today Coaches' Poll. All it took to get there was a win over a ranked team on a neutral court. In less than 48 hours from this writing, Xavier will be afforded to duplicate that trick.

Whelan's status: Still using just a spoon, but glancing wistfully at his fork.