Xavier is the best team in the nation*

One of my favorite things in the basketball world is the Massey Composite. Kenneth Massey has compiled a continuously updated list of 36 computer ranking models that rank the college basketball realm from 1-351. We're obviously big fans of Ken Pomeroy's tempo-free approach here at Banners, but there is plenty of room for other forms of wisdom in the area of analytics.

I usually pick my favorite by whichever one has Xavier ranked the highest.

I clicked through today (though today will be yesterday by the time you read this) to see which form of analysis I was going to be espousing for the immediate future when I found out - much to my delight - that Xavier was ranked #1 in 9 of the rankings systems, a full quarter of the rankings represented.

One of those is the Kirkpatrick ratings, currently hosted here on the TalismanRed servers (for whatever reason). In addition to being last year's second-most accurate ranking system, it is a blend of two separate metrics. One looks only at scoring margin, the other only at result. The two numbers are then blended to get the final rating, and Xavier currently has the best one.

Of course, there's a lot of basketball yet to be played. I'm not saying that Xavier is going to win the national championship. I'm not even saying they're the best team in the nation. What I am saying is that - with the curtain about to drop on 2015 - there's a case to be made that Xavier is #1. All things considered, that's pretty sweet to see.