St. Joe’s received a vote in this week’s AP Top 25. Will the Hawks be ranked soon?

The St. Joseph’s men’s basketball team has had quite an interesting first six weeks of theseason.

A strong start culminated Sunday at Hagan Arena in a win over a Princeton team that was in the Sweet 16 nine months ago.

Sizing up the nonconference slate, almost everything that could go right for St. Joe’s has. The Hawks knocked off Villanova on the road for the first time in more than a decade. They went 3-0 in the new Big 5 and won the inaugural Big 5 Classic championship. They went to Rupp Arena to play nationally ranked Kentucky and nearly won the game in regulation before losing in overtime.

Then came Sunday, a 74-70 win against Princeton in a nearly full Hagan.

The words almost everything were used for a reason, however. St. Joe’s is 8-2 and not 9-1 because of one of the worst losses any team in Philadelphia likely will have on its resumé this season — a 57-54 defeat as a 20-point home favorite against Texas A&M-Commerce.

If you’ve been paying attention to this space, you know that game is being viewed, both by St. Joe’s coach Billy Lange and this writer, as a one-game blip in an otherwise successful first 10 games. The Hawks had a poor shooting night and, well, stuff happens.

» READ MORE: To three, or not to three: For St. Joe’s, it’s rarely a question

But the Commerce loss is worthy of mentioning when it comes to digging into whether St. Joe’s will crack the Associated Press Top 25 anytime soon (honestly the fact that this is a topic is a win for Hawk Hill in itself).

The Hawks received one ranking (25th) on one of the 63 AP ballots. It essentially made them tied as the 42nd-ranked team in Division I.

Is St. Joe’s on a path to crack the Top 25 for the first time in 20 years? Let one AP voter (me) analyze.

OK, I don’t rank any more than 25 to 30 teams per week when making my ballot, and St. Joe’s wasn’t in consideration for me, so let’s start with where the Hawks are in totality — the one vote putting them in a tie at 42nd. There were 20 teams under the “others receiving votes” line this week.

Let’s pick a few random teams in that group and see how St. Joe’s compares ...

The Crimson Tide have three losses but checked in Wednesday morning 10th in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin, eighth in Torvik’s power rating, and 10th in the NCAA’s NET rankings. St. Joe’s is 85th, 80th, and 62nd, respectively. Alabama has the most efficient offense in the country, according to KenPom, and its three losses are against quality opponents (Ohio State, KenPom 28; Clemson, 25; and Purdue, 3).

The Crimson Tide, however, could have two more losses soon. They play at Creighton on Saturday and then vs. Arizona on Wednesday in Phoenix.

A 6-5 record probably would drop the Crimson Tide out of receiving any Top 25 votes. Even then, it would be interesting to see how other voters view Alabama, which would have five losses against five of the 30 best teams in the country.

» READ MORE: Behind three-point barrage and three-guard magic, St. Joe’s gets its statement win over Villanova

Penny Hardaway’s group got blitzed by Villanova in the Battle 4 Atlantis title game and then lost its next one to a currently undefeated Mississippi team that was two paces off the Top 25 this week. Ole Miss doesn’t have the best case for being ranked, but 9-0 is 9-0.

As far as Memphis goes, that’s two KenPom top-100 losses to go with top-100 wins over Missouri, Michigan, Arkansas, VCU, and Texas A&M.

The Tigers have two more tough ones coming up, against Clemson and Virginia.

The Huskies have wins over Gonzaga and Xavier and their three losses are to Nevada, San Diego State, and Colorado State, three teams that are either ranked or are receiving votes. St. Joe’s has the same amount of top-60 KenPom wins, but the loss to Commerce (312th) is a massive separator.

» READ MORE: St. Joe's women: Blowout loss to Utah felt more like a speed bump than a wake-up call

OK, but what about James Madison?

You have my attention.

Every year there’s a mid-major darling that captures national attention and gets the spotlight. This year, it was James Madison and the way the Dukes beat Michigan State in overtime in the opener.

JMU is now 9-0 and has been in the Top 25 for a few weeks, this week at No. 20.

Michigan State, meanwhile, is below .500 at 4-5, and JMU has just one other KenPom top-100 opponent on its resumé in Appalachian State (No. 86).

The Dukes are 71st in KenPom metrics and 56th in Torvik’s power rating. They likely would be neutral-court underdogs against something like 50 teams in Division I.

Why are they ranked in the Top 25? Beats me. The Dukes weren’t on my ballot.

The problem for the next couple of weeks when it comes to the Hawks’ path to the Top 25 is that they won’t play a real quality, resumé-building opponent until Jan. 20, when they host Duquesne. Their next seven are against Iona, College of Charleston, Loyola (Md.), Rhode Island, St. Louis, Loyola (Chicago), and La Salle.

They could easily drop one or two of those, too, because it’s basketball.

If you’ve read this far, first off, thank you. Secondly, we’ve all spent too much time on what is a relatively meaningless ranking of basketball teams six weeks into a season. The success of this St. Joe’s season won’t be determined by whether the Hawks get into the list of 25 at any point this season or not, though it’s exciting fodder for fans.

The Hawks were picked fourth in the Atlantic 10, which was a one-bid league last season and a two-bid league in 2022. The ugly loss to Commerce will matter weeks from now when it comes to sizing up where the Hawks stand in at-large bid consideration.

The reality for St. Joe’s hasn’t changed: Just keep winning games. The rest will fall into place.