short-sighted? Hey, come up with your own critique, don't just co-opt mine. That's lazy
To answer D2D, I don't know if a team that was at #1 in the PWR in December missed the tournament. But then again, the PWR wasn't even listed anywhere on this site so early in the season until a few years ago. I'll let you guess why...
But - the two off the top of my head that I remembered and checked quickly -
UNO was bopping between 3-5 all of the first half of last season. They were #3 in January. They missed the tournament.
In 2009 The Gophers were #4 in January and missed the tournament.
I'm sure there are others like that.
As for PSU, last year they were #8 at this point. They got to that spot much the way they have this season - a very good record against not very good opponents. They finished at 21.
Hey, PSU should be pleased they have won nearly all of their games so far. That's great, and it is going to help them come March. But they only have 2 wins right now that have a chance to qualify for the QWB, and most of their wins are against teams who won't crack the top-half of the RPI (the majority almost certainly won't even get out of the bottom-third). That means they are in a more volatile position than a number of the teams right below them. So they are sitting in a good spot to make the NCAA tournament (a bit better than last year), but to earn the #1 overall seed they are going to have to be more perfect than those teams right below will have to be.
All of those teams they have beaten aren't going to be doing anything as the season progresses to help raise PSU's RPI.
At any rate, the original post seemed to imply that PSU are the #1 team in the country, and basing that off of "the PWR if the season ended today." That's really flawed. The PWR was designed to rank teams after the conclusion of a 35-40 game season. Not a 12-18 game season.
EDIT: The point I'm making is that looking at the PWR right now is kind of like looking at a weather forecast for late-March right now. Given the info we have, and what we know historically, we can make some general assumptions within a range. But the confidence of those assumptions becomes exponentially less the more specific we try to be. And there are a number of unknowns that have the potential to skew everything.
So, touche. To say it is meaningless, in the strictest sense of the word, is inaccurate. I'll concede that. But it would be folly to put too much stock in the little meaning we can glean.