Polls in college basketball, unlike those in football, don't amount to a hill of beans at the end of day -- the champion is crowned on the court at the apex of a tournament where a majority of the best teams battle it out over three weeks. And its never really been apparent that the selection committee uses the AP and/or Coaches Poll to determine seeding.
As near as I can tell, polls in basketball are merely a popularity poll to help fans develop a pecking order for the 314 teams in Division 1. With that many teams, polls are theoretically a handy tool to determine where teams "slot in" -- how good is Team A as opposed to Team B? Well, Team A is rated #8 and Team B is rated #15, so Team A is probably better.
There's a lot of flaws to that general line of thought, although for a large segment of the population the AP and Coaches Polls are still the bible of how good a team is prior to March. Of course, there's a lot of problems with the voting methods, and the voters, in those two mainstream polls. I've always believed the media tends to vote for the brand name teams over more qualified teams with generic names, and that the coaches tend to vote for teams with which they're familiar. Both polls invariably wind up being similar week-to-week.
Why is that? Media and coaches alike watch a lot of ESPN and CBS, the entities with the most skin in the game, and the coverage on those two entities skews towards the teams that will garner them the best ratings. You can't blame them; that's Business 101 stuff. Of course Duke/North Carolina is going to get better ratings than Indiana State/Illinois State. I'd rather watch the latter, but I'm in the minority.
That "human" element was supposed to be eliminated with the RPI, or Ratings Percentage Index, but the cold calculations of the computer programming used to create it have been derisively ripped by the old guard who vote in the AP and Coaches Polls. The RPI essentially died the night Billy Packer and Jim Nantz mocked the Missouri Valley for earning four bids to the NCAA Tournament on CBS's Selection Sunday show, dealing a blow to those of us who prefer cold hard numbers to old men with big conference bias.
So it is that this week CBS, of all places, has launched a BlogPoll with bloggers instead of mainstream media writers voting on their Top 25 each week. 47 of the top college hoops blog writers in the nation have been given votes, and yours truly is one of them. I'm the only one with overt ties to the Missouri Valley -- one other voter identifies himself as a Creighton fan but his blog is more of a general interest basketball site than one that focuses on a single team.
Each week, the poll will launch on Monday alongside the Associated Press and USA Today/ESPN Coaches Polls. Each week, I'm required to publish my poll here so that the voting process is as transparent as possible. I'm also required to open up the post for comments so that my readers can offer feedback on my votes.
After the jump, my complete poll for the week of February 9-15, 2009, along with my justification for selected teams:
 | ||
| Rank | Team | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oklahoma | |
| 2 | Connecticut | |
| 3 | North Carolina | |
| 4 | Pittsburgh | |
| 5 | Duke | |
| 6 | Butler | |
| 7 | Louisville | |
| 8 | Memphis | |
| 9 | UCLA | |
| 10 | Villanova | |
| 11 | Michigan St. | |
| 12 | Wake Forest | |
| 13 | Xavier | |
| 14 | Marquette | |
| 15 | Clemson | |
| 16 | Gonzaga | |
| 17 | Utah St. | |
| 18 | Missouri | |
| 19 | Kansas | |
| 20 | Dayton | |
| 21 | Arizona St. | |
| 22 | Davidson | |
| 23 | Washington | |
| 24 | Texas | |
| 25 | Purdue | |
As always, my actual method for arriving at my rankings is way more scientific than the method described below, which is way more entertaining to read.
I've got Oklahoma rated number one, whereas the AP and the Coaches have UConn number one. Those two teams are awfully similar. Oklahoma is 22-1; UConn is 21-1. Ken Pomeroy (heretofore referred to as KenPom) has Oklahoma 12th, and UConn 2nd. Further, Oklahoma is 8-0 against the Top 50, 7-1 against 51-100; UConn is 8-1 against the Top 50 and 4-0 against teams 51-100. Pretty damn even.
When numbers don't show a clear winner, I rely on my time-tested tiebreaker. Namely, the Mini Donut Percentage Index, or MDPI. This ranking is similar to the RPI in most respects, except for the fact that the MDPI doesn't involve computers, mathematics or schedule strength. The MDPI is based on the following criteria: would I bet a bag of delicious mini donuts on the outcome of a game between the two teams? In this case, I would never in a million years deny my belly the potential deliciousness of a bag of mini donuts by wagering them on UConn over Oklahoma.
That's a bet I would lose, folks. Because of the fact that I like mini donuts so much, the MDPI tends to be amazingly accurate. My stomach has been proven to be right 98% of the time; in Carbondale in 2001 my stomach led us to the infamous Dirty Wendy's where everyone in the car got sick six hours later, and in Wichita in 2003 my stomach led us to Taco Tico where the empanadas were an insult to diarrhea. My stomach's reasoning? Wendy's has Frosty's, which are always delicious. We had a Taco Tico in Fort Dodge Iowa where I grew up, and I have fond memories of their quasi-mexican food. My stomach was wrong those two times, but other than those two extreme examples, my stomach is never wrong on matters of food either at basketball games or on basketball road trips. This is an offshoot of that in that its a college basketball poll. Still, I trust my stomach. Oklahoma is #1.
Now on to more serious notes:
The teams making up the rest of my Top 10 are similar to mainsteam polls and to both KenPom and the straight RPI, with some minor movements in the actual rankings of those teams. One big difference is that I gave some love to Butler and ranked the Bulldogs sixth, ahead of such mainstream darlings as Louisville, UCLA and Wake Forest. I've also got Villanova 10th, because I think people are overlooking them in the Big East.
Other teams from outside the "Big Six" in my Top 25 are Memphis at #8, Xavier at #13, Gonzaga at #16, Utah State at #17, Dayton at #20 and Davidson at #22. Obviously, as an unbiased fan of a Missouri Valley school, I feel conferences outside of the Big Six get the short stick from mainstream media, and because of my interest in those schools, my poll will probably reflect some pretty significant differences from the AP and Coaches polls when it comes to those schools.
Its just my opinion, I could be wrong. Let me know if you think I am. Namecalling is not encouraged and will earn you a lifetime beer prohibition list, meaning you will never receive a complimentary beverage from me. Think about that before posting. You bet.
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