For years I've looked on with bemused wonderment at the goofy nature of polls and ballots in college basketball. How can people be so stupid, I wondered. No way team XYZ is that good, I said. It'll be a cold day in Omaha before, oh wait, it is cold and I am in Omaha. Never mind. What I'm getting at is voting in these things is harder than I figured. For instance, in the four weeks of the poll I've had three different number one teams because they keep losing. Same deal with most of the Top Ten. There's a lot of things I hate about my poll.
For example, I hate that Michigan State is so high, because from what I've seen of the Big Ten the conference is riding the rep of their non-conference -- when in reality the conference is just not that good. News flash, guys: just because you play games in the 50s doesn't mean you're playing great defense. Sure, it might, but I've seen plenty of games around the country with great defense and scores in the 70s. Sometimes when you score 55 points, it means your offense sucks. Period. But back to Michigan State, specifically: they keep winning, so they keep moving up. This is how polls work; once you're in, if you keep winning, you move up as everyone else loses.
Additionally, I don't really believe there's any way UCONN is number one. I just don't see it. But Pittsburgh lost, Oklahoma needs to show that Blake Griffin has no ill effects after his concussion, Louisville isn't that impressive either, Memphis is tough to gauge because of the relative weakness of C-USA, et-cetera et-cetera. So UCONN it is.
And that's just the Top Ten! The middle of the poll was really difficult this week. Gonzaga is tenth, but again, I don't know that they're the tenth best team -- they just had a good week while everyone in front of them lost. Same deal with LSU. They're steamrolling through the SEC, but the SEC is the worst of the so-called Big Six conferences, so is that really as impressive as people believe it to be? Yet they keep winning, so they keep rising.
Missouri is a fraud, as Kansas showed, so they drop. Marquette is playing like the bottom of a taxi cab, so they drop. Arizona State had two losses in a row so they drop big time.
And then there's the last five in. I took some heat from you guys last week for leaving Creighton out of the poll just as they were receiving votes from the "mainstream" guys. On the one hand, I didn't want to come across as a homer by being the only one voting for the Jays. On the other hand, I didn't want a target on their back as they entered the final week. Both hands said to leave them out, so I left them out.
This week? Screw it. They're #23, because dammit, they're 25-6 and co-champions of a top ten conference. If that isn't a Top 25 team, come to Omaha, prove it to me and I'll buy you a beer at the bar of my choice, which will always be the Homy Inn because the beer is cheap there. And yes, they're ahead of Dayton because the Jays beat Dayton earlier this year. I actually dropped Dayton down one spot further than I had intended to because of that fact. Sorry, Flyers.
As always, my full poll is after the jump, and the actual BlogPoll will be live on CBS Sports.com this afternoon.
 | ||
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Connecticut |  6 |
| 2 | Louisville | |
| 3 | Memphis | |
| 4 | Duke | 1 |
| 5 | Oklahoma |  1 |
| 6 | Pittsburgh | 5 |
| 7 | North Carolina | 1 |
| 8 | Kansas | 2 |
| 9 | Michigan St. | 1 |
| 10 | Gonzaga | 2 |
| 11 | Wake Forest | 2 |
| 12 | Louisiana St. | 10 |
| 13 | UCLA | 6 |
| 14 | Xavier | 6 |
| 15 | Missouri | 6 |
| 16 | Marquette | 2 |
| 17 | Butler | |
| 18 | Purdue | 3 |
| 19 | Villanova | 4 |
| 20 | Arizona St. | 9 |
| 21 | Washington | 3 |
| 22 | Siena | 1 |
| 23 | Creighton | |
| 24 | Dayton | 8 |
| 25 | Brigham Young | |
| Last week's ballot | ||
Dropped Out: Clemson (#18), Texas (#25).
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