Basketball Polls
Polls in general bug the crap out of me. Voters make choices I find impossible to understand. This week’s AP and Coaches polls show that Tennessee has moved to #1.
Congratulations, Tennessee. You got there on the strength of a 25-2 record, a win over #1 Memphis, and losses at Kentucky (15-10) and a 19-point loss against Texas on a neutral NJ court.
Congratulations, UCLA. You’re #4, on the strength of a 24-3 record, quality wins over Washington State, Stanford, and Michigan State. You lost to Texas on your home court, USC on your home court, and at Washington.
Congratulations, Kansas. You’re #6, on the strength of a 24-3 record, quality wins over….Anyway, you lost at KSU, at Texas, and at Oklahoma State.
Texas is #5, although they’ve beaten, as mentioned above, 3 of the top 6 teams–only one on our home court. We also beat St. Mary’s & A&M. I don’t want to say we deserve #1, particularly when I anticipate a loss tonight, but it irks me that Tennessee got 69 of the 72 votes at the 1 spot when we flat out kicked their butt, and did so without Gary Johnson. Texas lost at Michigan State and to Wisconsin, both games that we’d LOVE to play again now that GJ is a part of the team. No excuse for losing at Missouri, but that’s life. Missouri’s not the same team they were, and Texans Marshall Brown and Jason Horton played well in a “you blew it” performance. A&M manhandled us for 10 minutes in College Station, and we spanked them for a whole game in Austin.
Other irritations:
Drake beat Butler at Butler last week, so Butler is ranked 6-7 spots ahead of Drake?
February 25, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Tennessee was last year to these guys.
Once you accept many/most of the voters in these polls (football, Heisman, hoops) are clueless, team or conference homers or have some other agenda (which usually includes not actually watching any games) it all begins to make sense.
February 25, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Couldn’t agree more, but that’s just more fuel to the fire of how pointless these polls are. Until they aren’t filled out by aging blow hards around the country that don’t watch but a game or two a week, they’re as worthless as the paper they are printed on. But luckily, in CBB it doesn’t matter.
February 25, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Tennessee hasn’t lost to a Missouri (Thankfully Kentucky isn’t a Missouri). It’s great that they beat a bunch of top teams, but they lost to two slow Big 10 teams, a slipping A&M, and Missouri.
February 25, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Great post, Kev. I just remember it’s college hoops so it doesn’t really matter. Has some relevance to seeding, I guess, but ultimately you have to win in the tourney for validation.