Basketball Blog Poll - v2.1 - The Daily Gopher

Basketball Blog Poll - v2.1

by GopherNation on Dec 9, 2008 1:00 PM CST Comment 8 comments

I have submitted my initial hoops blog poll ballot for this week and it can be seen below. If anybody has paid attention this ballot is VERY different from previous ballots. At the top I have catapulted Georgetow into the #2 spot and dropped UConn a little bit down to #6. This is primarily due to me being more comfortable with the KenPom rankings which I heavily rely on to guide my rankings. Since those ranking are based on stats it is really hard to rely on them during the first couple weeks of the season. Even now it is early but I'm more comfortable than I was before.

Here is the table of my ballot and the KenPom ranking in the far right column.

School	The Daily Gopher	KenPom Rank
North Carolina	1	1
Georgetown	2	2
Louisville	3	5
Pittsburgh	4	4
Gonzaga	5	3
Connecticut	6	16
Texas	7	8
Duke	8	7
Kansas	9	9
Oklahoma	10	15
Ohio State	11	6
Missouri	12	11
Tennessee	13	10
Baylor	14	13
West Virginia	15	14
Washington State	16	12
Arizona State	17	18
UCLA	18	27
Villanova	19	21
Notre Dame	20	25
Memphis	21	22
BYU	22	20
Clemson	23	24
Wake Forest	24	31
Purdue	25	23

Please provide your thoughts and critiques this afternoon and I'll have time to adjust before my final ballot. Other schools on my radar are Syracuse, Xavier, Davidson, Michigan, Illinois and Butler.

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Comments

Yikes

Why rank the teams if you don’t watch the games?

by From The Barn on Dec 9, 2008 3:04 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

I've watched plenty of games

but I still feel that I need something more too judge teams unless I’m able to see the majority f each team’s games.

For instance, had I watched Michigan play Savanna St which was a 2 pnt OT win for the Wolverines, I’d have a very different take on them than if I had only seen them beat Duke the other night.

I guess it really isn’t much different than the coaches who vote in a poll that kind of counts. I don’t think the MN coaches have watched most of the teams near the top 25 for more than a min here or a min there. Just my thoughts.

what you say here can, and will, be used against you

by GopherNation on Dec 9, 2008 3:35 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Well lets see.

Syracuse beat Kansas. Illinois beat Clemson. Those have to be flipped if you are going to rank either team.

by From The Barn on Dec 9, 2008 3:43 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

maybe and no

Illinois did not beat Clemson. They lost by two when they couldn’t get a shot off in the last 15 seconds at home.

Kansas – I was hesitant to rank them that high, but like I said I was being heavily influenced by KenPom’s rankings which has Kansas 9th. Their 19 point win over Washington is probably heavily contributing to their top 10 ranking. I think I’ll drop KU a little based on further evaluation.

Syracuse – again I’ll point to KenPom rankings which has the Cuse 40th. Probably because they beat Cornell by 10 and Virginia by 3. Minnesota won by 17 and 10 respectively. So maybe Syracuse should be higher but I’m not sold on their #13 AP ranking either.

what you say here can, and will, be used against you

by GopherNation on Dec 10, 2008 9:01 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs