Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Tournament > Deciding Champions By a Poll

Here is another reason why polls in general are a joke.

Buried in Seth Davis' weekly tome about college basketball is his AP ballot from this week. He lists where he ranks teams, as well as where he ranked them last week in parentheses.

The one that jumped out at me was:

13. Wisconsin (NR)

Wow! Jumping Wisconsin from out of the poll entirely all the way up to #13, on the strength of splitting conference games against top 10 opponents (losing at MSU, beating Purdue at home)? Huh?

Not so fast. Explains Seth:

Elsewhere, not surprisingly Georgetown made the biggest jump this week due to its impressive comeback win over UConn. (I'm not counting Wisconsin because I only left them off last week by mistake.)

Now this is the most knowledgeable of pollsters - he's constantly writing about college basketball, he's one of the faces of CBS' Road to the Final Four studio show, etc. etc., and he omitted a team by "mistake" on his poll. Imagine what the writers who follow very little college basketball, and yet get a vote on this poll, do with their polls?

This isn't about Seth Davis leaving Wisconsin off of a poll in January - it doesn't matter and I'm not trying to bury him for an innocent mistake. What it does indicate, however, is that it's a good thing that a tournament, and play on the court (as selected by a selection committee, and not polls or computers) determines the champion in NCAA basketball.

In other news, the Jon Leuer injury sucks. That's what happens when you decide to play above the rim, Jon! Stay on the floor, stay healthy, that's my motto.

No comments:

Post a Comment