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.

The U Laid an Egg

I'm pretty sure that the 2009 Champs Sports Bowl will not be featured in the next ESPN 30 for 30 on the Miami Hurricanes.

A team deserves to lose when it wears white on white uniforms. I always hate when Wisconsin goes with that combination. My wife asked why the numbers were two different colors - I had no answer other than "Nike makes shitty uniforms." She then said that Orange and Green is an even worse color combination than Green and Red. She is not a fan of the Bucks colors.

I legitimately think the "cold" weather in Orlando bothered Miami. It was 50 degrees, but they had heaters on their sideline and everyone was rocking the hand warmer pouches.

I have seen Jacory Harris play some pretty decent games, but he was awful in this one. That boy has no interest in running from the pocket, even when a first down is readily available.

By the way - nice job with the playing surface, Orlando! Guys were ripping up pelts of turf at every cut they tried to make. Penn State and LSU better hope they put in some Field Turf between now and their bowl game in a couple of days. If not, that game favors Penn State, especially if it's "cold".

Good win for Wisconsin, and the Big Ten. See if the other sorry sacks in the conference can manage to win a bowl game.

Big Win

I want to congratulate the U for that big home win on Saturday.

In unrelated news, the University of Minnesota lost to Wisconsin again.