Blogpoll – Week 2
Posted by rtmsf on November 21st, 2007The blogpoll blogpool continues to grow, as we’re now up to 13 contributors, with two more expected to begin next week. Memphis remains #1, but UCLA is rising..
Note: blogpoll does not include Tues. 11/20 games.
Justifying Our Ballot. This week we didn’t have much movement in our top ten. We switched UNC and Memphis based on UNC’s struggle with Davidson. We also jumped Louisville (#9 to #6) and Duke (#13 to #11) up a few spots based on the way they’re both playing right now. We dropped Stanford down from #12 to #24 based on their loss at Siena, and VCU was knocked completely out due to its two losses in Puerto Rico. Arizona and Arkansas were also left out, while Pitt, K-State and Villanova were added to our ballot this week.
Two Left Out. The two teams we voted for that were left out of the blogpoll this week were Florida (#23) and Stanford (#24). The Gators are 5-0 and have been mowing down opponents lately, but they lack a marquee win and they haven’t left their home court yet, so we understand that omission. Stanford’s loss at Siena was a bad loss, but they had several solid wins (vs. UCSB, @ Northwestern) prior to that, so we weren’t completely ready to drop them altogether. There was a bit of a clamor amongst the bloggers to include Miami (FL) this week, as the Hurricanes performed well in defeating VCU and Providence in the Puerto Rico Tipoff. We also considered Baylor after its impressive wins over Wichita St., Notre Dame and Winthrop in the Paradise Jam last week. We’re definitely going to be keeping an eye on the Bears.
Tightening Up. The bloggers are still unsure where to rank the two Big Ten teams, Indiana and Michigan St. Amazingly, there is still one blogger who refuses to rank the Hoosiers at all, but we won’t name names. Here are the top five most uncertain teams (remember, a high std dev means greater variation in blogger rankings of that team):
- Indiana (std dev = 5.41; range = 4 to nr)
- Michigan St. (5.09; 9 to nr)
- Kansas St. (4.37; 11 to nr)
- Syracuse (4.27; 16 to nr)
- Villanova (4.12; 12 to nr)
Conversely, the top seven teams in the blogpoll are extremely well-supported by the bloggers. Only two other ballots than ours (with Indiana at #4) supported a team other than the Memphis/UCLA/UNC/Kansas/GTown/UL/Tenn septoika. One ballot had Wazzu at #7 and another ballot had Indiana at #6. Now that’s conformity!
Conference Call.
- Big East – 6
- ACC & Big 12 – 4
- Pac-10 – 3
- Big 10 – 2
- CUSA, Horizon, MVC, SEC, SoCon, WCC – 1
The Cougs have taken a lot of junk for their weak non-conference schedule — which, incidentally, isn’t totally their fault, since no one wanted to adjust their schedule to play them this year (can’t imagine why). But anyway, that two-game stretch after this weekend at Baylor and at Gonzaga is looking tougher and tougher all the time.