Luke DeCock’s AP Top 25 basketball poll ballot: Week 1
There is a strain of thought in the college basketball world -- a small but vocal one -- that argues Virginia should not be ranked because the Cavaliers lost to San Francisco. The logical fallacy behind this should be obvious, but just in case it is not:
One, it’s just two games of (in a normal year) 30 or so; no one is going to remember Virginia lost to San Francisco by the time we get to the end of this season, whenever that is, just as nobody downgraded Duke last March for the home loss to Stephen F. Austin. (Which, like San Francisco does now, had a chance to do some real damage in the NCAA tournament.)
Two, if we’re going to throw out preseason rankings entirely based on only two games -- a win over Towson and a loss to San Francisco-- what value did all that work have anyway? Early in the season, when there’s little information to go on, we do have to balance that very small sample with all the research and information we gathered over the summer. Arguably, if you’ve been paying attention, your preseason rankings should still carry far more weight after the first week than the games themselves, a balancing act that works itself out as more games are played and expectations fade to zero.
And three, if you’re tossing Virginia for a loss to San Francisco, you’ve got to toss Kentucky for a home loss to Richmond, too. Richmond is a borderline top-25 team -- and is on this ballot this week -- but certainly wasn’t in the top 25 when it beat Kentucky.
None of this is personal; it’s easy to understand where those people are coming from, and in the polling world, it makes more sense than it would to act that way on information in the “real” world. But this isn’t a ballot that overreacts to one game at any point, let alone Week 1. If we get more information that maybe Virginia isn’t as good as we thought, that’ll change. This ain’t it..
THIS SEASON’S BALLOTS
THIS WEEK’S TOP 25 BASKETBALL BALLOT
1. Gonzaga (last week: 1)
2. Baylor (2)
3. Wisconsin (6)
4. Illinois (8)
5. Iowa (9)
6. Kansas (5)
7. Villanova (3)
8. Creighton (11)
9. Duke (12)
10. Houston (17)
11. Texas (13)
12. Texas Tech (7)
13. West Virginia (14)
14. Michigan State (15)
15. Florida (16)
16. North Carolina (18)
17. Florida State (19)
18. Kentucky (10)
19. Tennessee (21)
20. Virginia (4)
21. Arizona State (20)
22. Ohio State (22)
23. Louisville (24)
24. Michigan (25)
25. Richmond (NR)
OUT Oregon (23)
This story was originally published November 30, 2020 at 7:39 AM.
