Week 15

I've been doing a series like this over on /r/CFB for 6 years now, started for College Basketball last year. The post attempts to visualize consistency between voters in the AP Poll in a single image. Additionally it sorts each AP voter by similarity to the group. Notably, this is not a measure of how "good" a voter is, just how consistent they are with the group. Especially preseason, having a diversity of opinions and ranking styles is advantageous to having a true consensus poll. Polls tend to coalesce towards each other as the season goes on.

Jordan Hansen sat out this week so there were only 63 voters.

Lauren Kirschman was the most consistent voter this week. Top 5 of Clayton Collier, Sheldon Mickles, Wayne Epps, Kevin Brockway, and Jerry Carino remain unchanged.

Jon Wilner was the biggest outlier this week. Jesse Newell, Jon Wilner, and Luke DeCock remain the top 3 outliers, with Seth Davis moving ahead of Dave Preston into fourth.

  • Craziest thing on here is definitely an OSU guy putting Michigan 1.

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    That’s not even the craziest part! He put Iowa at 3 over Baylor.

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    Losing to the #1 team is more defensible/forgivable than the #2 team.

    Honestly surprised any of them put Michigan above Gonzaga - being above Baylor is probably a coin flip at this point.

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  • But Jesse Newell refused to change

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    [deleted]

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    We can 100% fault him for having a trash poll lol

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    You're doing analytics a disservice by relying on them almost blindly and completely. Creating a strawman for the anti-analytics crowd to jump on when you get absurd results. Analytics are a tool to help you understand what you're seeing on the court and inform decision making. Not supposed to be the be-all-end-all

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    [deleted]

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    Lol. You don't have to follow the norms, but having Wisconsin at 13 at this point makes you lose credibility

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    [deleted]

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    Yup, and that's because the analytics are getting skewed by variables (especially in a wild year like this) their formulas can't take into consideration. I.e., Wisconsin gets a bump in KenPom because they have a close loss to no. 6 Illinois, but the KenPom adjusted efficiency formula doesn't currently have any way to factor in that Ayo Dosunmu didn't play in that game

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    [deleted]

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    Don't cut off the end of the sentence keep reading. I provided an example in the response

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  • I don’t understand the logic of those ranking Ohio State ahead of Iowa (particularly by multiple ranks). The Buckeyes are on a three game losing streak and lost the h2h by double digits yesterday.

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  • Another week where I question the logic of Seth Davis moving us DOWN 4 spots after dominating our last 2 opponents.

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    Seth Davis had Houston at #22 last week, so on a relative level #16 is a big move up.

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    I forgot what he had us at last week.

    But still, Davis is ALWAYS the outlier when it comes to ranking Houston this season.

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    No, the real question this week is why Troy Provost-Heron moved us down from 16 to 17.

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    And why the women's team are still in the "first four out" even though they beat the #13 team on Saturday and have a 15-5 record. They also didn't get a SINGLE vote for their accomplishment.

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    Now that you're a mod, maybe you could have a talk with him.

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  • It appears that Oklahoma State is an enigma. Multiple #10 rankings and multiple unranked.

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    I wonder if some of that is people not ranking them because of the uncertainty of them being tournament eligible. At this point, I'm operating under the assumption that it's probably too late for the NCAA to rule on the appeal, and so they will be eligible this year and the decision rolled over to next year, but there's still some time.

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    That could explain it, although I think that's a silly reason not to rank a team. It's not like the AP poll = bracketology.

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  • Lol the osu guy put us first

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  • Alabama's lowest ranking Week 14: 13th (Stephen Tsai, 1 other).
    Alabama's highest ranking Week 15: 5th (Stephen Tsai, 3 others).

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    What the hell is Stephen Tsai smoking? He must've completely forgot where he had Alabama the week prior lol.

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    A couple weeks ago he straight up forgot to rank Illinois.

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    Looks like he’s trying to get a job at rolltide.com

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  • Anyone else here love DeCock? I'm a big fan myself. DeCock is HUGE with his ranking of Purdue this week. A solid 12 11.

    EDIT: Ok, make that a solid 11. Much more approachable.

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    I put Purdue 11th in my r/CBB poll. no negative feedback so far. I think everyone is on board the choo choo train

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    Yeah tbh I trust the CBB poll more than the AP. The AP system is insane. You ask mostly beat writers to have a comprehensive view but these guys/gals are WAY overworked and underpaid and have to deal with all the life demands that go with being an adult. To think they could possibly have a comprehensive, well-informed, timely understanding of the landscape is pure fiction.

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    Aside from their loss to Miami their resume looks about the same as Ill/tOSU/Iowa

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    I respect how much you love DeCock. Even DeCock's HUGE ranking.

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  • Now..I don think Iowa is deserving of the 5 spot, Lauren Brownlow putting em at 11? Really?

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    On the other end of the spectrum, Wayne Epps has you at #3!

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    lol imagine putting Illinois at #11 like Jon Wilner

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    The team that is 11th was only ranked 11th by 7 voters. Who is 11th?

    Edit: 9 voters.

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    Same guy has Texas at #6

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    Mady Sissoko must have gotten to him too

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    Also, I counted 8 voters who ranked OSU ahead of Iowa... insane.

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  • Brad Underwood must have pissed off Jon Wilner... maybe he accused him of ducking his poll entries?

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    Right? #11 when no one else has us below #6, dude has some issues

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    His wife's boyfriend didn't let him put us in the top 10

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    paper handed bastard

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  • as usual Jon Wilner is one of the weirdest dudes in the USA

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  • How do you have UNC and NC state as your teams and expect me to take you seriously

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    Note that the affiliations shown are a loose amalgamation of beat and alma mater. In Brownlow's case she works for WRAL in Raleigh and covers the regional teams.

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    The best part is she didn’t vote for either of them. State didn’t get any votes and all 4 of ours are from a guy affiliated with San Jose St

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    Ya it was more of Iowa not top 10 after beating OSU and losing to us

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  • John Wilner's peepeeepoopoo tier rankings still have us in 11th. Why is he so butthurt that we're good?

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  • Shannon Ryan trying to not be a homer

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  • This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

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  • I move to impeach Bob Ballou for ranking Texas just behind ou.

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  • Nick Suss new favorite voter name.

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  • I hadn’t kept up with Michigan a ton so I was wondering if someone could help explain their move into #2 over Baylor. Especially since we had 8 players test positive across our 3 week covid break. It seems like we were destined to lose at least one conference game coming off that.

    Plus Kansas has won their senior night like 37 years in a row now if that means anything and Michigan lost to a weaker Minnesota team.

    Not trying to diss Michigan at all because from what I can see they are having a stellar season as well and I’m sure they deserve the #2 spot too!

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    The teams have the same record, but Michigan has had a significantly stronger schedule. Plus given how the poll operates, there's some recency bias and a tendency to move teams that lose down and teams that win up regardless of whether it's merited.

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    Thanks! I did check out Michigan’s schedule and see that now. If we hadn’t had so many cancellations and postponements it might have been a tougher argument. But then again, if we didn’t have all those we wouldn’t be in this boat anyways lol.

    Looking forward to watching Michigan in the Tourney too now!

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    I think overall-resume-wise and seeding-wise the argument for Baylor is a lot stronger. The committee is going to look at healthy Baylor and say that they’re probably a little better than healthy Michigan. In the context of the AP poll, which for better or worse is kind of a slow-adapting power ranking, Michigan’s better performance off of their recent 2-week break of their own and their recent top-10 wins have made them the No. 2 team in the country quality-wise since Baylor came back. I don’t doubt that Baylor can get back to their previous level, but for now they just aren’t playing well enough to merit that No. 2 ranking. However, as I said, would not be surprised to see Baylor in any of the top three overall seeds. If they win out including the Big XII tourney, there’s an argument there for them as the first overall seed.

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    I appreciate the nuanced response! I’m usually a huge cfb fan and only recently been following cbb the past few years.

    I usually do a better job of following all the conferences in cfb than cbb but need to start broadening that here as well

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    Haha, I’ve kind of gone away from cfb in recent years (for obvious reasons). Tbh this year is probably my first that I’ve really tried to keep my finger on the pulse of college basketball. Can’t wait to hopefully see y’all or Gonzaga in April

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    We beat then #4 OSU @ OSU, then beat #9 Iowa by 22 last week.

    Combined with you guys losing your 1st, it's why we got the nudge up.

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