basketblogpoll ballot 4

Ballot below. 'Splainin' myself below that. And below that, you tell me why I'm all hosed up.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Connecticut	1
2	North Carolina	1
3	Pittsburgh	2
4	Memphis	2
5	Louisville	3
6	Duke	1
7	Oklahoma	3
8	Kansas	3
9	Michigan St.	2
10	Missouri
11	Wake Forest	4
12	Villanova	1
13	Clemson	4
14	Gonzaga	2
15	Purdue	1
16	Washington	3
17	Xavier
18	Marquette	6
19	Illinois	1
20	Florida St.	1
21	Louisiana St.	2
22	Brigham Young	3
23	Arizona St.	5
24	UCLA
25	Utah	1
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: Utah St. (#22).

- The unfortunate purge of mid-majors continues as Utah State, fresh off the wrong end of a blowout at Nevada, takes the plunge and is replaced by the ultimate not-mid-major, UCLA. I can ignore a loss or two, but Utah State is now just 3-3 in their last six, and plays in a conference that Sagarin rates below three non I-A conferences (the A-10, MVC, and Horizon) and that I think is also below a fourth (CAA).

- West Virginia has basically become the basketball version of LSU on my ballot - a team whose good record in a top conference I think belies a weak resume. If you recall I stubbornly refused to rank LSU in football, insisting that their resume didn't allow it, and then when I finally caved and gave them a spot, they got waxed by Mississippi. I'm not ranking West Virginia because they haven't shown they have the chops to take on top-25 teams. One win against RPI top-25s. You know who else has a win against RPI top-25s? Us. I suspect also that their high computer rankings are partly the result of a lot of blowouts early in the season, like when Huggins activated Grudge Power and ran up the score on Ohio State.

- Now that we're approaching conference tournament season - a few of the bottom-feeding leagues have finished their seasons and are holding their tournaments next week - I'm starting to place a little bit more value on leading your conference; that is, being first in line for punching your auto-ticket to the Dance. This is a big reason why you're seeing up-bumps for teams like Gonzaga, Washington, LSU, Memphis, etc.