College Basketball BlogPoll Ballot - End of the Regular Season

Championship Week Edition! 

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

- Why Pittsburgh over North Carolina.  Last week, we bumped the Tar Heels to #1 when Pitt lost to Providence.  This weekend, both got huge wins as Pitt beat UConn and UNC beat Duke.  To me, it comes down to which you think is more impressive:  28-3 in the Big East, or 27-3 in the ACC.  Since I've got four Big East teams ranked in my top eight, I'll let you do the math.

- The Battle for #1 Seeds.  What will the selection committee do with Memphis?  The Tigers have been #1 in the KenPom ratings for awhile, but their RPI is at #7 this morning (from Jerry Palm's collegerpi.com).  If you lock up Pitt and UNC, which I think is safe to say, that means you've got Memphis, UConn, Oklahoma, and maybe Louisville playing for the top line this week in their conference tournaments.  Memphis will almost certainly win theirs, and I think if either UConn or U of L wins the Big East Tournament, they'll get a top spot as well.  Obviously, there's a lot on the line this week.

- Where's the dividing line?  How many teams do we have this year where you can make a serious argument for them winning it all?  In my poll, I'd cut that off at 12 or 13 (because you don't see much of Washington on TV 'round these parts).  Gonzaga probably won't be seeded as high as I've got them ranked here, but having seen them beat the Vols twice, I really like their mixture.  I think Pitt and UNC are both really, really good...but then I think any of the probable 1-3 seeds can make a compelling argument for themselves, and there's less of a gap between the lowest 1 seed and the highest 3 seed than we've seen in years past.

- Shuffling, etc.  I'm an absolute believer in head-to-head...because why wouldn't you be.  As such, Arizona State stays above UCLA for their season sweep.  Marquette wins the "worst possible injury at the worst possible time" award, now losers of four straight games against four ranked teams.  LSU locked up the SEC Championship and then quit playing.  Florida State stays in the poll for the "good loss" to Duke.  And hats off to Auburn, who may not even make the tournament with a robust RPI of 64...but Jeff Lebo's Tigers have won 8 of 9 after a 2-5 SEC start, including wins over the SEC's only two surefire tournament teams (LSU and Tennessee).  Six of their eight wins have been by double digits.