Basketball Blogpoll -- Week 12

Here is the Week 12 Basketball BlogPoll.  I have been somewhat remiss in posting this.

We are beginning to see some significant movement in the top ten, and there are quite a few very large changes in the poll this week.  Most notable on the rise is Arizona, who leaped up the charts by beating former #6 Washington state and having many lower-tier teams drop like flies.

The biggest downward movers still in the poll are SEC schools Vanderbilt, who as of yesterday has lost 4 of its last 5 and will likely be out of the poll next week, and Ole Miss, who dropped games at Auburn and Mississippi State last week.  Florida jumped into this week's poll although I didn't vote for them.  The reason is that I recently changed my polling from a gut-based system to a statistics-based system taking many, many things into account.  Florida currently sits at #33 on my system, and the thing that his holding them back is their lousy RPI compared with the other entrants, as well as their relatively poor performance away from home.  If they and Mississippi State continue their winning ways, it will be a horse race to see which of them gets in first, as I have MSU currently sitting at 34 in my rankings. 

My ranking system also does have some built-in inertia, which is why Vany winds up so high in my vote.  But when teams start loosing 3 or 4 out of 5, they really begin to suffer in my system.  The vote for Villanova at 13 was simply an error that I didn't catch in time.  The next vote, I will probably just revert 100% to my new system and throw out the old.  This week was a bit of a hybrid.

The public spreadsheet is here so you can see how everyone voted.  Comments and observations, as usual, are welcome.

2007 - 08 Week Twelve Blogpoll
Rank last week	Rank based on position average	School (1st place votes)	Conf.	Direction	Delta
1	1	Memphis (13)	Cusa	-	0
2	2	Kansas (3)	Big12	-	0
4	3	Duke	Acc		1
5	4	North Carolina	Acc		1
7	5	UCLA	Pac10		2
3	6	Tennessee	Sec		-3
10	7	Georgetown	Bige		3
6	8	Washington St.	Pac10		-2
9	9	Michigan St.	Big10	-	0
12	10	Texas	Big12		2
8	11	Indiana	Big10		-3
13	12	Butler	Horiz		1
11	13	Wisconsin	Big10		-2
18	14	Drake	Mvc		4
20	15	Xavier	Atl10		5
22	16	Stanford	Pac10		6
21	17	Marquette	Bige		4
	18	Arizona	Pac10		NPR
15	19	Ole Miss	Sec		-4
	20	Florida	Sec		NPR
17	21	Pittsburgh	Bige		-4
	22	Kansas State	Big12		NPR
16	23	Vanderbilt	Sec		-7
	24	USC	Pac10		NPR
	25	UConn	Bige		NPR

NPR = Not previously ranked
TWO or = Jump > 3
New in poll:  Arizona, Florida, Kansas State, USC, Uconn
Dropped out: