SDFDuck's Week 13 Ballot
| Rank | Team | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Purdue | Cue the loathing and lamenting from Boiler fans everywhere about an impending loss to an unranked team. (So much carnage in the rankings...) |
| 2 | Kansas State | Outside of their derpy loss to Butler, this team has arguably the second-strongest body of work in the country, so they're here. (It's going to be interesting to see where everyone ends up.) |
| 3 | Tennessee | "We're number 1!... in KenPom and Torvik." |
| 4 | Houston | Marcus Sasser. |
| 5 | Alabama | That margin of defeat, though... |
| 6 | Virginia | Nobody is talking about this team. Sure, the ACC is "down" and the computers aren't as high on them as we're used to seeing (13 KenPom, 18 Torvik), but they are still really good. |
| 7 | Arizona | Anozira* |
| 8 | Marquette | They are far and away the most efficient offensive team in the nation. Five losses or no, they are a top-10 team. |
| 9 | UCLA | (I've struggled coming up with things to say about UCLA this season for no particular reason other than that they are just consistently good and otherwise unremarkable.) |
| 10 | Kansas | B12 Slaughterhouse (In all my years of following college sports, nobody can clearly articulate to me what a "jayhawk" is.) |
| 11 | Iowa State | B12 Slaughterhouse. Area of concern: they don't get to the foul line, and they give up lots of fouls that result in opponents' trips to the foul line. |
| 12 | Texas | B12 Slaughterhouse. |
| 13 | Baylor | B12 Slaughterhouse. |
| 14 | Florida Atlantic | HOOT HOOT HOOT HOOT HOOT HOOT HOOT |
| 15 | Xavier | (Random bone to pick: teams that wear navy as a school color should never have black alternates, especially if their rival wears black. Looking at you Xavier and ODU. Stop it.) |
| 16 | Gonzaga | Watch this be the year they put it all together and win the whole thing... |
| 17 | Providence | (Creepiest mascot in D1. Not in an "I will kill you and eat your kidneys" way like Purdue Pete, but in an "oh god he won't stop staring at me" way.) |
| 18 | NC State | (Strangely enough they end their conference season on a Tuesday and have over a week off before the start of the ACC Conference Tournament.) |
| 19 | Charleston | (Are this team's at-large chances shot? Probably - a loss in the CAA Conference Tournament is likely Q3 or Q4. Is it fair? No - see more below.) |
| 20 | TCU | B12 Slaughterhouse. It's simple, Frogs: schedule tougher out of conference, don't lose Q4 guarantee games, and you'll go higher in my rankings. |
| 21 | San Diego State | I can't recall ever seeing a wider disparity between KenPom (24) and Torvik (11) for a top-50 team. Not saying it hasn't happened, but I can't remember one. |
| 22 | Saint Mary's | One Q1 win vs. two Q3 losses. The computers still have the hots for this team but their resume is still thin. |
| 23 | Boise State | The schedule is about to get rough, starting on Friday with their game at San Diego State. The Q4 loss against the other SDSU (South Dakota State) will hold them back on the seed line. |
| 24 | New Mexico | Three Q1 wins. Zero respect. |
| 25 | Northwestern | Another one of those schools with a soft NCSoS. KenPom has it ranked 289, and NINE of their wins are Q4. Please stop scheduling like this, P6 schools. (see below) |
Overall Rationale
Charleston did what the Selection Committee says teams in their conference standing should do: schedule tough teams and beat them. They scheduled six teams that were in the NCAA Tournament last season, and nearly all of them have crapped the bed this season (especially Colorado State). Is the expectation for teams in smaller conferences to go perfect in conference play, while teams in P6 conferences can lose multiple times to bad teams and still get in the field? This is shaping up to be like 2016 when Monmouth did the same thing, stumbled just a bit in conference, and got leapfrogged by mediocre P6 schools that had the benefit of playing tougher competition week-in and week-out. I wish the Committee would stop rewarding mediocrity at the highest levels and stop incentivizing schools to schedule soft outside of their leagues. The Power Six hold all of the cards in scheduling, and if they all decide not to schedule tough non-P6 competition, they essentially deprive those schools of the opportunities to pick up marquee wins. When looking at those bubble teams with soft non-conference schedules (like Northwestern this season), it's fair to ask how many additional losses they would have if they had played a real substantive non-con - and why the coach felt the need to schedule so soft to begin with.