SDFDuck's Week 14 Ballot
| Rank | Team | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Purdue | Still chugging along despite the loss. (I'd like to use these to discuss the people complaining about court storming.) |
| 2 | Houston | Marcus Sasser. (Do you not enjoy fun?!) |
| 3 | Alabama | Basketball school? Basketball school. (Do you not love the unadulterated show of youthful exuberance when hundreds, if not thousands, of students...) |
| 4 | Arizona | Anzio* (... descend upon the floor after a thrilling, rousing victory over a top-ranked opponent?) |
| 5 | Texas | I've been dying to give them a "horns down" all season, but I just can't. (I know there are safety concerns. I know there are liability issues.) |
| 6 | Marquette | There aren't more than five teams playing better basketball right now. (But you know what? I do not care.) |
| 7 | Kansas State | B12 moshpit (That's one of the great things about college basketball. Students storming the court after a huge meaningful win.) |
| 8 | Iowa State | B12 moshpit (Heck, we VCU fans have been on the receiving end of plenty of "unwarranted" court storms.) |
| 9 | Tennessee | When you set college basketball back 50 years, you get dropped in my rankings. (Most of them happened when we were unranked.) |
| 10 | UCLA | Numbers 4 through 10 are close in my book. The difference between ISU, UT, and UCLA is almost negligible. So much parity this season. |
| 11 | Virginia | Still dangerous. (In 2017, VCU played at St. Bonaventure and had a two-point lead in the closing seconds of the game.) |
| 12 | Baylor | B12 moshpit (SBU hit a three-pointer with .4 seconds left to go up by one.) |
| 13 | Kansas | B12 moshpit (The Reilly Center exploded with rabid Upstate New York jubilation.) |
| 14 | Xavier | (Students jumped out of their seats and flooded onto the court, even though there were still .4 seconds on the clock.) |
| 15 | Providence | (Per NCAA rules, that's enough time for VCU to get a shot off before the buzzer, so the referees assessed St. Bonaventure a one-shot technical foul for the infraction.) |
| 16 | Gonzaga | The Zags lost in OT in a game they were underdogs to begin with. No plunge. (VCU's JeQuan Lewis hit the technical free throw...) |
| 17 | Saint Mary's | I don't care about the head-to-head, they still have two Q3 losses. (... and sent the game into OT, where the Rams ended up winning. |
| 18 | Florida Atlantic | HOOT HOOT HOOT HOOT HOOT HOOT HOOT (It has to go down as one of the most brutal losses in the history of college basketball.) |
| 19 | San Diego State | A few of the MWC teams have derpy losses that will hurt their resumes. (Stuff like that doesn't happen in the NBA or in FIBA competition.) |
| 20 | Miami (FL) | The ACC has two schools located in cities other than their namesakes - BC and Miami. Very weird. (It's part of what makes this sport special.) |
| 21 | NC State | (So keep your cries of "unbecoming" to yourself, old hats. Let the kids have their fun.) |
| 22 | New Mexico | Three Q1 wins. Zero respect. (They'll remember the court storms the rest of their lives. They'll tell their kids and grandkids about them.) |
| 23 | Duke | OH GOD THEY'RE BACK OH GOD PLEASE NO... (They won't remember the times they stayed in their seats because of legal liabilities.) |
| 24 | Pitt | Four Q1 wins, which include a season sweep over UNC CAPEL HILL. |
| 25 | Indiana | I guess I have to rank this team, don't I? (see below) |
Overall Rationale
IU has three Q1 wins, no losses outside Q2, and are one point away from having no losses outside Q1 (Northwestern). Far be it from me to indulge the B10 hype machine, but I'll recognize where a team has proven to outperform my skepticism of them. Someone should make a bar graph to commemorate the occasion.