Dolphinz811's Week 17 Ballot
| Rank | Team | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arizona | (+1) Very tough race for #1 between Arizona & Duke, and more will go with Duke, but I just like Arizona more. Their wins stack up evenly with Duke, but I think the Big 12 is better than the ACC. |
| 2 | Duke | (+1) Very impressive win which made me almost put them #1. If you have them #1, I'm not gonna be mad at that. It's a clear top 2 or 3. |
| 3 | Michigan | (-2) Like I said, it's a clear top 2 or 3, but I think, at least for this week, Michigan is the definitive #3 since both Arizona & Duke picked up big wins, one over Michigan even. |
| 4 | Iowa State | (+2) I don't know what to do here. The top 3 is easy and then I think there's a gap. The committee put them as #4 but that was before they lost to BYU. Not a bad loss though & the Houston win is big. |
| 5 | Houston | (-1) It feels weird only dropping them one placement after going 0-2 this week, but I like the Big 12 and they lost to who I consider to be the #1 and #4 teams in very competitive matchups. |
| 6 | Purdue | (+1) Once again, they lost, so moving them up feels weird but almost everyone lost this week and theirs was one of the less damning. I'm not faulting them too much for the Michigan loss. |
| 7 | UConn | (-2) Wanted to drop them lower cause the Big East is on a down year so they don't have many great wins and that Creighton loss is bad, but their head-to-head win over Florida keeps them above Florida. |
| 8 | Florida | (+6) After starting the year out very VERY rough with that weird loss to TCU and piling on other losses, this team is clicking at the right time and looks dangerous coming into March. |
| 9 | Gonzaga | (+1) They don't feel top 10 but I don't know who else to put here. Only 2 losses is impressive but they don't have many quality wins. Alabama's really their only great win. I think they're pretenders. |
| 10 | Michigan State | (+5) Speaking of pretenders, I've never felt great about Michigan St but they took care of business this week when most teams didn't, picking up 2 solid wins. |
| 11 | Illinois | (-) Dominant performance against USC, and even though the loss to UCLA isn't great, at least it was only 1 point. They get put under Michigan St due to head-to-head. |
| 12 | Virginia | (+5) This is my pick for biggest pretender of them all. With 3 losses and some 'quality' wins, I need to move them up, but all their 'quality' wins are within the ACC which I think is super overrated. |
| 13 | Nebraska | (-5) I know Iowa is a bubble team but I that loss to them looked bad. Them losing to Iowa looked so much worse, to me, than Illinois losing to UCLA, which is why they fell below Illinois. |
| 14 | Kansas | (-5) But even worse than that loss for Nebraska was Kansas's loss to Cincinnati. Now who knows, Cincinnati is on a hot streak and may be the late-season bubble darling, but for now the loss looks bad. |
| 15 | St. John's | (+5) Like I said, the Big East is on a down year so it's a struggle to find quality wins for St. John's, but you can't deny that they've been solid and look kinda better than Connecticut as of late. |
| 16 | Texas Tech | (-4) Leaving their star player has me very concerned, especially after that bad loss to Arizona St, but their follow-up smashing of an albeit bad Kansas St team gives me some hope they'll be okay. |
| 17 | BYU | (+5) After an entire season of winning games they should've while always coming up short on the games that could be statement wins they got the statement win against Iowa St! The Arizona loss is fine. |
| 18 | Saint Louis | (-5) They needed to fall with the loss because, lets be real, if Texas Tech losing to Arizona St is bad, them losing to Rhode Island is BAD...but the VCU win does save how bad the fall could've been. |
| 19 | Miami (OH) | (+2) This is not a top 20 team most likely, but making it 27-0 is no easy task and I wanted to reward them by rising them up into the top 20. Keep on winning RedHawks! I'm rooting for you! |
| 20 | Alabama | (+5) That overtime win over Arkansas was fun to watch and showed, to me at least, how closely matched the two teams are. Alabama gets the head-to-head boost though. |
| 21 | Arkansas | (-3) But I genuinely needed to have Arkansas right below Alabama because of how evenly matched they felt this week. It's why I had to push Miami (OH) up to #19 cause I couldn't separate the two teams. |
| 22 | Tennessee | (NEW) If this were a top 30, Tennessee would've never left these rankings all season, but because it's a top 25, this is their third or fourth time now re-entering my top 25. Solid week for them! |
| 23 | North Carolina | (-7) I know this is too harsh. It's not like NC St is some shit team to lose to, but I kept comparing their resume with the teams around them and lowering them. I think the ACC and them are overrated. |
| 24 | Vanderbilt | (-5) I had the biggest struggle trying to find a team to put in over Vandy so here they are. Their 2 losses this week were by a combined 5 points to a team above them & a bubble team. Neither is bad. |
| 25 | UCF | (NEW) Do I think they're a top 25 team? No, but if not them then who? Louisville or Villanova with their mediocre resumes and losses to SMU and Connecticut this week? St Mary's with no quality wins? |
Overall Rationale
OUT: Louisville (23), Villanova (24) - 26: Louisville, 27: Villanova, 28: Wisconsin, 29: St Mary's, 30: Miami (FL) . Usually I do a 31-35 for just myself but for this week, I'll share that it's Utah St, New Mexico, Georgia, Santa Clara, and Belmont. I genuinely struggled to come with the 30th team this week, let alone 31-35.