INeedMoreCreativity's Week 4 Ballot

RankTeamReason
1 Purdue This is usually my weirdest ballot each year. This is the first ballot where I put a HEAVY emphasis on team resumes over preseason expectations and over how "good" teams look...
2 Arizona I start doing that to reward teams who won most of their 2+ feast week games rather than playing one easy home game...
3Virginia I'm trying to reward teams who have proven something with their resume. The quality teams who scheduled weaker will probably catch up later...
4 UConn
5 Alabama
6Houston Dropped as other teams simply scheduled harder and won their games. I'd probably pick them to win on a neutral court vs anyone though
7 Kansas Textbook example of overall rationale: "I am not trying to find the best team, I’m trying to find the most deserving team. ”Still #3 in WAB, #9 in SOR (as of 11/27). I expect KU to drop in future
8 Creighton
9Auburn
10Gonzaga
11 Texas Dropped as other teams simply scheduled harder and won their games. #26 in WAB and #17 in SOR (as of 11/27)
12 Maryland
13Mississippi State
14 Indiana
15Tennessee Also textbook example of overall rationale: "I am not trying to find the best team, I’m trying to find the most deserving team”. Resume holding them back for now: #22 in WAB, #30 in SOR (as of 11/27)
16 Sam Houston Stellar resume. Everyone should be ranking them!!! Probably the only team with two top-100 away wins.
17 Iowa State
18 Kansas State I expect them to rise quickly as they continue to turn their team quality into a quality resume.
19 Arkansas
20Baylor Dropped as other teams simply scheduled harder and won their games. #39 in WAB and #35 in SOR (as of 11/27)
21 Michigan State
22 West Virginia
23 San Diego State
24 Illinois
25 Ohio State

Overall Rationale

I rank teams mostly by resume, as if the season ended today and I were ranking them for the tournament. I am not trying to find the “best” team, I’m trying to find the “most deserving team”. ------------ I use eye-test evaluations along with computer metrics to inform my rankings. Having a good record against a good schedule is the most important thing for my rankings. Sometimes, a team may have an excellent resume despite poor SOS (such as previous years’ Gonzaga), or a poor resume despite a great SOS (some .500 power conference teams). If your team wins more games against its schedule than other teams would win against that same schedule, then your team has a good resume. ------------ FAQ: ------------ 1. Why is my team ranked so low? My team is ranked #5 in kenpom! -- It’s likely that your team has a resume that’s relatively poor. I bet your team will do pretty well later in the season, but until then, I’ll rank the team with the better resume higher. ------------ 2. Why is that team ranked so high? They don’t even have any ranked wins! -- That team likely still has a good resume! A win against an okay team can be just as good as a win against a great team, depending on where the game is played. An average top-25 team is as likely to win on the road against the #75 team as it is to win hosting the #10. ------------ 3. How do you have Team A ranked over Team B? Team B just whalloped Team A! -- Single game results are only a small part of a team's larger whole body of work. Team A dropped in my rankings according to how bad their loss was, and Team B rose according to how good their win was. I don’t assign any additional weight to the game.