AP Poll - 1/8 | Page 2 | The Boneyard

AP Poll - 1/8

Don’t really think polls should matter that much in any argument.
I'm playing devil's advocate here because we absolutely belong among the top 5 based on championship pedigree across multiple decades and coaches, but polls are actually a reasonable measure of a program's relevance year in and year out over a long period. "Who matters in this sport?" is one valid definition of blue blood status.
 
It would be more interesting if they used a start date of 1990 or 2000 where we would rank in the poll.
My guess would be higher, but not, like, a ton higher. Probably 8-10 range.

Our argument for blue blood status is based on championships, not on consistency, at least not in the last 10 years.
 
We're one week away from passing Maryland on the All-Time AP Poll.

It hasn't been updated yet, but we'll be sitting at 6,043.

Description.

Can’t believe I’ve never seen this before. Really interesting and useful for the whole blue blood discussion

There’s definitely a feedback loop element to this though where anointed schools are given preferential ranking by “extremely smart” pollsters (esp earlier in the season when reputation far outweighs reality)

Still an interesting piece of data nonetheless
 
1 - We need to accept that on a scoring/valuation system such as the one addressed in this thread, we accumulated as many points in aggregate prior to 1990 as many of the schools we want to claim equal status to had in any one of many individual years.

2 - That we basically gave the field a three to four decade head start and achieved what we have warrants a tremendous amount of praise.
 
Michigan State got one person to vote for them at 19th.....a guy who had them 23rd the week before. So he moved them up four spots after they beat an awful penn state team and got ran out the gym by northwestern.
And the same week when James Madison lost.
 
I knew the Texas and Gonzaga wins wouldn't carry much water, but I've been pleasantly surprised by UNC. They didn't seem that great when we played them and I thought they'd suffer the same fate. But they look like they have staying power in the top 10 as a true signature win for us.
Let them get fat and happy chowing down on ACC cupcakes and then stick them in our bracket please…
 
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When we win, others hang banners.
Are you talking about the All-Time AP Poll thing? Just posting with nothing referring to anything above and I assume you're talking about the first post, us being #4 this week.
 
My guess would be higher, but not, like, a ton higher. Probably 8-10 range.

Our argument for blue blood status is based on championships, not on consistency, at least not in the last 10 years.

Prior to the BE destruction, say 1990-2014 range UConn was cyclically consistent. The AAC/Ollie wrecked things for a good two cycles before Hurley could correct things and UConn came back to the BE.
 
We're one week away from passing Maryland on the All-Time AP Poll.

It hasn't been updated yet, but we'll be sitting at 6,043.

Description.
Given that there are 3 weeks worth of voting that is "shelved" between the end of the regular season and crowning of the champion (who is always declared #1), the champion should be credited with 3 weeks worth of being #1, retroactively. It is a shame that last year we were #1 for only one week and only at the end. The champion should be rewarded in some way. So with 5 championships, UConn would have 25 points x 3 weeks x 5 championships = 375 more points. Similar reasoning for other champions. Corrections welcome.
 
I'm playing devil's advocate here because we absolutely belong among the top 5 based on championship pedigree across multiple decades and coaches, but polls are actually a reasonable measure of a program's relevance year in and year out over a long period. "Who matters in this sport?" is one valid definition of blue blood status.

I agree it’s relevant to the “Blue Blood” question, but to me the real question bearing on whether a team is a Blue Blood isn’t who matters (we do), it’s whether we were on the Mayflower. This chart shows that we’re “new money.” We’ve got lots of it—and, if recent titles are the currency, more than anyone else.

The people who want to talk about Blue Bloods are fans of programs whose glory mostly lies in the 20th century.
 
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#3 Houston goes down on the road against Iowa State.

Big opportunity for the Huskies to move up again if we take of business.
 
Are you talking about the All-Time AP Poll thing? Just posting with nothing referring to anything above and I assume you're talking about the first post, us being #4 this week.
Didn’t Dook hang a AP#1 banner in 1999?
 
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Given that there are 3 weeks worth of voting that is "shelved" between the end of the regular season and crowning of the champion (who is always declared #1), the champion should be credited with 3 weeks worth of being #1, retroactively. It is a shame that last year we were #1 for only one week and only at the end. The champion should be rewarded in some way. So with 5 championships, UConn would have 25 points x 3 weeks x 5 championships = 375 more points. Similar reasoning for other champions. Corrections welcome.
In fact, we weren't at all. We haven't been #1 in the AP Poll since 2009, despite winning 3 titles since then.

The AP poll doesn't come out after the NCAA. It's pre-season through end of conference tournaments.

Coaches' Poll goes another week.
 
Can this Poll be run with different start dates? Would be interesting to see this if a start date of 1980 or 1990 was used?
It certainly can be done. Not by me—that original poll was a huge labor of love by the OP—but using the college basketball reference page, someone could go through and tabulate the 17 polls each year (probably easiest by downloading as a csv and manipulating it that way, but still too much time).
 
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In fact, we weren't at all. We haven't been #1 in the AP Poll since 2009, despite winning 3 titles since then.

The AP poll doesn't come out after the NCAA. It's pre-season through end of conference tournaments.

Coaches' Poll goes another week.
Ahhh. Ok. Thanks for the correction. This says a lot about the AP poll.
 
Just looking at this week's poll, several voters have us down at 6 or 7. All of these below 3 loss UNC.

But the one I noticed mostly is Jon Wilner from San Francisco.

This guys has always had something against UConn. I have always noticed him downgrading the school no matter what.

Writers from the Atlantic coast or Carolina typically rank UConn fairly, but the deep south (Texas, Alabama, Miss, etc.) doesn't show much love.
 
Just looking at this week's poll, several voters have us down at 6 or 7. All of these below 3 loss UNC.

But the one I noticed mostly is Jon Wilner from San Francisco.

This guys has always had something against UConn. I have always noticed him downgrading the school no matter what.

Writers from the Atlantic coast or Carolina typically rank UConn fairly, but the deep south (Texas, Alabama, Miss, etc.) doesn't show much love.
I mean, we deserved a pretty big drop after Seton Hall, and anyone who ranked us 4-5 (rather than 1-3) was going to have us lower. We didn't move in the polls on a macro scale, but on the micro scale it is clear we were dropped by a bunch before starting a rebound.

But 6 or 7 is actually pretty fair given how they've played with Clingan and the (somewhat) uncertainty surrounding his return.
 
I mean, we deserved a pretty big drop after Seton Hall, and anyone who ranked us 4-5 (rather than 1-3) was going to have us lower. We didn't move in the polls on a macro scale, but on the micro scale it is clear we were dropped by a bunch before starting a rebound.

But 6 or 7 is actually pretty fair given how they've played with Clingan and the (somewhat) uncertainty surrounding his return.
Again, I'm not complaining about the ranking, or the poll; it really doesn't matter right now. I'm talking about the multi-decade constant rating of UConn lower than all other reporters. And it's by this one guy in San Francisco.
 
Again, I'm not complaining about the ranking, or the poll; it really doesn't matter right now. I'm talking about the multi-decade constant rating of UConn lower than all other reporters. And it's by this one guy in San Francisco.

East coast people generally under-rank west coast teams also. Probably lack of familiarity / doesn't get to watch the games. Other than in the NFL, I rarely actually see any west coast games of any consequence because they are on too late.
 
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Like any of these arguments, the datum matters. All-time, 1970, 1979, 1984, the lifetime of the current players, whatever works best for UConn?

Personally, rules of the time aside, I'd pick the Alcindor UCLA era as the time when people began to care about BB. Every fan knowns those teams and very few know anything before that era. Yes, it's biased in favor of UCLA, but so be it.

The 64+ team bracket is another option, but that excludes the aforementioned UCLA, Bird/Magic, and the bulk of the Bob Knight indiana run. Seems tough to talk history without including those.
 
Like any of these arguments, the datum matters. All-time, 1970, 1979, 1984, the lifetime of the current players, whatever works best for UConn?

Personally, rules of the time aside, I'd pick the Alcindor UCLA era as the time when people began to care about BB. Every fan knowns those teams and very few know anything before that era. Yes, it's biased in favor of UCLA, but so be it.

The 64+ team bracket is another option, but that excludes the aforementioned UCLA, Bird/Magic, and the bulk of the Bob Knight indiana run. Seems tough to talk history without including those.
He starts where College Basketball Reference starts having more than one poll. They used to have one final poll before the start of the post-season. Could have added those too—it wouldn't change a ton. But mid-way through the 1948-1949 season, you get weekly polls. I don't think it does much to shift this for anyone—schools like NYU of Eastern Kentucky don't get some unfair benefit. But I think starting there—when the NCAA tournament is expanding and has been around over a decade—really does give you a good size and scope of the history of the game. When you start digging through, it doesn't really over-value some of those more traditional blue-bloods as you might think.
 
Again, I'm not complaining about the ranking, or the poll; it really doesn't matter right now. I'm talking about the multi-decade constant rating of UConn lower than all other reporters. And it's by this one guy in San Francisco.
Opinions are like ... everyone has one, and they usually stink. Not sure what Wilner's beef is, but it extends decades. He was beat writer for SJ Mercury News then things happened but guess he's still in business. Funny thing is he was opposite Geracie, who memorably predicted UConn over Duke back in "99. Not sure who had the AP vote that year. I doubt that beatdown UConn administered to St Mary's softened his opinion of the team.
 
Another rough day for ranked teams yesterday

#3 Kansas goes down to UCF
#5 Tennessee loses to Mississippi St
#9 Oklahoma loses to TCU
#11 Marquette loses at home to Butler
#13 Memphis needs OT at home against UTSA (I don’t even know what UTSA stands for)
#21 Clemson loses to Virginia Tech

#4 UConn won by 5 (but up 14 with 4 min left), #7 UNC with a comfortable win over NC St, and #15 Wisconsin with a good road win @ Ohio St
 

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