Come on, you can’t be this short sighted. The end goal is obviously cutting the nets in April, but how do you get there? You don’t take average joe off the street and coach him up with a coach who played a little high school ball and thinks he knows what he’s doing, all in a gym with bent rims and shared with the intramural pickle ball team.
No. If you really want to cut the nets in April, the best way to do that is to get the highest caliber players that fit your system, the highest quality coach that meets your needs you can get, in the best facilities you can afford, with the most fans in the stands you can motivate to help create a good atmosphere, with the most NIL money (argh) your players can get, etc etc etc. The AP poll, whether you accept it or not, plays into all of this. It helps generate interest from fans, gives you national exposure for recruiting, gives brand recognition recruiting/attracting players and coaching staff/sponsorships/etc, and on and on.
The AP poll is not the be all end all to anything college sports related, but it’s a great piece of the puzzle that helps make everything easier… right down to being able to watch your team on easy to access tv if you live outside the home market.
You may personally not care about the rankings, but it doesn’t change the fact that it really does affect a lot of the things you DO care about. But in the end, if you still find yourself not caring about the AP Poll, then just ignore it and enjoy the games! No need to tell everyone who does care that you don't care about it.
Then again, I think you know all this and you were just looking to argue for arguments sake b/c you don’t like how some people view the AP poll. This is an internet message board after all!
/rant over