It's always good to check back on all the preseason predictions for the year before to see whether this penchant for predicting the future makes us look like wise sages or unhappy mediums.
Amazingly, considering the fact that absolutely no one was putting Baylor anywhere except #1 last year, many of the more respected polls did a very commendable job at painting a reasonably accurate picture of the season's outcome. There are certainly some services like "WCBB is an afterthought that we care a gnat's burro about" Athlon that completely upchuck into the wind, but SI's Richard Deitsch on the day after the 2012 NC in April put out his picks and was fantastic. AP and USA\Today had extremely similar top 10s and both also did a decent job of stacking up the final outcome pretty closely. Now, one might say in the "totally predictable" WCBB, it's not that hard to have pretty accurate predictions that get most of the top 10 at least named if not sorted right, but there have been years that have been way off, so it's no mean feat. Interestingly, the one final poll top 10 team that tended to be ranked outside the top 15 in preseason rankings was UTenn, but this was probably partly a reaction to the Vols being a big disappointment the year before and having a highly heralded class graduate with little to show for their time in Knoxville.
More instructive is how the polls are received on the BY, and where the most derision comes from. For the SI picks last year, there were two placements especially that raised ire, Louisville at #4 and Delaware at #10, and both teams were generally buried much much further down the list for internal BYers, while the Dukies and other external posters generally were a little more respecting of the two teams. The Cards of course went to the NC and finished #3 in the final polls, disappointing their legions of detractors. Delaware struggled early and seemingly there was justice in the bile spewed here about the "one-player" team, but a 27-game winning streak that took them through to an upset of UNC and then an exit in the Sweet 16 and a final ranking of #13 in the polls shows that the #10 preseason pick was not exactly looney. Far more absurd was Athlon's ranking Ohio State at preseason #4 last year, only to have the Buckeyes dive down somewhere around the #40 level. Athlon did nail Delaware at #13 however, so I guess the blind squirrel analogy can be thrown in there. ND, which entered last season ranked between #6 and #9 in the polls also received a moderate amount of flak here, but much of it was centered on the relative weakness in the post, which the Irish learned to deal with pretty well.
Digging up last year's clunker statements is a bit unfair to everyone, but even though my comment that Prairie View would likely end up at the top did not work last year, I will make it again on the one-gazillionth of a quintillion chance that it comes true, leading to me being acknowledeged Lord of the Universe and Mr. MegaBrain. Those odds aren't really that bad.
