Basketball Coaches - ESP or Preconceived Notions?

[ClassOf98]

Things are a little slow around here, so here's some fuel for those who love to hate the polls -


It sure seems like it's been a crazy year in women's college hoops. Who would have thought Tennessee would have 3 losses, but be undefeated in SEC play? Who thought UConn had a snowball's chance at Cameron Indoor against Duke? Who knew Iowa State would lose so many games, but Kansas State wouldn't be one of them? Despite all the ruckus, with the season 3/4 done the Coaches' poll has been steady as a rock.

Are the coaches really that smart, or just unwilling to change their opinions? Only one team that did not receive preseason top 25 votes is in the current poll - #25 Arizona. Of the five largest ranking changes since the preseason poll, 4 are SEC teams (two up, two down). Below is a look at the polls. For the poll changes, all teams in 'others receiving votes' were assigned a default ranking of #26.

NCAA Division I:
ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll

Preseason Current Change

1. Duke Connecticut +2
2. Tennessee Duke -1
3. Connecticut Tennessee -1
4. LSU LSU +0
5. Kansas State Kansas State +0
6. Stanford N Carolina +7
7. Texas Tech Stanford -1
8. Purdue Texas Tech -1
9. Georgia Purdue -1
10. Vanderbilt LA Tech +5
11. Texas Mississippi St +15
12. Notre Dame Texas -1
13. N Carolina Arkansas +3
14. Penn State Penn State +0
15. LA Tech South Carolina +11
16. Arkansas Minnesota +1
17. Minnesota UCSB +9
18. Colorado St Georgia -9
19. Oklahoma Vanderbilt -9
20. TCU Boston College +4
21. Iowa State Oklahoma -2
22. Cincinnati Villanova +4
23. Old Dom UW Green Bay +3
24. Boston Coll Washington +2
25. Geo Wash Arizona N/A

OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES (preseason)
Mississippi St 107, Santa Barbara 77, Washington 74, South Carolina 63, Villanova 5,UW Green Bay 1.

[ChipperF1]

Polls are what they are. In the case of womens basketball, they are flawed by the simple fundamental issue of access to information.
There are six times the number of mens games that be can seen by a likely voter as compared to womens. Half the coaches haven't seen a good number of the teams in the poll, outside of conference opponents or non-conference teams they've played.

The media poll has largely the same problem because you are dealing with people in a LIMITED regional area, and its further aggrevated by the matter of lack of nationwide access to a great amount of gametime information between teams.

It hard to judge the relative merits of teams unseen, especially when you have a press corp where a good number of the press corp doesn't have a broad-based interest in the sport beyond their immediate area. For every Mechelle Voepel, there are 10 womens basketball "beat writers" who could care less about the national scene. They just wanna write column inches and angle for the more lucrative beats in the near future. Same goes for the TV boys and girls.

To me, there is no substitute for seeing games. You really can't get a gage on how good a Kansas State is for example, unless you see them play. That is one thing that hurts some teams, helps others. Its a matter of access to seeing what they have.

The polls are necessary, but they are taking in the proper perspective. If we had more even and consistent coverage of the game in many outlets and regions I think the polls would be a better barometer.