I've long thought that ESPN didn't like Oklahoma

[YCN]

For instance, last year for about two months ESPN had a phantom loss on the OU women's team schedule in place of a real win, and I wondered how that loss - and on the schedule it was a bad loss, however phony - affected how poll voters voted regarding OU.

ESPN finally fixed the error just before the postseason after I emailed them repeatedly without any success. Maybe they thought that the charade wouldn't work any longer.

Well, this week the Sooners were unceremoniously dumped from the polls, for good cause. But when I went to look at ESPN's coaches' and sports writers' polls to see how many votes OU got among the unranked teams, I was surprised to see that OU wasn't listed as receiving any votes whatsoever in either poll.

Since I was pretty sure that I'd seen OU with votes somewhere else, I totalled up the total points in both polls, only to discover that the coaches' poll was 76 points short, and the press poll was 84 points short.

So I went to USAToday.com and checked the same polls at their site, and sure enough OU was listed in both polls among the unranked teams. After double-checking I discovered that ESPN left not just OU out of the vote totals, but Washington as well - in both polls!

Now how the heck can that happen? I don't think anybody can possibly make me believe that is a coincidence. In the coaches poll OU had 51 points and Washington 25, which would have placed them 1st and 4th among the "others receiving votes", and in the press poll OU had 43 and Washington 41, which would have put them 2nd and 3rd.

I knew they didn't like OU all along, and now I have my proof!

(Not to mention how today's ESPN Big Monday headline was about a dud of a men's basketball game between #18 UConn and #19 Syracuse instead of a crackerjack battle between #3 OU and #6 Texas.)


[This message has been edited by YCN (edited 02-11-2003).]

[BeBe]

This has happened every week (I think) this season. For some reason, when ESPN reports the polls, any teams that have just fallen out of the top 25 completely disappear, like they got 0 votes. I first noticed it the week Colorado fell out of the ranking. That caused me to do a little checking and I found that it happened on each of the weeks I checked.

The funniest one is Cincinnati. Week 4 they were ranked #25; week 5 they appeared to have received 0 votes; and week 6 they were ranked #25 again.

[YCN]

BeBe, I liked the conspiracy theory better. ;^))

I had visions of an angry Colorado grad who works as a copy editor at ESPN.com, who dislikes OU because we are a rival, and dislikes Washington because of Rick Neuheusel.

So much for conspiracies. I still think ESPN treats the Big 12 like a second-rate conference, though.

[Guns Up!]

ESPN (Eastern Sports Program Network) doesn't like any team (especially Big 12 teams) unless that team's is named UCONN.

[cyfanatic]

I agree with Guns Up! I am happy that they have got Stacey Dales-Shuman to help with the commentary, however, she has IMO done a great job thus far.

[Jimi]

Hey look at it this way. They do cover WCBB. Just win Baby. The publicity will come if the wins do.