INeedMoreCreativity's Week 16 Ballot

Rank	Team	Reason
1	Kansas	Arguable #1 resume in the country. #1 WAB, #2 SOR. 13-5 Q1 (7-4 Q1A). There are only a handful of teams that have an argument at having a better overall Q1 (A+B) record than KU's Q1A record alone
2	Alabama	Arguable #1 resume in the country. #2 WAB, #1 SOR. 7-4 Q1 (3-3 Q1A).
3	Houston	Likely the best team, but not best resume (see overall rationale). Poor SOS =/= poor resume, but the Temple loss is really dragging them down
4	Purdue
5	UCLA
6	Arizona
7	Texas
8	Baylor
9	Gonzaga
10	Virginia
11	Marquette
12	UConn
13	Xavier
14	Miami (FL)
15	Tennessee
16	Kansas State
17	TCU
18	San Diego State
19	Indiana
20	Iowa State
21	Saint Mary's
22	Creighton
23	Northwestern
24	Providence
25	Florida Atlantic

Overall Rationale

I rank teams mostly by resume, as if the season ended today and I were ranking them for the tournament. I am not trying to find the “best” team, I’m trying to find the “most deserving team”. In other words, my rankings are backwards-looking, not forwards-looking. ------------ I use eye-test evaluations along with computer metrics to inform my rankings. I do not place additional weight on more recent games. Having a good record relative to SOS is the most important thing for my rankings. Sometimes, a team may have an excellent resume despite poor SOS (such as previous years’ Gonzaga), or a poor resume despite a great SOS (some .500 power conference teams). If your team wins more games against its schedule than other teams would win against that same schedule, then your team has a good resume. ------------ FAQ: ------------ 1. Why is my team ranked so low? My team is ranked #5 in kenpom! -- It’s likely that your team has a resume that’s relatively poor. I bet your team will do pretty well later in the season, but until then, I’ll rank the team with the better resume higher. ------------ 2. Why is that team ranked so high? They don’t even have any ranked wins! -- That team likely still has a good resume! A win against an okay team can be just as good as a win against a great team, depending on where the game is played. An average top-25 team is as likely to win on the road against the #75 team as it is to win hosting the #10. ------------ 3. How do you have Team A ranked over Team B? Team B just whalloped Team A! -- Single game results are only a small part of a team's larger whole body of work. Team A dropped in my rankings according to how bad their loss was, and Team B rose according to how good their win was. I don’t assign any additional weight to the game.