INeedMoreCreativity's Week 18 Ballot
| Rank | Team | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Purdue | |
| 2 | Houston | |
| 3 | UConn | |
| 4 | Tennessee | |
| 5 | Iowa State | |
| 6 | Marquette | |
| 7 | North Carolina | |
| 8 | Arizona | |
| 9 | Kansas | |
| 10 | Baylor | |
| 11 | South Carolina | |
| 12 | Illinois | |
| 13 | Alabama | |
| 14 | Creighton | |
| 15 | Auburn | |
| 16 | San Diego State | |
| 17 | BYU | |
| 18 | Duke | |
| 19 | Utah State | |
| 20 | Gonzaga | |
| 21 | Washington State | |
| 22 | Florida | |
| 23 | Nevada | |
| 24 | Dayton | |
| 25 | Indiana State |
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.