Couch: AP basketball voters not 'extreme' enough

Among the 65 voters who make up the Associated Press top 25 college basketball poll, I am apparently the “most extreme.”

Every week.

And every week, I feel bad. Not for me. But for the other 64. For any of them who lack the energy for original thought. Or the courage to trust their own analysis over the safe play. Or those who fear being chastised publicly for treating a bloated brand with a critical eye.

And also for the teams and fans who derive any worth from this poll that can be so far from the truth.

I’m new to the AP basketball rankings, but I know this: Every voter’s top 25 ballot this early in the season ought to appear extreme. Because there is nowhere near enough data yet for 65 independent analyses to be anything but wide-ranging.

“Extreme” is defined by collegepolltracker.com as a pick that’s five-plus spots from the actual ranking. My latest poll had 11 such teams, beginning with 10th-ranked Xavier, which I have at No. 5.

The trajectory of the Musketeers is an example of the slow-to-turn institutional groupthink that permeates these polls. In some cases, it’s probably more the lack of time put into them. On the latter point, I can’t blame anyone. No one gets paid extra to do this. Some folks are also covering college football teams. People have an hour or two at most to give to this each week. Probably less.

But …

There simply aren’t nine better resumes than Xavier right now. There are barely any. The 10-0 Musketeers have double-digit wins over Michigan, Alabama, USC, Dayton and Cincinnati. Xavier throttled the Wolverines on the road and Dayton on a neutral court. The same Dayton Flyers that just won at Vanderbilt and beat Alabama and Iowa early.

Xavier is only No. 10 because because the Musketeers’ second-tier brand makes voters hesitant. Two weeks into the season, after winning in Ann Arbor — the best true road win in college basketball at the time — I had them at No. 11. Their collective AP ranking, 23.

Why 23? Because they were unranked originally in the AP preseason poll, a poll based on opinions formed by reading preseason magazines — written in July. As soon as games start happening, teams should be evaluated without the preseason projections as a guide, including one’s own preseason ballot. That clearly doesn’t always happen.

If it did, teams such as Colorado State and Valparaiso would have received more consideration in late November, when both were deserving. And Xavier would move up at the same pace as Michigan State, which, with a similar body of work to the Musketeers, saw little resistance in rising from 13 to 1.

My other “extreme” selections this week: Villanova (me 7, actual ranking 12); Iowa State (12, 5), Louisville (13, 19), UCLA (14, 22), Wichita State (19, 31), Dayton (20, 32), Vanderbilt (21, 30), Georgetown (22, 35), Iowa (24, 39) and SMU (25, 18).

Some of the decisions come from watching teams play — Louisville and Iowa, for example.

Some of it is more solely results-based at this stage — taking into account where those wins and losses took place. True road wins should go a long way in college basketball. True road losses are often simply the cost of gutsy scheduling.

When Kentucky loses on the road to a UCLA team lying in wait after being embarrassed by the ’Cats a year earlier, that has little to do with who Kentucky is. When North Carolina loses by two at Texas and without its best player at Northern Iowa, the Tar Heels shouldn’t fall far. True road games should be encouraged. Those are better losses than some teams’ best wins.

I didn’t like the Tar Heels as a preseason No. 1 — I had them at No. 8. But I didn’t drop them more than a spot when they lost a game few teams would be willing to schedule.

I’ve taken flack for having Georgetown in the top 25 — especially when the 6-3 Hoyas were 2-3. But after a not-so-pretty double-OT loss to Radford, Georgetown’s other two losses were at Maryland by four points and by two points to Duke on a neutral floor. No. 5-ranked Iowa State — which I have at 12 — doesn’t have a single win as sound as either of those two Georgetown defeats.

And to folks dismayed that Wichita State was back in my top 25 this Monday — that’s an easy call. The 5-4 Shockers are unbeaten with All-American point guard candidate Fred VanVleet healthy and in the lineup. He’s back healthy and in the lineup, and they’ve won three straight.

I’ve screwed up once this year. I left out Miami three weeks ago after a couple noticeable wins. I overlooked the ’Canes — an early morning blunder, no malice intended. I found out Miami basketball has a fan base. A vocal one. I never would have guessed.

That might happen again with some other clear-cut top 25 team. But odds are, if it’s early in the season, I’ll have 10 other teams closer to where they truly deserve to be.

Even if takes some extreme thinking.

Graham Couch can be reached at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.