CBS Sports.com's Gary Parrish has a weekly column called Poll Attacks, which is pretty self explanatory. However, his most recent column from Monday may feature by far the worst pollster in the history of ever. After a weekend of several upsets in college basketball, the ballot of Mike Barber of the Richmond Times Dispatch COMPLETELY IGNORED what happened:
…I just glanced at Mike Barber's ballot, and he apparently has no idea games were played Sunday. How else to explain him ranking Michigan eighth after a loss to Iowa State, North Carolina 11th after a loss to Belmont and Notre Dame 25th after a loss to Indiana State without ranking Iowa State, Belmont or Indiana State at all? I've seen a lot of wild ballots over the years; that's why I started doing the Poll Attacks. But I don't think I've ever seen a ballot that so obviously disregarded every result from a particular day — either intentionally or carelessly. It's like Sunday never happened.
So to recap: Barber moved Michigan up one spot after losing to Iowa State.
He moved North Carolina up one spot after losing at home to Belmont.
And, he moved Notre Dame down only two spots after losing at home to Indiana State.
How does this make any sense at all? Newsflash: it doesn't.
His ranking method reminds me of every Pick 'Em league I join, where I don't factor in the matchups and just pick the teams I like. Or it reminds me of an eight year old old rooting for a team because of the name/uniform/mascot.
With that type of logic, Barber should clearly be voting in the BCS instead! Thank goodness the polls really don't matter in college basketball.
