Poll Dancing: TBI's College Basketball Top 25 (Nov. 24 Edition)

Not really much time for a witty intro or pretty pictures on this week's Poll Dancing, we're just going to hit up the Faceplants and get on with it. Strap in.


Faceplants: #17 Colorado, #20 UConn, #25 SMU
--Despite the amount of respect I have for what Larry Shyatt's building at Wyoming (and the massive mancrush TBI harbors for Larry Nance Jr.), I can't keep CU in the top 25 after the sheer ineptitude it displayed in Laramie. For UConn, it boils down to the head-to-head. I can't leave the Huskies in and keep West Virginia out...yet. As for SMU, they miss Markus Kennedy quite a bit, but they miss last year's Nic Moore just as much.

Poll Dancing: TBI's College Basketball Top 25 (Nov. 17 Edition)

We're only three days into the 2014-15 college basketball season, so why the hell not throw together a brand new Top 25 full of snap judgments and overreactions?

None of my Top 25 lost on the opening weekend, thank Buddha, but one did look very shaky against a motivated opponent at home on national TV. Of course, that team was ranked No. 25, so it's been replaced for now, but expect it to be back.

All in all, there's not much change, and I won't bother explaining the ones that stayed stable. After all, most of these teams were gobbling cupcakes over the weekend. However, I will share the rationale behind the few moves that were made, starting with our inaugural Faceplant of the new season.

All that after the jump.

TBI's College Basketball Opening Weekend Extravaganza: Preseason Bracketometry

Welcome back to the third post of the series that may represent the most prolific this blog gets in three months, thanks to a lot of other stuff demanding some time. We've already talked about my Top 25 picks and my All-American selections, so now it's time to jump to the real important news that will come out in March: the bracket.

If you read my conference previews (Part 1 here and Part 2 here), you'll remember that I projected the teams that I expected to make the NCAA tournament from each league. This is where we put them all together into a tournament format and determine who exactly I'm tabbing as my Final Four picks. Because unlike all those other chicken-droppings bracketologists, Bracketometry will go the extra mile and project some winners. And not just going according to seed, either (I see you out there, Athlon). There will be upsets.

Trust me, you'll all disagree with several picks. I absolutely know it. But before we get to who'll be standing on the final weekend, let's look at the other 64 who'll join them at the party after the jump.

TBI's College Basketball Opening Day Extravaganza: Top 25 Picks

I hate Christmas music, but the sentiment behind this song is valid for today. College basketball's opening day beats the living hell out of Christmas for me because 2 things:

1) There's a metric ton of hoops to watch;
2) No stressful shopping experiences.

As we prepare to tip the season off in some style (Texas Southern v. Eastern Washington = two potential conference champions opening the campaign), sit back and observe TBI's up-to-the-minute preseason top 25 and All-American picks after the jump.

College Basketball's NBA Draft Early Entry Winners and Losers

Now that all the relevant NBA draft deadlines have passed, college basketball coaches can finally have some semblance of roster continuity, barring the occasional homesick/minute-starved transfer.

The players who bailed are off to get (officially) paid for play, so they leave our sphere of discussion. Our examination centers on what they left behind. Is Phil Pressey's alma mater still fielding a solid team next season, or is Frank Haith stitching a lineup together with chicken wire and Duck tape?

Several other coaches are enjoying some surprisingly good news, while still others are headed back to the drawing board. Who's who?

Read on.

TBI vs. AP vs. ESPN: Poll Dancing Week 2

We all have our various perspectives on how useful the polls are in college basketball since, unlike the sport that decides how everything in college athletics plays out, hoop actually makes teams play for a championship instead of awarding it to whichever SEC team is most popular that year.

Those who take some interest in the polls may also take some delight in savaging others for their opinions. Gary Parrish at CBS loves to take aim at people with his Poll Attacks, which is a not-even-thinly-veiled game of "I'm A Million Times Smarter Than You And I Can Prove It." (Usually, he can't.)

Poll Dancing is so much less violent than Poll Attacks, and it's merely an assessment of TBI's Top 25 side-by-side with the AP and ESPN, examining the three for differences.

There may be some pointing at outliers, thanks to the good folks at Pollspeak.com, but I don't really need the ego stroke that Parrish appears to.

We'll dig into the ballots post-jump.

Conference Calling: ACC

In one of the first posts here on TBI, I discussed why the ACC was still one of college basketball's biggest dogs. As the season wears on, however, the conference's description is taking on a more negative tone, less "big dog" and more "dogging it."

Until Conference Realignment Roulette drags North Carolina off to the SEC or Duke to the Big 12 or something just as ludicrous, the ACC can never be completely written off. At least, UNC and Duke can never be written off. With the way the rest of the league is operating, it may very well be safe to ignore the other 10 teams.

• Real Time RPI currently has the ACC ranked below the Mountain West, of all things, in league RPI. The MWC has shown no fear of the Atlantic Coast, with not only UNLV's big win over the Tar Heels, but also TCU supplying the only blemish on the Virginia Cavaliers' season so far.