My colleague Matt Norlander said on an episode of the Eye On College Basketball Podcast earlier this month that West Virginia was the one team in the preseason AP Poll most likely to miss the NCAA Tournament.
I disagreed with him.
But, I can now admit, Norlander's prediction is off to a good start because the Mountaineers are currently 2-2 with a home loss to Buffalo and a neutral-court loss to Western Kentucky. The loss to Buffalo came in the season-opener and resulted in West Virginia going from 13th in the preseason AP poll to out of last week's AP poll. The loss to Western Kentucky came last Friday and resulted in West Virginia going from a team getting 145 points in last week's AP poll to a team getting just 18 points in this week's AP Poll.
Now obviously, at least to most, there's really no reason for anybody to still have the Mountaineers on a top-25 ballot. They have two sub-45 KenPom losses and zero top-75 KenPom wins. That's not good. So when the AP poll published Monday I was curious to see exactly who these people are who are still ranking West Virginia. And what I found, very quickly, is that at least three AP voters seem to have no idea that the Mountaineers lost a game to Western Kentucky last Friday.
Absolutely no idea.
One of the AP voters is B.J. Rains from the Idaho Press-Tribune. He had West Virginia ranked 22nd last week. Then West Virginia went out and lost to unranked Western Kentucky. And Rains responded by moving West Virginia up two spots to No. 20 this week. Another of the AP voters is John Bednarowski of the Marietta Daily Journal. He had West Virginia ranked 21st last week. Then West Virginia went out and lost to unranked Western Kentucky. And Bednarowski responded by just leaving West Virginia 21st this week. And yet another of the AP voters is James Crepea of The Oregonian. He had West Virginia ranked 25th last week. Then West Virginia went out and lost to unranked Western Kentucky. And Crepea responded by moving West Virginia up two spots to No. 23 this week.
Come on guys. Get it together.
It's not that hard to at least check the box scores, or the KenPom pages, of every team on your ballot before submitting it. If I can do it every morning, surely you can do it once a week.
