Inside the AP Poll: What Gives, Nebraska?

One of the best (or worst) things about the polling system in college basketball is that it provides an insight as to what the nation thinks about every team. The AP Poll is decided by a collection of sports writers from across the country, who's job it is to make an educated and objective decision regarding the 25 best teams in the country. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet and full disclosure, individual polls are made public and we can see the different opinions on our beloved Zags. Here are some stats that we pulled from today's AP Poll:

• The Zags were ranked fourth overall (duh!)
  
• Gonzaga received two second place votes in today's poll from writers out of Riverside, CA and Salem, OR
• 14 out 72 voters ranked Gonzaga as the third best team in the nation or better
• 20 of the 72 voters ranked Gonzaga as the fifth or worse team in the nation
• The lowest ranking Gonzaga received was 8th, by a voter from the state of Nebraska
  

Going through the 14 voters that put the Zags above their fourth ranking it is clear that a majority are from the left coast. A couple papers from California, and some from Utah, Idaho and Oregon all put Gonzaga 3rd or better. The Seattle voter, interestingly enough, put the Zags fifth. Gonzaga is definitely making some waves across the country, however, and that can all be attributed to the scheduling of Mark Few. People often times complain that the team has to travel too great lengths to play good competition but I would wager that Mark Few is traveling great distances to expose his team to the East coast that probably doesn't want to stay awake until 3 am to watch Gonzaga take on USF or LMU. So far this year his scheme has worked. Two voters from the state of Florida, where the Old Spice Classic was held, ranked Gonzaga third in the nation. Impressed by the effort against his Volunteers, a Tennessee sports writer voted Gonzaga third as well.

As any Gonzaga fan can assume, a majority of votes that put Gonzaga as the fifth or worse team came from the East Coast (except Seattle of course). Through our research, it appears that three of the votes putting Gonzaga fifth or worse came from the state of North Carolina. Perhaps they are a little worried about Heytvelt dominating Hansbrough again. Another couple of voters against the Zags came from the Midwest which is not surprising because they know how mediocre Indiana is this season and Gonzaga did not look like the fourth best team in the nation on Saturday. Rest assured the Gonzaga will have the ability to build on the their image in the coming weeks. Although they don't travel East again until January 7th (Tennessee), they will play one of the top teams in the nation in the University of Connecticut. Games against Washington State and Arizona should also garner some national attention. Not to mention that 'little' game in Spokane against last year's national runner-up, the Memphis Tigers.

Here is the poll which has Gonzaga as the 8th best team in the nation...interesting.

As you can see from this Nebraskans point of view, Tennessee remains the better team even though Gonzaga beat them in their head to head match up...starting to sound kind of like the BCS isn't it? The rest of his poll looks pretty good except for having one-loss Louisville ahead of Gonzaga.

Hopefully this provides a new insight to the poll process and how our excellent non-conference schedule affects our national image. Hopefully the Zags keep taking care of business and our ranking keeps getting lower.