National Polls

[Redbirdgrad]

Good to see the Valley getting traction in the polls, albeit slowly.

Wichita with 8 votes in the AP and 3 in the coaches.
ISU with 2 votes in the AP.

Wish it was #23 Wichita vs. #25 ISU on Saturday for a little more national traction, but it is what it is.

Just glad 2 of us are moving up still!

[BirdsEyeView]

Good to see the Valley getting traction in the polls, albeit slowly.

Wichita with 8 votes in the AP and 3 in the coaches.
ISU with 2 votes in the AP.

Wish it was #23 Wichita vs. #25 ISU on Saturday for a little more national traction, but it is what it is.

Just glad 2 of us are moving up still!

This is good news. Strange that ISUr is behind them given the only comparison is a 14 point win for ISU...but that doesn't matter one bit right now.

Visibility for the league is most important. Might even be locker room motivation for the Birds this week being behind the Shox in the polls.

[Cdizzle]

Good to see the Valley getting traction in the polls, albeit slowly.

Wichita with 8 votes in the AP and 3 in the coaches.
ISU with 2 votes in the AP.

Wish it was #23 Wichita vs. #25 ISU on Saturday for a little more national traction, but it is what it is.

Just glad 2 of us are moving up still!

This is good news. Strange that ISUr is behind them given the only comparison is a 14 point win for ISU...but that doesn't matter one bit right now.

Visibility for the league is most important. Might even be locker room motivation for the Birds this week being behind the Shox in the polls.

It's a very useful comparison, but it's not the only comparison.

[TheObserver]

Good to see the Valley getting traction in the polls, albeit slowly.

Wichita with 8 votes in the AP and 3 in the coaches.
ISU with 2 votes in the AP.

Wish it was #23 Wichita vs. #25 ISU on Saturday for a little more national traction, but it is what it is.

Just glad 2 of us are moving up still!

This is good news. Strange that ISUr is behind them given the only comparison is a 14 point win for ISU...but that doesn't matter one bit right now.

Visibility for the league is most important. Might even be locker room motivation for the Birds this week being behind the Shox in the polls.

I would hope there is more locker room material available than an 8-2 AP vote difference. WSU is the bigger name and has been on a lot of these guys' ballots over the years. I'm sure a lot of people dont even know that Illinois State is even in the Valley. Simple as that really.

Careful with the comparison game. By that logic, WVU should be ahead of KU, and so on and so forth. While WSU doesn't have a good win, they also don't have a bad loss. The same can't be said for Illinois State.

[BirdsEyeView]

Good to see the Valley getting traction in the polls, albeit slowly.

Wichita with 8 votes in the AP and 3 in the coaches.
ISU with 2 votes in the AP.

Wish it was #23 Wichita vs. #25 ISU on Saturday for a little more national traction, but it is what it is.

Just glad 2 of us are moving up still!

This is good news. Strange that ISUr is behind them given the only comparison is a 14 point win for ISU...but that doesn't matter one bit right now.

Visibility for the league is most important. Might even be locker room motivation for the Birds this week being behind the Shox in the polls.

I would hope there is more locker room material available than an 8-2 AP vote difference. WSU is the bigger name and has been on a lot of these guys' ballots over the years. I'm sure a lot of people dont even know that Illinois State is even in the Valley. Simple as that really.

Careful with the comparison game. By that logic, WVU should be ahead of KU, and so on and so forth. While WSU doesn't have a good win, they also don't have a bad loss. The same can't be said for Illinois State.

You are correct on name recognition, but that locker room material does not hurt does it? If I were Dan Muller, it would absolutely be used as a "nobody believes in us" mentality. Gotta keep the message fresh at this point in the season.

As for your comparison argument. I get that about comparing teams, however, over the last month, nothing has changed for either team except one game, which happened to be head to head.

These polls are typically based on recency. That is if a team lost in early November, they would drop in the rankings. In the time since then, if that team only wins, they will then continue to improve in the rankings. It's how these polls work.

Using your example above:
WVU has lost games they should have won (@Texas Tech, vs Oklahoma, @ KState) that has made them drop in rank. Meanwhile Kansas has only lost one game. If all things were equal...that is they each won every game except head to head. Then you can bet the bank WVU would be ahead of KU. But, West Virginia has sh** the bed three times.

In our case, both teams have done nothing but win Valley games...except a 14 point win for ISUr over Shox.

At the end of the day, these rankings mean nothing as I said in my original post above. It's just for chatter and popularity for the sport.

[BirdsEyeView]

Good to see the Valley getting traction in the polls, albeit slowly.

Wichita with 8 votes in the AP and 3 in the coaches.
ISU with 2 votes in the AP.

Wish it was #23 Wichita vs. #25 ISU on Saturday for a little more national traction, but it is what it is.

Just glad 2 of us are moving up still!

This is good news. Strange that ISUr is behind them given the only comparison is a 14 point win for ISU...but that doesn't matter one bit right now.

Visibility for the league is most important. Might even be locker room motivation for the Birds this week being behind the Shox in the polls.

It's a very useful comparison, but it's not the only comparison.

I agree, but from the polls point of view, recency is how they rank teams. You lose last week, you drop. You win all games, you stay or move up. Typically how these polls work.

Name recognition absolutely did this for you. That's great for the Shockers.

[anderjao]

Wichita State outdoes ISU in most statistical models. For example:
KenPom has WSU at 20 and ISU at 37.
Sagarin ranks WSU at 18 and ISU at 45.
BPI has WSU at 21 and ISU at 55.

ISU is only favored in the RPI at 34 to WSU's 70.

So even though ISU wins the head-to-head over WSU and leads in the RPI, it's more than just name recognition that could be giving WSU the nod with pollers.

[BirdsEyeView]

Wichita State outdoes ISU in most statistical models. For example:
KenPom has WSU at 20 and ISU at 37.
Sagarin ranks WSU at 18 and ISU at 45.
BPI has WSU at 21 and ISU at 55.

ISU is only favored in the RPI at 34 to WSU's 70.

So even though ISU wins the head-to-head over WSU and leads in the RPI, it's more than just name recognition that could be giving WSU the nod with pollers.

Yes totally aware and acknowledged that above. However, it makes no sense as to how voting had been handled leading into this week given WSU has been leading in those categories for a long time.
Yet are just now getting some votes into the polls (8 this week). Last week AP had 0 for WSU for example.

Believe it or not, many poll voters aren't going to spend that much time looking at all those metrics for EVERY team to determine rankings. Many are likely uninformed voters, in my opinion.

Again, no sour grapes, just found it interesting this week. It's great for the Valley to have two teams getting votes in the AP.

[Cdizzle]

Voters are certainly uninformed. Or, perhaps, less interested in spending as much time putting together a ballot as some fans are of dissecting the results.

[Redbirdgrad]

Bird fans I'd suggest a tip of the cap to the Shox for establishing the name they have where putting them on their ballot is easier than ISU. They've earned that.

This one isn't as big of a deal as some are making it out to be...