Polls are out for the week and hit a whole new level of stupid

The one problem with the KenPom rankings or the Massey Ratings is that they are compiled by unfeeling machines. The numbers simply tell the story regardless of any sort of human element. Factors like watching a teammate be knocked unconscious and be taken away by ambulance are allowed for. Nothing matters beyond the numbers. In this one regard, surely the human polls are better.

Except, they aren't. We have time and time again told you that human polls are a moronic way of basing your opinion on a team and time and time again they go out of their way to prove it. Xavier lost (to put it charitably) to Villanova, a team that has lost to only the first/second and fourth ranked teams in the nation and sits second in the KenPom, after watching their friend and point guard be immobilized and rushed to the hospital. Understandably distraught, the Musketeers couldn't regroup and lost the game. That same team then refocused and destroyed a full strength Butler team ranked, at the time, ninth in the nation and did it still without their incredibly talented guard.

For that, Xavier dropped from sixth to either tenth or 12th, depending on whether you prefer ill-informed team interns or ill-informed media hacks. Jumping ahead of the Musketeers are teams like UNC, who has lost to Northern Iowa (78th) and Texas (52nd), Kentucky, who has been beaten by UCLA (56th) and OSU (53rd), and a Miami team that sports the glittering 147th toughest schedule in the nation.

So well done, pollsters. In a land where it's occasionally difficult to convince people that you are utterly clueless and computer numbers are the way to go you have, for the countless time, provided the best possible argument against yourselves. Abolish these things and start using numbers that actually work. It's the only way to preserve any basketballing sanity.

AP Poll

USA Today Coaches Poll