Clarifying my AP ballot, title picks, Memphis and more

Pitt took a big hit when Levance Fields (pictured) and Mike Cook went down with injuries. But the Panthers were still 18th on Seth Davis' ballot. AP

MAILBAG Seth Davis will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his Hoop Thoughts column. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

In the wake of last week's New Hampshire primary, this is not exactly the best time to call yourself a pollster. Fortunately, when I conduct a college hoops poll, I yield results with zero margin for error. That's because the only person I poll is myself. The answers, therefore, are always correct.

I do this every Sunday night and Monday morning as I put together my ballot for the AP Top 25 poll. Last week, I started including my ballot in my Tuesday Hoop Thoughts column. (This week's ballot is on page 2 of this column.) I anticipated this would generate some challenges from my fellow Hoop Thinkers. I'm not going to delve into this every week, but I figured I'd address a few of your questions for the opening round.

So let's start with this one from Miggy in Elmhurst, N.Y.: "You listed Pitt at 19 yet did not give Villanova a [vote] after beating Pitt. I understand that the Pitt win at home was ugly and the DePaul loss away was uglier, yet you're telling me that a win against Pitt does allow Nova stay in the Top 25 while a Louisville loss at home to Cincinnati does not knock them out of the list? Explain."

This strikes at what is probably the most difficult issue I have as a voter: Injuries. Pitt has lost two starters, Mike Cook and Levance Fields. Cook is not coming back, while Fields won't be back until the end of February at the earliest. Louisville, on the other hand, lost a bunch of games while Juan Palacios and David Padgett were injured. They're both back now, but the Cincinnati loss was Padgett's first game back after missing 10 games with a fractured kneecap. The Cards followed that by trouncing Kentucky in Lexington by 14. That impressed me.

Thus, I decided Louisville was on a significant upswing, so I voted accordingly. (The Cards validated my reasoning by beating West Virginia at home and Rutgers on the road last week. I left them at 22nd on my ballot, but my fellow voters still left them out of the rankings in this week's poll. Believe me, they'll come around quick.)

As for Villanova, yes, I punished them more for losing to a bad DePaul team on the road than beating Pitt at home by one. Perhaps I shouldn't be persuaded by margins of victory, but such is the subjective nature of this exercise. If you want to be ranked, you're supposed to win at home, especially against a team that is minus two starters. Aside from that game, the Wildcats' best win was at George Mason (though I give them partial credit for a controversial one-point loss to N.C. State). That got Villanova close to but not quite on my ballot -- and its loss at Cincinnati on Saturday kept them off this week as well. My fellow voters still have Nova at No. 25. Apparently a loss to Cincinnati was enough to keep Louisville out of the rankings, but not Villanova. Go figure.

Here's another example of how injuries affect my voting: Arizona had lost two of its last three games when I voted last week (and eventually lost three out of four), but the Wildcats were without their best player, Jerryd Bayless. So I left them at No. 21. Not only did my fellow voters drop the Wildcats completely out of the poll, but Arizona's grand total of points in "others receiving votes" this week is five. Four of those five points are coming from me. I voted how I did last week because I knew Bayless was coming back soon, and in fact he returned last Saturday and had 33 points and nine assists in a win at Houston. You think he's not important to this team?

Frankly, I don't understand how Arizona State can be ranked 22nd on the basis of beating Arizona at home in overtime without Bayless, yet Arizona remains unranked. Yes, the Sun Devils blitzed Xavier at home, but Arizona has beaten Texas A&M at home and Illinois and Houston on the road. Arizona State has only played two games away from home (against Illinois Nebraska) and lost them both.

One last poll question from Jeff of Houston: "I'm quite surprised at what I consider such a low ranking for Texas by the media. I may be biased, but I think the media is putting too much into the fact that Texas has two losses compared to the one loss of many of the teams above them. Considering the whole body of work to me, it's a no-brainer that Texas should be around 5-7 instead of 12 as they are ranked now. Can anyone say two-loss LSU?"

First of all, I think we can all agree that we don't need any college football poll analogies in this space. Gives me the willies. Jeff sent in this question before Texas lost at Missouri, but looking at my ballot for this week, you could make a case that I'm overrating Texas at No. 13. (The Longhorns are 19th in this week's poll.) This is where it becomes hard to be consistent as the season marches on. I don't want to punish Texas too much for losing on the road -- but didn't I just make the opposite argument about Villanova? I also still give the Longhorns tons of credit for winning at UCLA -- but weren't the Bruins just getting Darren Collison back at that point? Texas also lost at home to Wisconsin, but instead of punishing Texas harshly I responded by installing Wisconsin at No. 20 (which is still three spots below where my fellow voters ranked the Badgers this week).

1 of 2