Cranking Out The Rankings

Oh no. Another Sunday and time for the Top 20 poll again. Pin the typewriter on the donkeys. Where's the mother-in-law? She was a big help last year. Saw Larry Brown on TV with those raccoon eyes and those two-tone saddle shoes and figured out the Bruins immediately. Said "that boy's stylin'." She was way ahead of everybody. Picked UCLA seventh.

Looks like I'm on my own this season, though. Let's see. Brigham Young. The Cougs lost a heartbreaker at Utah by 42 but nipped the Utes at their place by 46. If Jesse Jackson ever hits the area with an affirmative-action program, BYU will be murder. For now, No. 15. How about North Carolina? I see where Dean Smith went to the four corners with a 38-point lead against Mercer, then had to pull it out at the buzzer. What's going on? Another Tar Heel must have secretly married another cheerleader. Drop them to eighth.

Now it becomes difficult. Let's go to the map. In the East, Petey Carril's Princeton defense held up again, 33-12 over Colgate. Petey's pulling out all the stops this season. Out West, Shecky Greene skipped the dinner show to see the Runnin' Rebels at Vegas, so Jerry Tarkanian turned 'em loose: 142-97 was the final over California-Irvine. Guess that leaves Princeton at No. 18 and Vegas at No. 6.

So who's No. 1? I give up. Digger Phelps wore his Notre Dame sweatshirt to so many games they gave him the football job, too. Kentucky's entire starting lineup just transferred to Bethune-Cookman, blaming their dissatisfaction on a lack of playing time and a shortage of Betamax wet-bar consoles in the dorm rooms.

I think I'll just write in Gonzaga.

If this isn't exactly what passes through the chaotic mind of a Top 20 voter every week, it may be closer to it than anybody cares to know. The polls conducted by the two major wire services—the Associated Press and United Press International—were originally established to measure teams' relative abilities based on objective technological evidence such as points, rebounds, fouls and game scores. But in reality they have become, on the one hand, a political popularity contest and, on the other, a huge guessing game.

This is not to say the endeavor is totally worthless. We do choose other things in this same fashion—recently, for instance, a President. The polls produce a national champion in college football, however unsatisfactory that method of anointment may be. But in basketball, where the champ is determined by a tournament rather than the whim of the ballot box, those preseason, midseason, postseason, virtually minute-by-minute polls become meaningless on the night of the NCAA final game.

There are 62 writers and broadcasters on the AP voting panel and 42 college coaches on the UPI board. Which are the more honest, sincere, knowledgeable, conscientous and accurate? Take the media guys and give the 20. In truth, both sets of voters are unable to see most of the teams they are voting for and against—occasionally a valuable criterion for judgment. Moreover, both are subject to prejudices engendered by region, personality and vested interests.

If Toledo's Bobby Nichols, for example, once ran up a brutal score on Rutgers Coach Tom Young and then proceeded to compete for the same 6'10" high school center in Wheeling, W. Va., Young wouldn't be about to rank Toledo No. 9 on his UPI ballot. When a hypothetical Chicago journalist's trip to the Rainbow Classic in Honolulu depends on whether the DePaul Blue Demons are high or low in the rankings, look for kindly, sentimental old Ray Meyer to be portrayed as being a lot more kindly in the papers, not to mention a sentimental old No. 1 in the AP poll.

Despite all the cliques and tricks and subconscious skulduggery enveloping the system, the polls remain vibrant, fascinating, important to those involved, even though 48—not 20—is the magic number these days. That's how many teams get berths in the NCAA tournament.