Posted by Graham Hays
Friday is Halloween and Tuesday is Election Day. And since I secretly want to be Nate Silver when I grow up, why not kill two birds with one stone and put on a polling pundit's costume? Here's a quick look at some of the preseason polls from major conferences.
SEC (media)
1. Vanderbilt
2. Tennessee
3. Auburn
4. Georgia
5. LSU
6. Florida
7. Kentucky
8. Mississippi
9. Mississippi State
10. Arkansas
11. South Carolina
12. Alabama
Comment: The three-way split in first-place votes between Vanderbilt (12), Tennessee (9) and Georgia (4) suggests this could be a year of change in the SEC -- in more ways than one. Not only has it been more than a decade since any team other than Tennessee or LSU claimed the outright regular-season title (Georgia in 1997), but no regular-season champion has lost more than one game in conference play since 1985. With so much uncertainty at the top (Georgia's first-place votes couldn't even lift it ahead of Auburn, which didn't get any first-place votes), two or three losses might not end title hopes.
Big 12 (coaches)
1. Oklahoma
2. Texas
3. Iowa State
4. Baylor
5. Texas A&M
6. Oklahoma State
7. Kansas State
8. Nebraska
9. Kansas
10. Texas Tech
11. Colorado
12. Missouri
Comment: Texas and Iowa State are viewed as Oklahoma's top challengers, but both have history working against them. Both the Longhorns and Cyclones finished last season with 7-9 conference records. Kansas State, last season's surprise winner, was the first regular-season champion to claim the title one year after a losing league mark.
Also of some interest, this is only the second time in the four seasons of the Paris twins that Oklahoma finds itself the preseason favorite (defending national champion Baylor got the nod when Ashley and Courtney were freshmen, and Texas A&M was the pick last season). And while some national preseason polls have Texas A&M in the top 10, it's a little surprising to see such a gulf in opinions when it comes to the Aggies.
Big Ten (media)
1. Ohio State
2. Purdue
3. Michigan State
4. Minnesota
5. Iowa
6. Illinois
7. Indiana
8. Michigan
9. Penn State
10. Wisconsin
11. Northwestern
Comment: Here we have honest-to-goodness controversy (or at least disagreement, but the first rule of politics is that the two are synonyms). Coaches in the Big Ten switched the top two and set Purdue as the preseason favorite. For what it's worth, the media missed badly on Minnesota last preseason, tabbing it for an eighth-place finish. Meanwhile, the coaches watched Wisconsin go from their preseason choice for second place to a real-life tie for seventh. (Who else was foolish enough to back Wisconsin?)
ACC (media)
1. North Carolina
2. Maryland
3. Duke
4. Virginia
5. Florida State
6. Georgia Tech
7. Boston College
8. NC State
9. Clemson
10. Virginia Tech
11. Miami
12. Wake Forest
Comment: As close as the ACC has been in recent years, this is actually the first time since 2004 that the four-time defending regular-season champion Tar Heels find themselves the preseason favorite (Duke claimed that honor in 2005-06 and Maryland held it the past two seasons). One recent trend is the presence of a fourth (and sometimes fifth) team with double-digit wins in league play. That happened in each of the past three seasons, and both Virginia and, to me, Boston College look like ideal candidates this season.
Big East (coaches)
1. Connecticut
2. Rutgers
3. Louisville
4. Notre Dame
5. Pittsburgh
6. Syracuse
7. Marquette
8. DePaul
9. West Virginia
10. Villanova
11. Georgetown
12. South Florida
13. St. John's
14. Seton Hall
15. Cincinnati
16. Providence
Comment: Connecticut's place atop the preseason Big East poll is about as close as you can get to a "safe district" in women's college basketball. But more than anything, looking at the full length of the preseason poll hammers home the ridiculousness of including all 16 teams in the conference tournament. By expanding the field by four and adding a day to the tournament, the Big East has effectively rendered it impossible for half of the field to win the tournament -- unless you think winning five games in five days is reasonable, despite the fact that it's never asked of a team at any other time.
Pac-10 (coaches)
1. Stanford
2. California
3. Arizona State
4. USC
5. UCLA
6. Oregon
7. Washington
8. Oregon State
9. Washington State
10. Arizona
Comment: In the past four seasons, no Pac-10 team has improved more than three places in the standings from one season to the next. So in this case, it's perhaps less surprising than in any other preseason poll to see a list that looks pretty much like last season's order of finish (Oregon and Washington swap places, as do Arizona and Washington State). But it hasn't always been that way. With the exception of Stanford (which has a difficult time improving on a string of eight consecutive first-place finishes), Cal and Washington State are the only teams in the past decade that have not improved by at least four places in the standings on at least one occasion.
Women's Basketball
