UPDATE: This is now final. Explanations to follow this PM.
UPDATE: Explanations after the jump
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| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pittsburgh |
 3 |
| 2 | North Carolina |
1 |
| 3 | Memphis |
3 |
| 4 | Oklahoma |
 2 |
| 5 | Connecticut |
4 |
| 6 | Louisville |
1 |
| 7 | Kansas |
1 |
| 8 | Duke |
3 |
| 9 | Missouri | |
| 10 | Michigan St. |
3 |
| 11 | Marquette |
1 |
| 12 | Arizona St. |
1 |
| 13 | Clemson |
1 |
| 14 | Villanova | |
| 15 | Wake Forest | |
| 16 | Purdue |
4 |
| 17 | Illinois |
7 |
| 18 | Butler |
1 |
| 19 | Gonzaga | |
| 20 | Louisiana St. | |
| 21 | UCLA |
3 |
| 22 | Texas | |
| 23 | Washington |
1 |
| 24 | West Virginia | |
| 25 | Florida St. | |
| Last week's ballot | ||
Probably the most curious thing on this ballot was UNC's rise to number 2 while Oklahoma fell to four. What Oklahoma proved this past weekend was that without Griffin, they're a very mediocre team. Everything runs through that guy. His loss was unexpected, so I give them credit for not having a "Griffin-less gameplan" installed, but still, if that kid gets hurt or in foul trouble in the tourney, I feel a "9-upsets-1" type game. We'll know a lot more after this week because Griffin is out when Kansas comes to call. Meanwhile, despite the Maryland loss, I don't feel all that uncomfortable with UNC. I think they're better balanced than Oklahoma, and I have a great deal more confidence in Roy Williams than I do in Kelvin Sampson Jeff Capel come tourney time.
Meanwhile, Memphis shoots up partly because of a Kenpom rating of #1(!) and partly because I'm starting to get the feeling that Memphis is the type team that is going to run circles around plodding Big 12 and Big 10 teams come tourney-time.
I think it's a 5 horse race for the 4 1-seeds. What will end up happening (likely) is the major conferences will get a 1 seed in (Uconn, Pitt, UNC, OK) with Memphis as a dangerous 2 seed. This is purely conjecture, however but barring an implosion by one of those teams, and given the committee's penchant for power-conferences, I think we're pretty close.
Nobody really got swung around too hard this week, Illinois of course deserved their fall from the heights of top-10 for their 31 point gag-fest to Penn State. UCLA continues to confound me with victories over Washington (who I think is pretty good, FWIW) and losses to unranked Washington State. Ugh. I think no matter what they do they're going to hang around at 20 for the rest of the season.
I dropped Syracuse and Xavier because they probably shouldn't have been there in the first place (remember, I'm still feeling this whole thing out) and added a few teams like Texas, WVU, LSU, and Gonzaga in their stead.