This week in extreme polling: John Feinstein

8. Murray State: John Feinstein (National Public Radio) and Mark Smith (Albuquerque Journal) both have the Murray State Racers (18-0) at 8th. No other voters have them better than 10th, and the average was 13.3. Murray State has three decent wins on the season: Southern Miss on a neutral floor, Dayton at home and Memphis on the road. None of those teams received a single vote in either poll. Their other 15 games include 12 ranked 150th or worse in the Pomeroys, and three non-Division I games. In other words they are the Boise State of basketball.

10. North Carolina: 59 of 65 voters have UNC ranked higher than Feinstein. John Feinstein went to Duke.

13. New Mexico: 75% of voters don’t have New Mexico on their ballot. One (Feinstein) has them better than 20. This is a 15-2 team with wins over St Louis, Missouri State, at New Mexico State and at Wyoming. They lost to at home to New Mexico State and to Santa Clara. John’s way to high on this one, but he’s a lot closer than the 75% who left them off altogether.

20. Vanderbilt: John is one of six voters to have them in his top-20. 60% left them off altogether. This team lost at home to Indiana State and Cleveland State. They’re 3-0 in the SEC via the easiest schedule in the conference. They did beat Marquette, NC State and Davidson.

22. Harvard: 86.2% of the voters ignored Harvard. Feinstein has them as high as anyone. At 15-2 they have two solid wins – Florida State and St Joes. FSU got a single 25th place vote in this week’s poll. They’ve lost to UConn and Fordham (Fordam is 7-9 with losses to Monmouth and Loyola-Chicago).

24. Iona: Iona got one vote this week. Why? Because they’ve lost to Hofstra and Manhattan (plus Marshall and Purdue). Their best wins are St Joe’s, Denver and Richmond.

25. Wagner: Okay, I get it. You wrote The Last Amateurs and a book about Army/Navy. My grandfather played basketball and football for Army. I watch Division II hoops. We both like the little guys. But Wagner? For the 4th straight week? Their signature win is a Pitt team that is 0-5 in the Big East. They lost to Long Island. They have a couple other decent losses and somehow all of this is offset by a win over a Big East bottom feeder.

Unranked: Indiana. This is his team that’s less deserving than Iona, Wagner, Havard and Vanderbilt. They’re 15-3. They won at North Carolina State. They beat Kentucky. They beat Notre Dame. They beat Ohio State. They beat Michigan. Their losses are at Michigan State (9th in the Feinsteins), vs Minnesota and at Ohio State (7th in the Feinsteins).

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