Voting for the H.U.M.A.N. poll concluded Sunday night with 413 of the most informed and diligent kenpom subscribers casting a total of 19,110 votes. In the end, it was the closest race for the top spot in the history of the poll, with UConn and Houston finishing in a virtual dead-heat.
Without further ado, here’s the H.U.M.A.N. top 25:
We provide two ratings from this exercise. BT Rtg is the raw Bradley-Terry rating. With this, you can figure out how likely it would be for an average voter to pick one team over another. For instance, the average voter would pick UConn 97.2% of the time over Texas A&M [562.1/(562.1+16.41)]. Use that same approach and you’ll find the average voter would pick UConn 50.1% of the time over Houston. It was literally a coin flip.
Ln Rtg is a linear rating which allows you to compare differences between teams directly. Notice that teams ranked 7 through 11 are extremely close and the biggest gap between two consecutive teams on this list is between 11th-ranked Arizona and 12th-ranked Auburn. The humans believe there’s a clear top 11. This is the kind of information other human polls can’t give you.
The entire list is here, and you can click on each team to see the voting breakdown.
Unlike other human polls, we can also produce humanity’s opinion of conference strength. Here we will use both the raw mean and the trimean which minimizes the effect of outlier teams.
There aren’t many surprises although it’s interesting that the humans think the Big 12 is still the king of all conferences, if barely, after the latest round of member shuffling.
As far as additional observations, I applaud the humans for not falling into the groupthink trap. Nearly every media person has pegged Kansas as their preseason number one, but there’s plenty of room for debate. After overwhelmingly selecting Kansas as #1 in last year’s poll, the humans have UConn, Houston, and Duke pretty close for the top spot, with a gap to Kansas at fourth.
There is one interesting trend in the voting this year. The team with the best winning percentage outside of the top 16 was…DePaul. Regardless of what happens this season, the Blue Demons were winners among the voters, getting picked in 62 of 89 matchups. Now, it’s likely that none of these matchups were against future at-large teams, and because of that, DePaul ranks just 148th in Chris Holtmann’s inaugural season.
Second on the list is #98 James Madison, who got picked in 72 of 102 matchups, including once over UCLA(?!). The Dukes also feature a new head coach in Preston Spradlin.
The third-best winning percentage outside the top 16 belongs to #183 Long Beach State, who have a first-year head coach in former San Diego State assistant Chris Acker. The fourth-best winning percentage is owned by #131 Wyoming, who have - wait for it - a new head coach in Sundance Wicks.
It’s pretty apparent that voters like new head coaches more than, um, whatever ranking is the underpinning for creating the H.U.M.A.N. poll matchups. Although some new head coaches will have stunning success this season, I’ve found there’s typically a penalty for programs with coaching changes that goes beyond what can be explained by roster talent alone.
This may also tell us why there’s not a lot of job security in being a D-I head coach. Fans are rather quick to become dissatisfied with their coach, and at least according to this year’s votes, they may minimize the immediate challenges involved in the first year after a coaching change. However, the humans showed some limited skill in identifying outliers in my own preseason ratings last year, so we’ll see how they fare in these cases.
And for the curious, the honor for worst winning percentage (besides the bottom two teams) goes to #254 Cal Baptist who went 25-83, which is puzzling. The Lancers’ worst finish in their six seasons of D-I action has been #229. They were #190 last season and return some guys. I know you’re thinking that losing Blondeau Tchoukuiegno to KK Vrijednosnice Osijek in the offseason was a blow, and that’s a fair point, but there’s plenty of talent on the roster to avoid a total meltdown.
Also, somehow voters picked in favor of last season’s last-place team, Mississippi Valley State, in 16 of 40 matchups, So either the voters have some intel on the Delta Devils’ new roster that I’m missing or people just love Jerry Rice.
We’ll be back in April to crown the voter with the most correct picks as the Champion Ball-Knower of the Year. Thanks to everyone for their participation. You can always check your ballot here, and as we get farther into the season that page will be your key to see how you’re doing relative to the rest of the voting humans.