The last time Saint Louis University was ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll, it was March 1994. Jimmy Remke was barely 10 months old.
But when the AP released their latest poll Monday morning, SLU found themselves in an unfamiliar spot. For the first time in nearly two decades, SLU was ranked. Jimmy Remke was on the team.
Monday’s AP Poll had the Billikens ranked No. 23 in the country, their first ranking in 17 years. After a 6-0 start, and three key wins over Boston College, Villanova and Oklahoma in the 76 Classic, the sportswriters of American finally took notice.
A week prior, after beating Washington by double digits at home, SLU received six points in the AP Poll when four voters – including ESPN’s Dick Vitale – ranked them in their own personal top 25. And though they were still well outside the national top 25, the Billikens were being recognized by voters for the first time during the Rick Majerus era.
The AP Poll ranks the top 25 teams in the country each week. The poll is released every Monday, and it reflects the opinions of 65 voting members across the country. The voting members include sportswriters and journalists for local papers, websites and national media outlets. Steve Walentik is a writer for the Columbia Tribune in Columbia, Mo. He has covered University of Missouri basketball for seven seasons, and now is a voter in the AP Poll.
“I certainly try to be more conscious and pay attention to what’s going on around the country,” Walentik says. He was asked to participate in the poll by a friend who works for the Associated Press.
Walentik, like the other 64 voters, turns in his ballot each week either late Sunday night or early Monday morning. The Associated Press tallies the ballots and gives teams a point value for each vote they receive. A first place vote is worth 25 points, a second place vote is worth 24 points and the pattern continues so that a 25th place vote is worth 1 point. After all 65 ballots are received, each team is given their appropriate points, and the resulting point values determine the AP Top 25 rankings.
SLU received 149 points in the most recent poll, and 37 of the 65 voters had SLU ranked in their personal top 25. Kevin McNamara, a basketball writer for The Providence Journal in Providence, R.I., had them ranked highest, at number 17. Walentik had them ranked 25th. Vitale had the Billikens ranked number 23 this week.
The ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll is very similar, except that its voters are 31 coaches from NCAA Division I basketball programs. According to Rick Leddy of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, the 31 coaches are a good representation of college basketball as a whole.
“We try to represent every conference in Division I,” Leddy says. “We also try to represent every region around the country.”
The 31 voters may change from year to year, while some coaches may vote for consecutive seasons. Leddy says there is no established pattern for tenure or experience, and no favor is given to any school or conference over another.
SLU is ranked No. 25 in the latest Coaches’ Poll, two spots lower than their AP rankings. Among the 31 coaches who vote, two are on SLU’s schedule this season: Boston College’s Steve Donahue, and Saint Joseph’s Phil Martelli. Coaches also submit their ballots late Sunday or early Monday, and USA Today uses their polling system to tabulate a national Top 25 based on a point system similar to the AP system.
“I think coaches have a good idea of what’s going on, especially in their region,” Leddy says. “You know which opponents are tough, which ones are not, and they know who the best teams in the country really are.”
But he was quick to state that neither poll has any bearing on NCAA Tournament seeding.
“They have absolutely no bearing on the NCAA tournament,” Leddy says. “Our poll is really just showing what the coaches’ opinion is.”
Walentik says the same about the AP Poll.
“Unlike football, the basketball polls never really mean anything. They are just our opinion,” he says. “To be honest, this early in the season, they’re more like projections.”
For SLU, those projections maybe were a bit overhyped. One day after being ranked for the first time in 17 years, the Billikens dropped their first game of the season to Loyola Marymount. Tuesday’s loss will almost certainly drop them out of the Top 25 rankings for next week. And with few big-name opponents on the horizon, it may be awhile before they can earn their ranking back.
But in the grand scheme of things, it is not the ranking that matters.
“The only number that matters is our seed in March Madness,” says Adam Corrado, a junior Health Management major at SLU. “I don’t care if we’re ranked. I just want to go to the tournament.”
