By Michael Weber
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Sometimes I wonder about the knowledge and brain power of some college basketball fans. Actually, I wonder about that all the time. A lot of fans don't realize you cannot carry 5 timeouts into the second half. They don't realize you only have 10 seconds to shoot a free throw; there is no 10 second half court rule in women's basketball; that you have to actually check in to the scorers table before the buzzer during timeouts; the ball only has to leave your hand before that little red light turns on around the backboard for it to count; that you can't have a number greater than 5 on your jersey and that you can have the number 0 or 00 on your squad, but not both.
With all of that though, there is hardly a discussion about how the voting of the AP actually works. Now that the Duquesne Women have garnered 31 POINTS in the AP Poll, everyone is left to wonder what in the world that actually means. Even GoDuquesne.com doesn't actually know what they are talking about. The school's official athletic website lists the Dukes with having received 31 votes(up from 19 from last week), even though there were only 6 voters who actually voted for the Dukes. If you don't believe me, look HERE and HERE. This page is even more odd since it lists Baylor's record at 981. Let me take a moment to explain. The AP Poll for women's basketball has 40 voters. They are from all-around the country. Even the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Paul Zeise has a women's vote. But, there are 40. No more; No less. Each voter submits his or her ballot weekly. POINTS are received by the relative ranking of your team on someone's ballot. For instance, Paul Zeise constructed his Top 25 and rated the Dukes 23rd on his ballot. A team receives POINTS for their spot in the voters' poll. If you are placed first on someone's poll, you receive 25 POINTS. On Paul's poll, the Dukes were 23rd, so they receive 3 POINTS. POINTS are calculated in reverse order from the rankings on a voter's ballot. The rest of the voters who voted for the Dukes were Jayda Evans(13th), Mike Carmin(19), Tony Bleill(21), Lynn Jacobsen(24) and Jim Massie(25). Those are the spots where the Dukes were ranked in their respective ballots. Now, we get the following POINTS from those ballots: Evans - 13, Carmin - 7, Bleill - 5, Jacobsen - 2 and Massie - 1. Add (13+7+5+2+1)+ Zeise's 3 and you would arrive at, get this, 31 POINTS.
So in summary, there are 40 voters and you get points based off of how the voters select you on their ballot. The Duquesne women did not receive 31 votes. They received 31 points. Also, when you see the numbers listed next to Baylor or Uconn, etc. in parentheses, that indicated how many first place votes they received. Add up those numbers...I bet you get 40.
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