In taking a look and comparing the Collegiate BWAA Poll and the Team Power Rankings there are some huge discrepancies. I think it should be a requirement that the 10 BWAA members that participate in the poll must be required to attend at least 1 Tier I
event to actually see some teams in action. It seems to me that they rely too heavily on
their pre-conceived notions of who the top teams in the country are, overlooking some excellent teams that have worked hard to improve their programs, and deserve their recognition. They would have to study the stats from every tournament very carefully to even come close to acknowledging who the most competitive teams are. Perhaps this should become a requirement???

[ 03-25-2001: Edited: bowl4life ]

bowl4life, I agree with some of what you say. However it's not like they don't have access to the tournaemnt results on collegebowling.com so they're not totally flying blind.

Also, let's keep in mind one thing. The BWAA Rankings don't mean a thing because they're not used for anything at all. It's not worth getting all bent out of shape over something that is meaningless for all practical purposes.

I still think it would be very easy for the BWAA to work with College Bowling USA and collegebowling.com to produce a media poll that is both accurate (or at least as accurate as polls can be), but also meaningful in some way.

Jeff,
I agree that the BWAA should be working with CBUSA and the CollegeBowling web to produce a meaningful poll. The BWAA is significant in that it gives teams that perhaps aren't able to participate in as many tournaments or Tier I events as other teams,( and therefore not receive as many points) but have had top finishes in the ones they have participated in, to be recognized for their performance.

There is something very wrong with the process, though when you get, for an example,
West Texas A&M ranked 62nd in the Team Power Rankings, and 19th in the last BWAA poll. What was the BWAA looking at, or did they just go on previous season's reputation? These discrepancies are what is making the BWAA Poll lose its validity.

Rankings change season to season. Teams work very hard at recruiting and improving their programs. Lets hope the BWAA will look at each season individually, and give every team the recognition for their current season performance, not past performances.

-jamie

[ 04-03-2001: Edited: bowl4life ]