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The recently released Top 25 poll has the UMass Minutemen ranked 19th – the first time they’ve cracked the top 20 all season. It’s not that they’ve done anything especially good recently, it’s that everyone in front of them continues to suck. As 18 point favorites the Minutemen let The Other U, Miami (OH), stick around for too long. They ended up winning by eight, but without Wally Sczerbiak out there it shouldn’t have been that close. That’s three straight “ehhh” performances. But hey, as long as they keep winning and teams from the basketball establishment like UCONN, North Carolina, Kansas, and Memphis keep losing they’ll keep moving up.

Don’t think that TurtleBoy Sports and your campaigning for the Minutemen can influence voters? Think again. You matter. All of you matter. Without your campaign of harassment against Pittsburgh Tribune-Review high school sports columnist and AP Men’s College Basketball Top 25 voter, Kevin Gorman, there’s just no way that our boy would come to his senses and include UMass in his Top 25 poll for the first time all season. Of the 65 voters he was the only one up to this point who hadn’t included the Minutemen in their poll.

If you’re a regular reader of TurtleBoySports then you’re familiar with Kevin’s antics at this point. As he stated earlier in the season, he views his preseason Top 25 rankings as a document that rivals the 10 Commandments. Unless teams beat teams from his original Top 25 then he just doesn’t value it. That’s just how KG rolls. It explains why he still has two four loss teams (North Carolina and Kansas), and three three loss teams (Kentucky, Memphis, Iowa) in front of UMass. But with KG it’s all about baby steps. As he pointed out to TurtlbeBoySports and UMass super fan Brian Long on twitter:

“@Innervisions33: @KGorman_Trib so, did #UMASS make your ballot this week?” Yes, and all because of you and @wordfromthewoo.

— Kevin Gorman (@KGorman_Trib) January 6, 2014

So for all the haters on UMasshoops.com, suck on that. Blogging IS the revolution. Even though the one point that he gave us with his 25th place vote wouldn’t have made a difference, we’re in his head at this point. Keep up the good trolling UMass fans.

There were FOUR FREAKING VOTERS this week who did not include UMass in their Top 25. How is that even possible? They are (with links to their polls), Aaron Brenner of the Charleston SC Post and Courier (who happens to cover Clemson, a team UMass beat), Doug Doughty of the Roanoke Times (who has Pittsburgh, Creighton, and Harvard in his), Jon Milner of the San Jose Mercury News, and Soren Petro who is a talking head yahoo on Kansas City sports talk radio.

I have no idea what any of these guys are smoking, but whatever it is I want some the next time I have surgery. Like Kevin Gorman has confirmed several times – if you hound these guys on Twitter they will pay attention to UMass. Yes, that’s right – it is up to the fans to make AP voters do their freaking jobs. So here are the Twitter handles for Brenner, Doughty, Milner, and Petro. My boy Soren has more twitter followers than the other three combined, and he also is by far the most active. If you tweet at him, you’re almost guaranteed to get an animated tweet in return. I highly recommend it. Go.

Looking ahead at their schedule, I don’t think it’s far fetched that this team goes into the conference tournament 27-3. No, I’m actually serious. Who the hell is going to beat them? They really don’t face a quality opponent until February 15 when they travel to George Washington. They need to smoke St. Joe’s on Wednesday to validate this overconfidence in my loins, but honestly, who are they going to lose to in the next month or so? It’s one crap bag team after another. St. Joe’s twice, St. Bonny’s twice, George Mason twice, Elon, Richmond, Fordham, and of course URI(NE).

In another year you’d chalk up one or two of those as hiccup games that they’d lose. This year’s team though is a different breed. You just have that feeling that they won’t have a relapse. After that they play the meat of the A-10. VCU, which won’t be able to molest UMass anymore thanks to the new wussification rules, Dayton, and St. Louis are the only games that pose any serious threat. Suppose they beat all the crap bag teams and then go 2-2 in those games. That’s 27-3, and that’s a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament my friends.

It could happen. It should happen. Go U!!

Feel free to share your thoughts to keep the conversation going.

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To follow Turtleboysports via email just click on “Follow” on the lower right hand corner of the screen and enter your email. The hot takes will then be delivered to you hot off the press.