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The AP just released its Week 9 Top 25 poll, and TurtleBoySports’ old friend Kevin Gorman to the shock of many, once again did not vote for UMass in his poll. As he’s pointed out before, his preseason poll is really the ultimate determining factor when ranking teams once the season has started. Although he finds this perfectly normal, the reaction of most people to this has been…..

“Wait….what??!!”

So no matter what UMass accomplishes this year he can’t find it in his heart to vote for them because he completely overlooked them in the preseason. So it wasn’t surprising at all that even though UMass won its only game this week against Providence, and received more votes in both the AP and Coach’s polls this week, Gorman once again decided they didn’t belong.

Here’s his poll this week.

As you can see he is once again the black sheep of the AP family. He refuses to give love to the Wisconsin Badgers (8th instead of 4th) and Wichita State Shockers (13th instead of 8th) because he thought those teams were garbage at the beginning of the year. This week he had Illinois and UCLA in the Top 25 instead of UMass. Let’s look at whether or not any rationally minded individual could possibly think these terms are more accomplished than UMass.

Illinois is 11-2. They have one win of any significance, against #25 Missouri at home. Other than that they’ve beaten a bunch of ragtags that could probably beat the North Korean national team. Apparently Kevin is impressed by their victories over the powerhouses of Alabama State, Jacksonville State, Chicago State, Bradley, Dartmouth, Illinois-Chicago, and the legendary IPFW Mastodoons. I had no idea what either IPFW or Mastodoons were before writing this, but apparently Kevin holds them in high regard. Illinois’ two losses are at undefeated Oregon (understandable) and at home against Georgia Tech. GT has four losses. Apparently Kevin Gorman considers that a good loss.

UCLA was in Gorman’s preseason poll, therefore he is morally obligated to continue to vote for them. They also have two losses, albeit to quality teams (Duke and Missouri). So who have they beaten? Drexel, Oakland, Sacramento State, Moorehead State, Chatanooga, Nevada, Northwestern, UC Santa Barbara, Alabama, Weber State, and the modern day goliath Prairie View A&M. Apparently these wins impressed the shit out of Kev-Kev.

UMass meanwhile has now beaten a team from every major conference, including the Big East (Providence), ACC (Clemson and Boston College), SEC (LSU), Mountain West (New Mexico), Big 10 (Nebraska). And if Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma or any other team from the Big 12 wants to dance with the devil then they could get a Minuteman whooping as well. Their only loss of course is to Florida State, who has beaten two ranked teams and only has fallen to two as well.

Apparently all of that means absolutely nothing though. Kevy is going to vote how the heart tells him to vote. He doesn’t need to look at any fancy things like strength of schedule, RPI, or quality wins. Nope, all that matters is the preseason poll. Because after all, if he votes for UMass now, then he is admitting that he was wrong in November. And Kevin Gorman is NEVER wrong.

I tried to ask him for his input on his latest poll, since he’s shown a willingness to offer his explanation in detail.

Still waiting to hear from him. Although I think most likely I won’t be hearing from him until UMass loses again. Hopefully that day never comes. Either way feel free to tweet at him to inquire as to his reasoning. After all, he’s admitted to TurtleBoySports before that: “if the Twitter attacks of their passionate fans, which I don’t take personally, has done anything, it’s made me very well aware of UMass.”

God bless you Kevin Gorman and your wacky and zany polls.

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

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