Early thoughts on Week #8 of the BlogPoll

While the BlogPoll Vote is due after midnight on Monday night, this is a good time to start thinking ahead on our vote. This week Storming The Court will be herding cats (read: administering the blog poll).

First up, Pitt. Regular readers of this blog know that we pick on Pitt's scheduling, and we are not fooled by Pitt playing a tough game against Duke at MSG and picking apples in the state of Washington. Their non-conference SOS is #63 despite their "tough schedule". Their dismantling at Dayton was not something that surprised us at all. With Mike Cook out for the season and the hero of the Duke game (thank you Lavance Fields for beating the Dookies with that step-back three-pointer) out 8 to 12 weeks, we are rebooting Pitt's record and we are looking at them as a brand new team from now on. Needless to say they are not even remotely in consideration for a top 25 vote. Sorry to disappoint you Pitt fans! (Pitt was down 13 when Lavance Fields got injured, so it's not like they lost the game after Fields got injured - they were already lost).

Memphis was nowhere near as crisp against Kevin "The Dentist" O'Neill. We are waiting to see how North Carolina does against Valpo before we decide who gets the #1 spot. Carolina has lost Bobby Frasor, and we are not sure how this will affect the Tar Heels since they are so deep. If Wayne Ellington and Danny "Escalade" Green continue to make three-pointers, the TarHeels should be fine.

We already had Dayton in the top 25 the last time we vote and you can rest assured that Jon Stewart's Flyers will jump into Top 20 when we submit our vote.

The Kevin O'Neill Arizona continues to impress me, not because of their exciting run and gun style (as if!), but because they are starting to play like roaches (you can't get rid of them)! But at the same time, Kevin O'Neill is not going to be able to bring talented recruits like Lute Olson in the future, so he better enjoy it this season while he can!

We continue to hold Georgetown in high regard, and while we were surprised by Texas losing in Austin to Wisconsin, we suspected that the Torreros were the ones that showed up versus Michigan State and Wisconsin, not the ones that beat the ugly Bruins (no, not talking about Lorenzo Mata, but their style of play) in SoCal.

We are not sure what to make of Duke and UCLA and Washington State and Baylor and such. That's why these are early thoughts :)

With JP Prince and the Orange Revolution added to the Tennessee roster, we will re-evaluate our position on the Vols. Meanwhile we understand that the Zags are in transition, with new players added to the mix. Does that mean they still get in the top 25? We do not know yet!

Not sure what the Blog Poll is? More details here! You can also be added to the voting rotation if you are interested. Just let any of the participating bloggers know.