Illini Move Up In One Poll, Down In The Other

Polls are stupid*. That's probably the best way to begin this post. It's important that we get it out of the way quickly. Polls are very stupid*. Particularly in college basketball.

While they're just as stupid in college football, at least they mean something in football. I mean, without those polls they wouldn't be able to determine their champion because they had to preserve the sanctity of the non-profit organizations that make huge profits bowl games.

In college basketball, however, they're even stupider. I mean, we have a ranking system in which we list the top 25 teams even though 68 teams make the NCAA tournament.

Which is pretty stupid.

Another indicator of how stupid the polls are? On Saturday the #11 Illinois Fighting Illini beat the #8 Ohio State Buckeyes by 19 points, and that final score is very indicative of how the game went. Illinois dominated from the onset and beat up on a top ten team.

So of course when the new AP Poll came out on Monday -- the AP Poll that had Illinois move up a spot after beating a terrible Auburn team by 2 points -- the Illini dropped a spot from #11 to #12.

Though I guess that's what happens when you also lose to Purdue. Okay, so we dropped in the polls because we lost to Purdue, and I guess that outweighed kicking Ohio State's ass.

Then there's the Coaches Poll, which has us moving up from #14 to #13.

Polls are stupid*. Never forget.

*My power rankings aren't. They're perfect every time.