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College basketball fans are not happy with one AP voter following the latest poll release, going as far as to demand his credentials be revoked.
Bret Bloomquist of the El Paso Times listed a .500 team among his top 10, sparking an immediate reaction online.
The team in question is Arizona State, who sits at 14-14 on the season. While they did pick up a big win over a 21st-ranked Washington State squad over the weekend, the Sun Devils shouldn’t be anywhere near the Top 25 – and they’re certainly not deserving of top 10 status.
Followers were tipped off by seeing ASU in the ‘Receiving Votes’ column, where they tallied 17 points to rank them as the 34th-best team in the nation. Catching what had to be an obvious mistake, college basketball fans did their thing.
After shuffling through the various polls from AP voters, they landed on Bloomquist who had the Sun Devils ranked ninth.
That put them above teams like Duke, Kansas, Alabama, and Creighton. He was the only voter to have them ranked at all.
Genuinely curious what was going through this guy’s mind when he ranked 14-loss Arizona State as the #9 team in the nation. He has Arizona at #6, so you can’t even chalk it up to an inexcusable U of A/ASU mixup. pic.twitter.com/BhZZKxquII
— David Blattman (@davidblattman) February 26, 2024
The initial reaction was harsh.
“I never say that someone should have their vote revoked by that’s totally inexcusable.”
“His voting rights need to be stripped.”
“This is why this poll is meaningless.”
It’s not the first time we’ve seen an AP Poll gaffe this season. Earlier in the year, Seth Davis admitted to completely forgetting a team on his ballot just days after essentially guaranteeing them a spot in his standings.
Many originally chalked Bloomquist’s vote up to his mistakenly clicking Arizona State instead of Arizona, only to find out he had the Wildcats at No. 6. He also ranked Iowa State and Auburn, seemingly removing doubt of mix-ups there, too.
It appears Bret Bloomquist has since amended his AP Poll, removing ASU from the standings completely. Rather than replace the Sun Devils with another notable name – which would lend followers insight to a potential mistake – he simply slid the rest of his poll up a slot before sticking Dayton in the No. 25 spot.
Bizarre!