So we here at The Scrum are slacking on our duties. Admittedly, this should have been up much earlier than Thursday.

Here are the results of the inaugural CISHoops.ca Media Poll for men’s basketball, a ranking that is compiled by 22 media members across the country who cover the sport:

(Team, first place votes, points)
1. Carleton, (21), 252
2. Brandon, 223
3. Calgary, 205
4. Acadia, 160
5. Toronto, 148
6. Ottawa, 146
7. UBC, 128
8. Cape Breton, 119
9. Windsor, 92
10. Laval, 59
Others receiving votes: Brock 49; Alberta 27; Victoria 15; St. Francis Xavier 7; Concordia 7; Saskatchewan 1

I’ll confess a couple of things right off the bat:

1) This wasn’t as easy as I suspected it would be. In fact, just moments before I submitted my votes, Sawatzky alerted me that I had left off UBC (unintentionally). Now you see why newspapers have proofreaders.

2) When sitting at work, I was very surprised to see the poll move on the Canadian Press wire if only because I don’t really think CP ever bats an eye towards university stuff until nationals roll around. They’re not as bad as TSN, sure, but …

3) I won’t be secretive about my voting habits. One of the issues that has arisen from the coaches poll is people regularly questioning how certain teams can be slotted in some spots — ahead of so-and-so team and behind such-and-such — and I think part of that resentment comes from the fact that the coaches poll, while not secretive, isn’t really conducive to full disclosure. So, in that sense it can easily breed disagreement among outsiders who naturally assume there’s block voting or bias going on — even if there isn’t.

So here’s my thoughts:

• I have Brock in the top 10 — undoubtedly — and was surprised to see the Badgers not in at least the 10-hole. Certainly the loss at Western to kick off the second semester wasn’t an overly good one for BU, but if you look at the rest of the Badgers’ work, it’s clear they haven’t been ducking anyone. Since back-to-back losses against Toronto and Carleton (No. 5 and No. 1, respectively) at the end of the first semester, the Badgers are 8-2 in conference and non-conference play and that includes wins over Calgary and Brandon.

• Laval is such a tough team to slot. I think anyone who follows these things with any kind of regularity would all be in agreement that Laval is the only team in the Q worthy of being in the top 10. Still, I’m not sure that the breadth of work really warrants it yet. The Rouge et Or have won their last eight games, but in their past 14 games also sport losses to York (4-13 OUA, 6-21 overall), McGill (5-6 QSSF, 11-11) and Bishops (2-7, 6-11). I’m not sure that that is deserving of being ahead of Alberta, which has come out of the semester gates sluggish but still is ranked No. 3 in the RPI, sports a 17-7 overall record and is 12-2 against the other conferences.

• And all of that discussion, leads to this: It’s very hard to pick up brand new and start a poll in the middle of the season. So you find yourself going over teams’ records and results and you wonder: Where is it I’m supposed to start? Because I’m slotting a team in a brand new poll (assuming that the coaches poll and our poll are mutually exclusive), it’s hard to honestly start new but consider the old, i.e. the results from October and early November. Are bad losses or good wins from the pre-season still to be considered? That’s for each voter to figure out for themselves. At this point in the season, the coaches don’t have the same dilemma because their poll has been slotted and continuously voted on for the past four-or-so months. We’re starting from scratch.

Lest anyone think I’m being negative about the new venture, let me just say I’m wholly on board with this and believe it’s a tremendous idea. I’m just trying to explain my viewpoint and what my thought process was going into the first vote.

The next step should be towards making the new media poll more legit and that means having it actually be considered when nationals (not this year likely) rolls around and I know that is the goal for Mark Wacyk, the creator, et. al. I’m anxious to see what kind of weight this poll can one day carry because I believe it has the steam to do it.

It’s all well and good to have our own little thing here but it’s the same theory that applies to a tree falling in a forest.

If our poll exists but no one applies it, does it really count?