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AP Voter Chris Goff votes UVA #10 after 49 point win over Harvard

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The headline says it all. Chris Goff, the IU basketball beat writer for the Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, filled out his AP ballot this week (click for full version), and placed the undefeated Virginia Cavaliers 10th. UVA was #5 in today's poll, and #2 in KenPom and Sagarin. No other AP voter had UVA lower than 8th, and 83% of voters had the team between #4 and #6.

What's strange is that Goff had UVA 6th last week before docking the Hoos 4 spots after they beat Cleveland State by 16 and Harvard by 49. Texas, Gonzaga, Villanova, and Kansas, who jumped UVA, combined to go 7-0 against six teams outside KenPom's outside KenPom's top 100 (the other was #59 UTEP). >

(Correction: Chris didn't have UVA 6th last week - UVA was 6th in the overall poll, which is what the AP ballot linked above is referring to. Goff actually had UVA 10th last week also..)

Goff was also one of 3 voters to rank KenPom #43 Indiana in the top 25.

I've reached out to Goff via Twitter for comment - I'll update if I hear back. It's possible this was a simple oversight - Goff has a job with a paper in Indiana, and there's a chance he just hasn't seen Virginia play or made a simple mistake. AP voters have a difficult task (that they aren't paid to perform), but ballots like this one are what make-up the esteemed AP Poll.

(H/T to Stephen Lincoln for pointing out this inconsistent ballot on Facebook)

Update: Goff kindly responded to me on Twitter, linking a blog post he wrote, that explains his rankings and acknowledges UVA's performance and potential. As I see it, the issue is that Goff wasn't high on Virginia preseason (a reasonable guess with no data to go off of), but has been reluctant to now move UVA in front of teams that haven't had bad losses. This poll "stickiness" is a problem that prevails beyond just this ballot, but Goff's explanation is a prime example.