There's an interesting poll going on over at mvcfans.com (http://www.mvcfans.com/viewforum.php?f=2) where the readers vote on which men's basketball team will finish where. The twist is, they're doing it place by place, starting at the bottom, and eliminating the lower seeded teams with each individual poll.

For 10th place, SIU was selected by 77 voters in their poll. Drake was selected in 9th place. They're currently voting on 8th place, and ISU has a lead over Loyola with 69 people voting so far.

What makes the poll interesting to me is it (knowingly or unknowingly) uses crowdsourcing theory to pick the finishers. According to the theory, this technique should make the poll more accurate than the official MVC poll or any of the college basketball preview polls because it utilizes "the wisdom of the crowd," who, in this instance, are several dozen of the most engaged and knowledgeable fans in the league. It will be fun to see if "the crowd" knows more than the various experts.

Well since the "experts" are picking us for last place...yes, I would say that the crowd knows more than the "experts."

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Cigarboy sucks!

There is actually a lot of academic study on crowdsourcing and crowdsourcing theory. Here is a course being offered at the University of Texas:

http://courses.ischool.utexas.edu/Lease ... g/INF385T/

Here's one from Stanford:

http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/20 ... ci2012.pdf

There is a considerable amount of data to support the theory that crowd "wisdom" is more reliable than expert prognostication or small expert surveys. And the "Loyola finishes last in its first year in the MVC" prediction may well rank as a data point if anyone wants to do the research. It could lead to be a really engaging and cutting-edge master's thesis, if it could be replicated across a number of trials.

Despite our dramatic Final Four run, WSU was picked to finish 4th last year by MVCfans.com. The prediction was:

1) Creighton
2) Illinois State
3) UNI
4) WSU
5) Evansville
6) Drake
7) Indiana St.
8) MSU
9) Bradley
10) SIU

Actual:

1) Creighton 13-5
2) WSU 12-6
3) UNI 11-7
4) Evansville 10-8
5) Indiana St 9-9
6) Ill St 8-10
7) Bradley 7-11
8) Drake 7-11
9) MSU 7-11
10) SIU 6-12

Ill St was the big miss here. Their dramatic finish in St. Louis with a win over WSU the previous year directly lead to a vast over estimation that they would be good despite loosing their HC and star PG, both to SMU.

Interestingly, the media poll identically mirrored the MVCfans.com poll last year.

I was following the MVC last year, and based on ISUr performance from the previous year, I quite probably would have voted them second, even after they awkwardly lost Jankovich as head coach.

You said that the media poll and the mvcfans.com polls matched each other. Of course, the mvcfans.com poll was done quite a bit in advance. A more blind test should be put down.

Carmichael and Brown were exceptionally talented seniors for ISU which gave them a dynamic inside-out game. Ekey ande Wilkins never quite reached their potential and Keane was expected to be POY at PG. ISU finished tied for 3rd in 2012 and second in the MVC tourney.

Obviously, a LOT of folks thought they would be good, but when you stepped back to look at what they REALLY did, they were 9-9 which put them Ina FIVE way tie for third. Carmichael never had a winning MVC season in his 4 year career.

WSU was supposed to be down after loosing 5 starters, but that team was 14-4 in the MVC and 26-5 in the regular season. The depth and recruiting was strong, but you can see where we would be looked at as rebuilding.

I'm picking the Ramblers 7th this year.

Last year, trying to look at it from a non WSU standpoint, I had predicted us to be picked 3rd behind ISU and CU. UNI picked ahead of us surprised me in all predictions outside of MVCFans. It's no secret that WSU is not the most loved fanbase in the Valley and some will start voting for us earlier than they honestly believe we'll finish. That's not a secret.

With that said, this poll is typically pretty interesting as I think most fans vote fairly honestly. I'm a little surprised that Loyola is still in it though as I wouldn't have expected the majority of the fans to do enough research into what Loyola is actually bringing to the table this year. I would have guessed an MVCFans finish of 8th at best just because SIU and Drake are expected to be so bad.

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