Last week’s ballot was admittedly a tough one, with teams around the country refusing to play consistent basketball. As a result, we submitted rankings which we weren’t exactly proud of, but ones which best reflected the muddied state of college hoops this year.

It’s painfully clear now that there is a very thin upper crust in the NCAA this season, and a lot of other mediocre teams filling up the middle. But even amidst that thin upper crust, there’s not much differentiation, as it’s a season in which no one is the clear frontrunner for the national title.

This week’s vote was a little easier, as only ten teams which we ranked were victims of a loss over the last seven days. Below is our ballot from this week, followed by superfluous explanation. If you’re enjoying the new “change” data in the third column, you might also be interested in our previous ballot, from February 23rd.

Rank	Team	Change
1	Connecticut	1
2	Memphis	2
3	Pittsburgh	2
4	Oklahoma	1
5	North Carolina	—
6	Louisville	—
7	Duke	—
8	Wake Forest	1
9	Michigan St.	1
10	Kansas	5
11	Missouri	3
12	Villanova	1
13	Marquette	1
14	Gonzaga	2
15	Clemson	2
16	Washington	4
17	Arizona St.	3
18	UCLA	1
19	Louisiana St.	2
20	Illinois	2
21	Purdue	4
22	Xavier	1
23	Florida St.	1
24	Brigham Young	2
25	Syracuse	1

At first glance, some readers may be confused by the very minor slides from Pitt and Oklahoma. At this point, we feel that a team should be valued more on their overall body of work than simply the results from the last seven days. The recent games certainly must be taken into account, but even Pitt’s road loss to unranked Providence isn’t enough to overshadow the fact that the Panthers have many more quality wins than the Tar Heels. As for the Sooners, they get some leniency when you consider that they lost to a Kansas team which we’ve moved into the Top Ten, and that they did so without superstar Blake Griffin.

Those Jayhawks are our biggest movers of the week, shooting up from No. 15 to tenth in this week’s ballot. Kansas finished the week with an absolute mudholing of Missouri in Allen Fieldhouse yesterday, and they were also aided by the fact that Marquette, Clemson, and Arizona State all lost a pair of games during the last week.

The other portion of our ballot that is worthy of discussion this week is, as always, the troubling bottom five spots. As we mentioned in the introduction, there’s really not any consistency or exceptional quality once you get past the initial contenders, and losses this week by West Virginia and Texas muddied things up at the bottom once again. You may notice that even though Florida State lost on the road against Boston College, they actually climbed a rung in our rankings this week. That’s an anomaly explained by both the Seminoles’ huge win against Clemson on Saturday, and the fact that once again there was a dearth of teams wanting to crack the rankings.

Some bloggers have been ranking Butler, which actually resulted in the Bulldogs checking in at 24th in our consensus poll last week. Considering that they won their pair of games this week, they likely will even climb when the consensus poll is released this afternoon. But the simple fact of the matter is that Butler lost at home to Loyola-Chicago and on the road to Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Wisconsin-Green Bay. Do you honestly think the Bulldogs would be sitting at 25-4 if they played in a conference that was worth a damn?

As we’ve mentioned, the consensus blogpoll will be up later this afternoon. Fast Break will be here for your late afternoon enjoyment, including new bracket projections, bubble watches, and the real polls from the AP and coaches. The Baylor game preview will follow in the late afternoon.

After a week’s absence in the blogpoll, we’re back in the mix with today’s ballot. Here are our votes, with the official compilation poll to come later today:

Rank	Team
1	Pittsburgh
2	Connecticut
3	Oklahoma
4	Memphis
5	North Carolina
6	Louisville
7	Duke
8	Missouri
9	Wake Forest
10	Michigan St.
11	Villanova
12	Marquette
13	Clemson
14	Arizona St.
15	Kansas
16	Gonzaga
17	Purdue
18	Illinois
19	UCLA
20	Washington
21	Louisiana St.
22	West Virginia
23	Xavier
24	Florida St.
25	Texas

It was an interesting week with losses by half of the top ten teams from the last poll. Only Wake Forest and UConn suffered their defeats at the hands of other top ten teams, while North Carolina, Michigan State, and Oklahoma all lost on the road to unranked opponents. As a result, it was a little easier to ignore the instinct to slide teams up and down based on the most recent results and instead reshuffle everyone based on their complete body of work this season.

The middle of the pack all held their own by winning their games this week, but our votes differed slightly from the consensus of last week’s blogpoll, when we didn’t submit a ballot. We chose to slot Marquette ahead of Clemson based on a more robust list of quality wins, although they could quickly take a nosedive with an absolute nightmare of a schedule awaiting them over the final two weeks. The Golden Eagles have to face UConn and Louisville this week before closing the season with a road trip to Pitt and a home game against Syracuse.

After that quality in the middle of the poll, things were a bit dicier with the lower rankings. Five of the bottom seven teams lost a game this week, and practically every other team that could have been considered for the 24th or 25th slot dropped at least one game as well. LSU slides up two spots to No. 21 in our ballot, but it’s more a reflection on the lack of other candidates than a rousing endorsement of the Tigers. They are playing in an incredibly weak SEC, leaving a home win over Washington State as their only remarkable victory this year.

The full compilation ballot will be released later this afternoon.

The domino rally is underway in the coaching ranks, with Indiana’s huge vacancy being filled yesterday afternoon. But the hiring of Tom Crean in Bloomington means there’s another position open at Marquette, while the resignation of prolific perspirer Sean Sutton means it’s time for another job posting in Stillwater.

Head spinning with all of the coaching changes? Never fear, as LRT is here to keep track of everything for you.

Oklahoma State
Within hours of Sutton’s resignation, both Bill Self of Kansas and Billy Gillispie of Kentucky stated that they had no interest in coaching the Cowboys. Both men’s names had been floated for a few months in online rumors involving the very deep pockets of OSU booster T. Boone Pickens. At this point, brother Scott Sutton would be a reasonable choice to continue the family line, but many feel that Pickens is looking for a big splash with the next hire. Could Kevin O’Neill be in the mix considering that he will not be returning to the Arizona staff?

Rice
One place that Kevin O’Neill has interviewed is Rice University in Houston. While the Owls are certainly not a high profile gig, C-USA is a huge league with a very short list of quality teams. With the right hire, the Owls could quickly make some noise. Athletic Director Chris Del Conte worked in the Arizona athletic department and is apparently keen on the head AD position with the Wildcats in the near future, according to the Houston Chronicle‘s Moisekapenda Bower. This could mean that hiring O’Neill would earn Del Conte some points with the former employers, which might put Olson’s ex-assistant ahead of Belmont’s Rick Byrd and assistants Rodney Terry (Texas) and Mark Montgomery (Michigan State).

Louisiana State
While LSU has had more than an extra month to prepare for their coaching search, the Tigers played things close to the vest through the end of the season. But even with the lack of info coming from official sources, the media seems to be keyed in on three top candidates. Butch Pierre finished the season as interim coach and has expressed interest in the job, although former LSU player Johnny Jones has found a ton of success at North Texas and would love to work in Baton Rouge. Early press reports focused on VCU head man Anthony Grant, but he lacks the ties to the program that Pierre and Jones sport.

Oregon State
There’s nowhere to go but up for Jay John’s successor, thanks to an abysmal 6-26 season including the first 0-17 conference record in Pac-10 history. Interim coach Kevin Mouton was responsible for the last 11 of those losses and is reportedly not a candidate for the job. The Beaver brass seems to be focusing on WCC coaches at the moment, interviewing San Diego’s Bill Grier and expressing interest in St. Mary’s head man Randy Bennett.

California
The other vacancy in the Pac-10 is at Cal’s Berkeley campus, where sights seem to be set quite high…perhaps a little too high. The Bears reportedly want Pitt’s Jamie Dixon and Washington State’s Tony Bennett, although Dixon has spurned those advances. The San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury-News are offering differing takes on Bennett’s interest in the job, but both agree that Nuggets assistant Mike Dunlap is also a top candidate.

Marquette
With Crean moving on to Indiana today, the newest big-name vacancy on the block is in Milwaukee. As the move will not even be announced until 10 A.M. today in Bloomington, a list of top candidates is still being formulated somewhere in the caverns of the Marquette athletic department. But in a statement released on Monday, the Golden Eagles top staffers believe “a Marquette coaching vacancy will attract many well-qualified candidates.” We’re inclined to agree, and will be eagerly watching the newswire over the next few days to see which names pop up.

Other notable coaching vacancies include those at Kent State, Providence, San Francisco, and Western Kentucky. Kent State lost coach Jim Christian to TCU, while the Hilltoppers were left without a coach on Monday when Darrin Horn departed to fill the South Carolina vacancy following his team’s Sweet 16 run. At San Fran, Eddie Sutton has maintained all season that he was only coaching the Dons on an interim basis, so it will be interesting to see what angle they take in the coming weeks.

We’ll be watching the coaching carousel closely this off-season, so be sure to check back often for the latest updates.