This week’s edition of the blogpoll sees the usual faces moving to a much larger and more diverse polling crowd, as LRT and our fellow voters have joined forces with the folks at CBS Sportsline to poll the minds of the internet’s basketball writers. Now the rankings are made up of ballots from 58 different basketball websites, 47 of which participated in this week’s edition.

With such a robust roster of rankers — that’s alliteration for you youngsters at home — there’s no way we can continue to list all of our colleagues without causing severe eye damage for the readers. But Jerry Hinnen of War Blog Eagle provides a detailed breakdown of this week’s poll, which includes an award slotting our votes as the second least-biased of all the ballots. Rather than being a source of pride, this simply means we aren’t blind to how horribly the Longhorns are playing at the moment. Hooray!

Here is our ballot for this week’s poll. Please note that with the new format, our votes will now only include games through Sunday, not through Big Monday as in previous blogpolls.

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

Jerry’s statistical breakdown of the rankings also puts our ballot as third-most consistent with the blogpoll at large, meaning there are no massive deviations for us to explain this week. As requested by our new overlords, later this week we’ll be discussing the methodology used in our own rankings.

As always, fire away in the comments.

Texas slid to 17th in the Coaches Poll following their home loss to Kansas State. Meanwhile, Kansas cracked the rankings once again at 24th, giving the Big 12 three teams for the first time since Baylor hit the skids. Oklahoma still leads the way for the conference with its No. 2 berth, having grabbed three first-place votes in this week’s poll.

The Longhorns are a spot higher in the Associated Press rankings, checking in at 16th. The Jayhawks also enjoyed a gaudier review from the media folks, who slotted at No. 21. Following Duke’s loss, the AP was more split than the coaches when it came to which team is truly the best team in the nation. The writers not only gave OU five nods, but also included UNC in the discussion with three first-place votes of their own.

Is Bob Knight making his way back into the coaching ranks? Reports have confirmed his interest in the newly-vacated office at Georgia, where players are excited about the possibility. Since the story first broke, Knight has only admitted that he would return in the right situation. If The General is truly ready to come back, will Georgia truly be his destination? Arizona will be looking to make a splash with their next hire, while SI.com’s FanNation points out that Gary Williams might be on the way out at Maryland. There are going to be a number of high-profile gigs out there, and those of us at LRT certainly hope Coach Knight decides to take one.

Texas slid in this week’s polls as a result of its meltdown in Norman last Monday night, dropping to 14th in the AP and 15th in the ESPN/USA Today rankings. The Sooners and Longhorns are the only Big 12 teams in the AP poll, while Baylor clings to 23rd in ESPN’s rankings after their road loss to A&M last Wednesday. Kansas and Missouri also received votes in both polls.

Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology has the Horns dipping to a 4-seed and playing their first two games in Portland. After a nice trip to Spokane two years ago for the NCAA tournament, we’d love another roadie to the Pacific Northwest. But, of course, the selections are still two months away, and absolutely anything can happen.

We’ve had our share of interesting moments in the O-Zone over the years, including the time former OU guard Bobby Maze had to be held back by a teammate during pre-game warm-ups. Even more intense was the incident with a Colorado forward (who will remain unnamed) that exchanged shoves with a Texas student during the 2003-04 season. But nothing that’s happened in the Erwin Center can hold a candle to the video below, where a Clemson student tackles Chas McFarland. Good thing it wasn’t Ron Artest…

Our recent return from a cryogenic freezing also means that we’ve rejoined the ranks of the voting basketball bloggers. Below is this week’s poll, which reflects games played through Monday, January 12th. If you want to check out the full breakdown, click on over to see the spreadsheet with everyone’s votes.

With Louisville still hanging in the rankings following their OT destruction of Notre Dame on Monday night, it left Tennessee as the only team on our ballot (ranked 24th) to not make the consensus poll.

Aside from the Volunteers, the only major outlier in our ballot was Arizona State, which we had four slots higher than consensus. They have looked good so far this season, but still lack the kind of victory that would make the nation take notice. Sophomore stud James Harden and the Sun Devils will soon have their chance though, as they travel west this weekend to face both USC (Thursday) and UCLA (Sunday).

This week’s blogpoll included our rankings and those of voters from the following eleven websites: Bryce’s Brackets and Observations, College Hoops Journal, The Daily Gopher, George Mason Basketball, March Madness All Season, March to Madness, Rush the Court, A Sea of Blue, The Slipper Still Fits, Storming the Floor, and Tar Heel Mania.

Luke Winn has more cojones than most, as he already put together a pre-season Top 10 for yesterday morning’s blog entry. He assumes that D.J. Augustin will be going pro, and that stud ’08 recruit Tyreke Evans will be landing with Villanova or Memphis once the late signing period begins next Wednesday.

I’m not even going to attempt to sort through the teams until the insanity of early entries and draft withdrawals end in mid-June. But it’s certainly fun to check out all of these early rankings and start to get jazzed about the next season. Winn slotted the Horns 6th, while Dick Vitale had them 4th — although his rankings are located so far from reality that they don’t deserve a link — so it’s safe to say that the Longhorns will be back. But where exactly they’ll end up depends heavily on the Augustin and Evans decisions this month.

In other early-entry news, sources in L.A. say Kevin Love and Darren Collison are going pro, while Collison himself is telling reporters that he’s yet to make a decision. It seems telling that he did not flatly decline the report, instead just relying on the word yet.

Perhaps most troubling for Bruins fans, though, is the source in that article which claims Russell Westbrook could throw his hat into the ring, too. Freshman combo guard Jrue Holiday will definitely make an immediate impact for UCLA next season, but I wouldn’t expect him to be able to single-handedly carry the backcourt if Coach Howland loses both Collison and Westbrook to the pros.

More early-entry news to come as the MSM reports it.