Bill writes:
 
> For some reason, I only got part of Brian Farenell's posting about polls,
> but the part I did get referred to Cornell's being given an NCAA bid over a
> "more deserving" St. Lawrence last year.
>                                         ...   but the NCAA uses a number of
> criteria in determining the participants, and none of them have to do with
> polls.
 
I think part of the confusion is that the selection committee's
preliminary rankings are called "polls" in the press. I don't know
what the committee calls them. Also, for how long has the committee
been using the current formula? In the past, was the ranking less
a mathematical formula and more of a poll?
 
Keith writes:
 
>                       I define a poll as a collection of expert
> opinions whereas a rating is a mathematical evaluation. I, too, became
> totally unhappy with the regionalism, unfairness, apparent ignorance,
> biases, (should I add more anti-poll verbals?) etc. of the polls, so I
> made TCHCR.
 
A poll does not expert opinions, just opinions.
 
	--david
 
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david parter					[log in to unmask]
university of wisconsin -- madison		computer sciences department