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Insights has seen poll after poll done to try and handicap the Heisman Trophy race during football season.
However, haven't seen anything trying to gauge what some of the nation's pollsters are thinking about the College Basketball Player of the Year. Part of that might come from the multitude of Player of the Year awards (Wooden, Naismith, AP and Robertson) voted on by media members.
Insights didn't care, sending out e-mails to survey some of the nation's voters to find out, in the last week in January, where college basketball's elite stood.
This is something we plan on doing here every two weeks for the rest of the season and without further adieu, here are the results of the first Irish Insights/Journal Gazette College Basketball Player of the Year Straw Poll.
The breakdown is as follows. In an e-mail, Insights asked voters to rank their top three choices for College Basketball's Player of the Year. Then, Insights took a first place vote, assigned it three points, a second place vote is two points and a third place vote is one point. Voting took place from Friday afternoon until Tuesday night.
Eleven players ended up somewhere in someone's Top 3 on the 50 ballots Insights received.
What do you think? Throw your comments below or send us an e-mail to mrothstein@jg.net. We'll post the best comments or questions in our next Mailbag.
ANALYSIS:
Among the things that stood out among the poll were these:
- The Big East and ACC dominated the poll. The Big East had four players mentioned, the ACC three.
- Oklahoma's Blake Griffin was on all but two of the 50 ballots we received.
- Five players received first-place votes, which means there could be some movement in the poll still moving forward.
- There is clearly, as of now, a line between the Top 5 players in the country and the next tier, as evidenced by poll voting.
| Player | First Place Votes (Points in parentheses) | Second Place Votes (Points in parentheses) | Third Place Votes | Total Points |
| Blake Griffin, Soph., F, Oklahoma | 39 (117) | 9 (18) | 0 | 135 |
| Stephen Curry, Jr., G, Davidson | 6 (18) | 12 (24) | 10 | 52 |
| Luke Harangody, Jr., F, Notre Dame | 1 (3) | 12 (24) | 11 | 38 |
| Jeff Teague, Soph., G, Wake Forest | 2 (6) | 7 (14) | 6 | 26 |
| Tyler Hansbrough, Sr., F, North Carolina | 2 (6) | 5 (10) | 9 | 25 |
| James Harden, Soph., G, Arizona State | 0 | 3 (6) | 6 | 12 |
| Jodie Meeks, Jr., G, Kentucky | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| DeJuan Blair, Soph., F, Pittsburgh | 0 | 1 (2) | 1 | 3 |
| Kyle Singler, Soph., F, Duke | 0 | 1 (2) | 0 | 2 |
| Jonny Flynn, Soph., G, Syracuse | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Sam Young, Sr., F, Pittsburgh | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
