Preseason poll report

First, a few thoughts about this preseason ranking business:

   - Don't get too worked up about it. I'm sure the people who produced these three lists did their homework. But we're also sure they'd tell you that no matter how much research is done, it's hard to tell much until the teams start actually playing games.

   - Not much love for the Virginia schools, with Virginia at No. 22 in the Athlon poll representing the state's lone mention. And even that's a bit strange - no disrespect to the Cavaliers, but shouldn't we wait and see how the team responds in this post-Monica Wright era before we start touting them as a Top-25 club?

   - There's very little consensus on the ACC in general. Maryland, for example, is No. 10 in the Athlon poll but doesn't even make the Top 25 in either of the other two polls. Lindy's has N.C. State at No. 20; the Sporting News and Athlon don't have the Wolfpack at all. And North Carolina is No. 11 according to the Sporting News, No. 14 with Lindy's and nowhere with Athlon.

   - We thought someone might go out on a limb and pick Stanford or Baylor over UConn as the preseason No. 1. We thought wrong.

And now, the polls:

Sporting News
1. Connecticut
2. Baylor
3. Stanford
4. Xavier
5. Tennessee
6. Duke
7. Ohio State
8. Notre Dame
9. West Virginia
10.  Oklahoma
11. North Carolina
12. Kentucky
13. Georgetown
14.  St. John’s
15 Texas A&M
16. Georgia Tech
17. Iowa State
18. Georgia
19. Texas
20. UCLA
21. Florida State
22. Temple
23. TCU
24. Michigan State
25. Rutgers

Lindy's
1. Connecticut
2. Baylor
3. Stanford
4. Tennessee
5. Xavier
6. Duke
7. Oklahoma
8. Ohio State
9.Kentucky
10. Texas A & M
11. Notre Dame
12. Georgetown
13. St. John's
14. North Carolina
15. Texas
16. UCLA
17. W. Virginia
18. Georgia
19. Iowa
20. NC State
21. Florida State
22. Dayton
23. Michigan State
24. TCU
25. Cal

Athlon
1. Connecticut
2. Stanford
3. Tennessee
4. Baylor
5. Ohio State
6. Xavier
7. Texas A&M
8. Duke
9. West Virginia
10. Maryland
11. Kentucky
12. Georgetown
13. UCLA
14. Notre Dame
15. St. John's
16. Oklahoma
17. Bowling Green
18. Iowa State
19. Florida State
20. Georgia
21. Texas
22. Virginia
23. Vanderbilt
24. LSU
25. Nebraska