Gary Parrish

The AP and Coaches polls make less sense than signing Allen Iverson.

I'll tell you why right now.

It's time to Poll Attack !

AP poll: Proof that the Poll Attacks are making an impact came Monday when I learned that Bill Cole ranked the Butler Bulldogs. This is a massive development because, for those who don't remember, Bill was the only AP voter who didn't have Butler on his preseason ballot, which caused me to dedicate a large portion of the preseason Poll Attacks to his inexplicable decision.

I didn't understand why Bill ranked UCLA but not Butler.

It made no sense.

I said so.

And Bill responded this week by moving Butler onto his ballot and dropping UCLA completely despite nothing of note happening with either team between the time his first and second ballots were filed. The only thing that happened is that Bill got Poll Attacked , and he adjusted his ballot to (presumably) avoid another beating. It makes me proud, honestly. I'm bringing change to America one ballot at a time.

In a related note, I'd like to take a moment to make sure Elton Alexander, Al Balderas, Pat Ridgell, Charles Goldberg and Jason Groves understand the season started last week. They all included Mississippi State on their latest ballots, this despite Mississippi State -- at best a borderline Top 25 team in the preseason -- losing its season opener at home to Rider by an 88-74 margin.

Come on, guys.

Try to keep up.

Coaches poll: Remember the preseason Coaches poll and how I pointed out that Southern California/USC getting 22 points was ridiculous? I surmised those "USC" votes must've been intended for South Carolina , and that the geniuses who tabulate the votes incorrectly credited them to Southern California.

No doubt, that's what happened.

Because Southern California got zero points in this week's Coaches poll.

That's more like it.

But what's confusing is that South Carolina got zero points, too.

It's crazy.

South Carolina got one point in the preseason Coaches poll, and if we're assuming the 22 "USC" points should've also gone to South Carolina then it's fair to assume South Carolina should've received at least 23 points in this week's poll. Instead, the Gamecocks beat Alabama A&M by 38 and lost its one point and the other 22 that we're incorrectly credited to Southern California. The only explanation is that the coaches simply wanted to avoid confusion and declined to vote for Southern California, South Carolina, USC or anything close to any of those things. Poor Darrin Horn. Guy might never be ranked again.

Here's Friday's Dear Gary ...

Dear Gary: Gee what a shock. YOU picking against Duke . A true rarity.

-- Jeff

I didn't predict/guess that Harrison Barnes will announce for North Carolina because of anything that has to do with Duke. I have my reasons, and one of those reasons is because one of the coaches involved in the recruitment (not a UNC coach, by the way) told me he thinks it'll be the Tar Heels. I also have another reason, and I'll share that one with you later, if I'm correct.

In the meantime, here's a text I just got from a coach involved in the recruitment:

"I honestly have no idea."

Pretty suspenseful, huh?

Harrison Barnes will announce his college decision Friday at 4 p.m. ET.

At this moment, nobody seems to know where he's headed.

Officially, the nation's top recruit is considering Duke, Iowa State, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and UCLA, but most believe -- and I've forever reported -- the choice will be Duke or UNC. For the longest time, I've thought Barnes would pick Duke, team with Kyrie Irving and help Mike Krzyzewski get back to the Final Four. And he still might. But my final prediction is that Barnes will sign with North Carolina and become the next great Tar Heel.

To be clear, that's my prediction/guess, nothing more.

If I'm right, I'll explain why I switched to UNC later today.

If I'm wrong, we'll forget all about this and just remember that I predicted Duke a long time ago.

Either way, it's happening at 4 p.m. ET.

Far as recruiting announcements go, it doesn't get bigger.

Josh Smith committed to UCLA late Monday, Scout.com's Dave Telep is reporting.

Scout.com ranks Smith No. 13 nationally in the Class of 2010.

The 6-9 center chose the Bruins over in-state Washington.

"This was my choice, and it’s where I wanted to go," Smith told Scout.com. "I gave the other schools a chance just to see; I wanted to look at every aspect of staying home. But after going over every factor, I knew it was UCLA.

Smith is the second Class of 2010 prospect to commit to Ben Howland's Bruins. The other is Tyler Lamb. He's a guard from California ranked 60th by Scout.com.

National Signing Day is Wednesday.

Shirley Barnes, the mother of top-ranked recruit Harrison Barnes, confirmed to CBSSports.com that her son will announce his college decision Nov. 13.

"H called the coaches," she wrote in an email. "They are aware that he's going to announce by signing his Letter of Intent on Nov. 13."

(That's next Friday, if you don't have a calendar handy.)

Barnes is a 6-foot-6 wing from Ames, Iowa.

He'll pick between Duke, Iowa State, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and UCLA.

His final visit will be to Iowa State this weekend.

It's Opening Night in the NBA, and there are a combined 28 former Duke Blue Devils and UCLA Bruins on NBA rosters, according to research done by Duke recruiting coordinator Dave Bradley.

Here's how it breaks down:

1. Duke (14)
1. UCLA (14)
3. Connecticut (13)
3. North Carolina (13)
5. Arizona (10)
5. Kansas (10)

Former UCLA coach John Wooden turned 99 today.

There is a website -- HappyBirthdayJohnWooden.com -- set up for fans to send birthday wishes to the Hall of Famer. Also, the Los Angeles Times ' Mike Penner has created a list of 99 things "you may, or may not, know" about Wooden. It's an interesting read about an interesting person. Click this link to check it out.

There were some significant recruiting developments this weekend.

Here are some of them:

Irving visits Duke: Kyrie Irving, ranked fifth in the Class of 2010 by Scout.com, visited Duke, then Tweeted about it. "Duke official was great! I enjoyed every single second," he wrote. "Everything there fits me and is right for me...you never know what will happen ." Duke has long been considered the favorite to land Irving, a 6-foot-1 point guard from New Jersey. Still, Texas A&M is among the schools hanging around, primarily because Aggie assistant Scott Spinelli was college roommates with Irving's father, Drederick Irving.

Selby narrows list: Josh Selby, famous for decommitting from Tennessee in July, has narrowed his list of potential schools to six, and UT is not one of them. The final six are Kansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Baylor, Miami and Syracuse. All indications are that Selby -- a combo guard ranked 14th in the Class of 2010 by MaxPreps.com -- will make a final decision in the Spring.

Jones narrows list: Class of 2010 standout Terrence Jones trimmed his list of potential schools to seven -- specifically Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA, Arizona, Oklahoma, Washington and Oregon. MaxPreps.com ranks Jones as the No. 12 prospect in the Class of 2010.

USC gains fifth Class of 2010 pledge: Kevin O'Neill accepted a commitment from Maurice Jones, according to Scout.com's Evan Daniels. Jones is a 5-7 point guard who reportedly averaged 28 points and 13 assists last season in high school. He's the fifth Class of 2010 prospect to commit to USC despite an ongoing NCAA investigation.

Scout.com's top-ranked player in the Class of 2010, Harrison Barnes, has scheduled his remaining visits.

They are:

• October 2: Oklahoma
• October 9: UCLA
• October 16: Kansas
• October 23: Duke
• November 6: Iowa State (unofficial)

Each prospect is allowed five official visits.

Barnes -- a 6-foot-6 wing from Ames, Iowa -- has already visited North Carolina officially.

UCLA coach Ben Howland had his appendix removed Wednesday at the UCLA Medical Center.

"The doctors at UCLA were tremendous, and I am now home resting comfortably," Howland Tweeted Thursday night. " I hope to be back on the road recruiting by the end of the weekend."

Howland has coached six seasons at UCLA.

He's led the Bruins to three Final Fours in the past four seasons.

Harrison Barnes, Scout.com's top player in the Class of 2010, has narrowed his list of possible colleges.

That list (according to Scout.com):

• Duke
• Iowa State
• Kansas
• North Carolina
• Oklahoma
• UCLA

Barnes will reportedly visit UNC on Sept. 4-5.

No timetable has been made for his final decision.

Meantime, Xavier got a commitment from a Top 100 prospect on Sunday. Justin Martin, a 6-foot-7 forward from Indianapolis, committed to the Musketeers just before leaving from a weekend visit to campus. Scout.com ranks him as the 87th-best prospect in the country.

Two of the bigger names in college basketball have finalized their decisions about the NBA Draft.

Texas junior Damion James has decided to withdraw from the NBA Draft, a source close to the Big 12 program told CBSSports.com on Saturday. Meantime, UCLA freshman Jrue Holiday told Brian Dohn of the Los Angeles Daily News that he will sign with an agent and effectively end his college career after one season.

James' return should make Texas a preseason top 10 team.

The 6-foot-7 forward was not expected to go in the first round of the NBA Draft.

Holiday, on the other hand, is a sure-bet lottery pick despite an underwhelming season.

The deadline for underclassmen to withdraw from the 2009 NBA Draft is Monday at 5 p.m. ET.

Notre Dame endured yet another loss -- a blowout at UCLA -- early Saturday.

Then its day actually got worse.

Why?

Because Texas subsequently lost at Nebraska, meaning  the Irish's best win in a season that features few hardly qualifies as a good win anymore. Meantime, the only other NCAA tournament-caliber school Notre Dame has topped (Georgetown) also lost Saturday (to Cincinnati). And when you combine all these developments and sort through the mess the only reasonable conclusion to reach is that Luke Harangody isn't going to play in the NCAA tournament.

From preseason Top 10 to midseason WTF.

The Irish have now lost seven consecutive games to fall to 12-10, and that they didn't even show up at UCLA might be the biggest concern of all. Faced with a must-win scenario (or at least something close to it), Notre Dame fell behind big early, let UCLA shoot 55.7 percent from the field and eventually lost 89-63. If it sounds bad, that's because it was bad. And with Louisville next on the schedule there's no reason to think the Irish won't be 12-11 heading into next weekend's game against South Florida.

Bottom line, this is almost certainly done.

Even if the Irish win every remaining home game (including the one against Louisville) and split at West Virginia and Providence before losing at Connecticut, they're going to have 13 losses on Selection Sunday unless they somehow win the Big East tournament. Put another way, even the best-case scenario (within reason) has them with 13 losses, and because they won't have the quality wins to offset such a number, this Notre Dame team is set to go down as the biggest disappointment of the season, which is awful because there sure were high hopes back in August.

I remember talking to Mike Brey by phone on a Sunday afternoon last Fall.

It was the weekend before he took his team to Ireland for a preseason tour of exhibitions, and at the time he almost laughed about how ridiculous his schedule would be, though he seemed confident he had a team of veterans capable of handling it. I agreed. But as it turns out, we were both wrong, way more wrong than either of us could've imagined, because now the Irish are sitting here with a 12-10 record, and nobody is laughing anymore.

I was on a radio station in Arkansas yesterday talking about the Hogs' win over Oklahoma when the conversation turned to postseason aspirations. I commented that Arkansas looked as much like an NCAA tournament team as anybody at this point, and that if the goal was a Sweet Sixteen then that seemed possible to me, if only because any tournament team from a power conference will usually be one of the top 12 seeds in a region, and as long as you're not an eight-seed or nine-seed it's reasonable to hope to advance past the first weekend because all you have to do is win what is typically a winnable first game, then hope the bracket breaks in your favor like it did for Western Kentucky last March, when the Hilltoppers beat Drake and San Diego to advance.

So anyway, that was my main point -- not that Arkansas is necessarily one of the best 16 teams in the country, but that a tournament team from a power league almost always has a chance to advance to the second weekend, and now I'm ready to take it a step farther in light of what we've seen this week and suggest that any so-called top 30 team can reasonably hope for a trip to the Final Four because it's clear multiple flawed teams will get there given that there is only one truly elite squad: North Carolina.

Just this week, No. 2 Connecticut, No. 4 Oklahoma and No. 9 Purdue have all gone down while preseason top 10 teams Gonzaga and Louisville took their fourth and third losses, and when you compare what's happening this season to what happened last season it really puts things into perspective. Consider that last season it was easy to identify four elite teams pretty much from the start, specifically Kansas, Memphis, North Carolina and UCLA. Those schools were ranked first, second, third and fourth in the preseason poll, and on New Year's Day they were a combined 49-1 with the lone loss of the bunch belonging to UCLA, which had fallen only by two points to No. 8 Texas.

This season, the top four teams in the preseason poll were North Carolina, Connecticut, Louisville and UCLA, and on New Year's Day they have a combined record of 42-6. North Carolina is great, obviously, but Connecticut lost its Big East opener at home, Louisville has no good wins and three losses to unranked opponents, and UCLA has no good wins to go with its two defeats. Consequently, I submit -- and I've said this before, but now I have the stats to back it up -- that UNC is better than any team from last season, but that nobody else is even close to as good as Kansas, Memphis, UNC or UCLA was last season, meaning that if you combined all the teams from last season and this season your top five would look like this:

1. North Carolina (2008-2009)
2. Kansas (2007-2008)
3. Memphis (2007-2008)
4. North Carolina (2007-2008)
5. UCLA (2007-2008)

Bottom line, dream big Clemson!

And you too, West Virginia!

And you too, Baylor!

Sure, on the surface, none of you look like Final Four teams in the traditional sense. But the thing about the Final Four is that four schools have to be there, and any combination featuring North Carolina and three other teams seems possible this season because there aren't four teams clearly better than the next 30, and that fact has been on display all week, every night.

Here's Tuesday's Dear Gary ...

Dear Gary: Did the real polls sway you to put (UCLA) as a No. 1 seed seeing as the Bruins are probably the second-best or third-best team out there? At least you were on Jrue Holiday's hype before everyone else. I'll give you that.

-- W

Do I seem like the type to get swayed by the (as you call them) real polls?

Please.

I'm the inventor of the Poll Attacks, lest we forget.

I sway polls.

I don't get swayed by them.

In all seriousness, the reality is that seedings are different from rankings because even if the nation's best four teams played in the Big East it would be impossible for all four to earn No. 1 seeds based on wins and losses and geography and such. Using this theory, I concluded the Top25 (and one)'s seventh-ranked UCLA Bruins would have a better chance to earn the No. 1 seed in the West as the Pac-10 champions than the second-place team from the ACC (No. 4 Duke), third-place team from the Big East (No. 5 Notre Dame) or first-place team from the Big Ten (No. 6 Purdue).

It's also why No. 14 Marquette, No. 15 Georgetown and No. 16 Villanova aren't top four seeds, because I can't imagine seven Big East schools earning top four seeds (i.e., those three schools plus Louisville, UConn, Notre Dame and Pitt) even though I do think seven of the nation's best 16 teams are in the Big East. So I dropped those teams down a line or two from where their preseason Top 25 (and one) ranking suggests they should be and promoted the projected second-place team from the Pac-10 (Arizona State), third-place team from the ACC (Miami) and second-place team from the Big 12 (Oklahoma) because I think it's more likely that any of those projected accurately would get a top four seed over the projected fifth-place, sixth-place or seventh-place teams from the Big East (Marquette, Georgetown and Villanova) or the projected third-place team from the Big Ten (Ohio State).

So to answer your question, no, I was not swayed by the AP or Coaches polls. It's just that a good Pac-10 champion usually has the inside track to the top seed in the West, and I suspect UCLA will be a good Pac-10 champion even though I have the Bruins ranked seventh in the preseason Top 25 (and one).

PS -- Thanks for the comment about Holiday. I was on the hype before everyone else (or at least a long time ago) because the guy really is a fabulous player thanks to, I presume, his time spent learning under famed used cars salesman Mark Goodfellow. You remember that column from two summers ago, right? If not, click this link and learn how Holiday developed into a star ... or at least how he spent his final summer of AAU ball traveling like one.