"Nobody said it was easy / No one ever said it would be this hard."   --Coldplay

Contrary to public opinion, what Mr. Gwyneth Paltrow was actually singing about in the above lyric wasn't love or relationships or any of that silly piffle. No, he was talking about the very serious business of trying to fill out a college basketball BlogPoll ballot after a week in which a full third of last week's poll dropped at least one contest ... only for several of the would-be new entrants to suffer their own pratfalls.

But because we take our jobs seriously here at the BlogPoll, we muddled through somehow, and this is what we collectively came up with in Week 3:

BlogPoll Week 3

Rank Team PPB StdDev Delta

1 Pittsburgh (36) 25.0 0.2 3

2 Connecticut 23.5 1.0 1

3 Oklahoma (1) 22.2 1.5 --

4 North Carolina 21.6 1.6 2

5 Memphis 21.3 1.8 --

6 Louisville 18.9 2.5 1

7 Duke 17.0 3.0 2

8 Missouri 16.9 2.6 2

9 Michigan St. 16.1 3.5 3

10 Villanova 15.3 3.3 1

11 Marquette 14.8 3.6 2

12 Clemson 14.4 3.5 --

13 Arizona St. 13.3 3.1 1

14 Wake Forest 12.8 3.0 6

15 Kansas 12.1 3.7 --

16 Gonzaga 9.5 4.1 3

17 Purdue 8.9 3.4 3

18 Illinois 5.9 3.3 2

19 Washington 5.6 3.4 2

20 UCLA 5.4 3.1 2

21 Louisiana St. 4.9 3.1 2

22 Xavier 4.0 3.2 5

23 West Virginia 3.2 3.9 3

24 Butler 2.9 3.4 2

25 Texas 2.1 2.7 1

Also Receiving Votes: Florida St.(2.1), Utah(1.4), Dayton(0.6), Arizona(0.5), Michigan(0.5), Syracuse(0.5), Brigham Young(0.5), California(0.4), Utah St.(0.3), Siena(0.2), St. Mary's(0.1), South Carolina(0.1), Creighton(0.1), Wisconsin(0.1), Davidson(0.0), Ohio St.(0.0),

Total Ballots: 37

Votes by blog here , votes by team here .

Not surprisingly, there's a new No. 1 at the top of the poll after Pitt took down previous top dog Connecticut on the Huskies' home court. Your sole dissenter is the College Hoops Journal , who looked at Blake Griffin's second-half absence and the inhospitable conditions in Austin and waved off the Sooners loss with the vigor and relish of Ed Hightower telling us the foul came before the shot. Also worth noting: LSU is now not only the only SEC team in the poll, they're one of only two SEC teams to even receive a vote , and the Big East now hogs five slots in the top 11.

Wack Ballot Watchdog

It's a shame, really. BracketBusters weekend is supposed to be a celebration of all things mid-major, an opportunity for mid-majordom's leading lights to impress the college basketball populace with big, impressive victories on their all-too-brief national stage. As you can see, it didn't work out that way in 2009, as coming off of their road disemboweling of Davidson the Butler Bulldogs saw their poll position ... drop two spots, thanks to their ill-advised two-game losing streak entering BracketBusters. Elsewhere, Dayton's toast after losing at Saint Louis, Utah St.'s an afterthought in the wake of a road defeat at Patty Mills-less St. Mary's, and don't even bother asking about Davidson, thanks. From Old Virginia explains: I really really really wanted to include teams like Dayton, Butler, and Siena. Mid-majors definitely got the shaft this week. But it's impossible to ignore the absurdly low formula rankings of teams like Dayton and Siena, and more importantly it's also tough to ignore that Butler and Dayton suffered some bad losses this week. Elsewhere, Friarblog says what I think just about everyone was thinking: Hey other BlogPoll voters….raise your hand if you considered dropping out Illinois completely out of your poll for the sole fact that they only scored 33 points in their loss to Penn State.
There's your call, and I Bleed Blue and White has your response: Illinois , you are gone. Probably forever. 33 points in the entire game ? Good Lord.
As you can see, the Illini did enough in the win yesterday at Ohio St. to keep too many people from applying what we might call the Rule of 33, but I don't think they'd want to take their chances again.

One other development worth noting: Memphis, your new Pomeroy No. 1 , is coming close to breaking up the three-week hegemony of Pitt, UConn, UNC, and Oklahoma in the poll's top four spots. As a Tennessee fan, The BruceBall Blog doesn't want to give the Tigers their props (and his No. 3 slot), but feels he has no choice: I hate how much Memphis has had to climb my ballot, but quite simply nobody has been playing better basketball lately. Only their lack of challenges in-conference is holding them back, and if the teams around them keep stumbling there’s no doubt the Tigers will be a #1 seed again.
The weakness of C-USA means the current top four certainly have first dibs, but BruceBall's correct that Memphis is probably first in line should one of those four stumble out of a top seed.

Now on to the extracurriculars. First up are the teams which spur the most and least disagreement between voters as measured by standard deviation. Note that the standard deviation charts halt at #25 when looking for the lowest, otherwise teams that everyone agreed were terrible (say, Eastern Michigan) would all be at the top.

Highest StdDev

# / Team / StdDev

1 Gonzaga 4.1

2 West Virginia 3.9

3 Kansas 3.7

4 Marquette 3.6

5 Clemson 3.5

If you'd asked before we started this whole BlogPollin' exercise which teams would be most likely to spur disagreement, I'd have told you mid-majors who dominate their conference and teams whose computer rankings far outweigh the strength of their resume. As Gonzaga fits both those categories to a T, it's not surprising they've been our standard deviation champs for two weeks running now.

Ballot Math

First up are "Mr. Bold" and "Mr. Numb Existence." The former goes to the voter with the ballot most divergent from the poll at large. The number you see is the average difference between a person's opinion of a team and the poll's opinion.

Mr. Bold

# / Blog / Team / Avg Error

1 3rd Saturday in Blogtober Tennessee 3.23

2 Joe Cribbs Car Wash Auburn 3.11

3 March To Madness San Diego St. 2.98

4 Inside Creighton Hoops Creighton 2.98

5 Rock Chalk Talk Kansas 2.90

3SiB , as the kids call it, is a one-stop Alabama-Tennessee blog who you wouldn't think would put much trust in those yankeefied Big East teams. You would, however, be so totally wrong. 3SiB not only gives Pitt and UConn the top two slots, but Villanova, Marquette, and Louisville the 4, 5, and 6 spots, making Memphis (what is it with Tennessee bloggers and Calipari's bunch?) the only non-Big East team in their top six. Voila: this week's Mr. Bold award.

Mr. Numb Existence

# / Blog / Team / Avg Error

1 Longhorn Road Trip Texas 0.96

2 Flyers Fieldhouse Dayton 1.21

3 Friarblog Providence 1.42

4 Card Chronicle Louisville 1.44

5 From the Barn Minnesota 1.53

Fair to say no team had a more schizophrenic week than the Texas Longhorns, who lost by 15 to Mark Turgeon's wheezing Texas A&M side before handing Oklahoma their first Big 12 loss in front of the ESPN Gameday circus. Maybe if you those two extremes cancel each other out, you come to some sort of perfectly balanced zen center? This would explain the ballot of Longhorn Road Trip , who this week came closer than anyone to the actual final poll results and wins Week 3's Mr. Numb Existence honor.

Next we have the Coulter/Kos Award and the Straight Bangin' Award , which are again different sides of the same coin. The CKA and SBA go to the blogs with the highest and lowest bias rating, respectively. Bias rating is calculated by subtracting the blogger's vote for his own team from the poll-wide average. A high number indicates you are shameless homer. A low number indicates that you suffer from an abusive relationship with your basketball team.

The Coulter/Kos Award

# / Blog / Team / Bias

1 Cracked Sidewalks Marquette 3.19

2 Spartans Weblog Michigan St. 2.86

3 I Bleed Blue and White Villanova 2.70

4 Tar Heel Fan North Carolina 1.41

5 Card Chronicle Louisville 1.11

You can't fault Marquette blog Cracked Sidewalks too much for voting their beloved Golden Eagles eighth , not when several other bloggers had them just as high or higher and MU is--after all--23-4 overall, 12-2 in the Big East, and coming off of an impressive road win over a truly desperate Georgetown squad. Nonetheless, eighth is enough to hand Cracked Sidewalks this week's CK Award, and fair or not it probably wasn't the best week to tempt karma: Marquette has a home date with UConn and a trip to Louisville on tap between now and next week's poll.

The Straight Bangin' Award

# / Blog / Team / Bias

1 Longhorn Road Trip Texas -1.14

2 Ballin' is a Habit Connecticut -0.51

3 Maize 'n' Brew Michigan -0.49

4 UM Hoops Michigan -0.49

5 Inside Creighton Hoops Creighton -0.05

As with this week's CK Award winner, the aforementioned Longhorn Road Trip 's vote of Texas No. 25 isn't so much irrational voting pattern as statistical quirk--1.14 is a pretty small anti-bias total as these things go--but in the wake of the massive victory over the Sooners, a little more exuberance certainly would have been excused. Maybe even welcome.

Swing is the total change in each ballot from last week to this week (obviously voters who didn't submit a ballot last week are not included). A high number means you are easily distracted by shiny things. A low number means that you're damn sure you're right no matter what reality says.

Mr. Manic-Depressive

# / Blog / Team / Swing

1 3rd Saturday in Blogtober Tennessee 114

2 Maize 'n' Brew Michigan 102

3 UM Hoops Michigan 96

4 I Bleed Blue and White Villanova 94

5 From the Barn Minnesota 90

In addition to the huge bumps for Big East teams described above, 3SiB also goes in for huge drops for Oklahoma and North Carolina and joins those punishing the Big 10 for its low-scoring ways. Hello, Mr. Manic-Depressive. Also, given that Michigan's season has run the gamut from surprising Duke and UCLA to yesterday's crushing overtime defeat at undermanned Iowa, it's not surprising to see a couple of Wolverine bloggers pop up in this category.

Mr. Stubborn

# / Blog / Team / Swing

1 CougCenter Washington St. 32

2 The Hoosier Report Indiana 52

3 College Hoops Journal Yale 54

4 GMU Hoops George Mason 56

5 A Sea of Blue Kentucky 56

The Washington St. fans at CougCenter must have still been basking in the benevolent, forgiving glow of the Cougs' upset of UCLA when they filled out their ballot . No one suffered more than a four-slot drop, including Wazzu's fellow conferencemates at Pauley Pavilion, just one spot down despite, well, losing to Washington St. at home. If there's some acts of charity going on in CougCenter's ballot, there's a little stinginess as well--no move forward for Villanova after their win in the Carrier Dome? Nothing too egregious here, but nonetheless this is your Week 3 Mr. Stubborn.

Remember to click the "Votes by blog here " link for a list of all our wonderful participating blogs or any of the green check marks above for the ballot in question. See you next week.

The CBSSports.com College Basketball BlogPoll Breakdown is written by Jerry Hinnen. For questions or comments regarding the poll, contact Jerry at jerry -at- warblogeagle.com.