Virginia had an incredible week last week.

If you missed it, here's the recap: First the Cavaliers beat a Virginia Tech team ranked 11th at KenPom on the road. Final score: 64-58. Then they went back on the road, to a place where Michigan State lost earlier this season, and beat a Louisville team ranked 19th at KenPom. Final score: 64-52. That's two road wins over top-20 KenPom teams that came by a total of 18 points. So you could reasonably argue literally nobody in the sport of college basketball was more impressive last week than Virginia (with the possible exception of North Carolina, depending on how much you discount UNC's 88-72 victory at Duke because of the fact that Zion Williamson missed 39 of a possible 40 minutes in that game).

And yet Virginia still DROPPED on five AP ballots!

I know this only because a reader brought it to my attention. But it's true. Virginia beat two ranked teams on the road and, incredibly, dropped on five different ballots. Kevin McNamara dropped the Cavaliers from third to fourth and moved Kentucky ahead of them even though nothing happened last week that would justify moving Kentucky ahead of Virginia. And Brian Holland, Cecil Hurt, Dave Preston and T.J. Werre all dropped the Cavaliers from second to third -- apparently because they just didn't want to move Virginia to No. 1 after the previous No. 1 on each of their ballots (Duke) lost a home game to UNC. So they each jumped Gonzaga to No. 1, dropped Duke to No. 2 and Virginia to No. 3.

To be clear, I have no issue with a ballot that looks like those ballots.

More specifically, like this:

  1. Gonzaga
  2. Duke
  3. Virginia

I mean, that's also the top three of Monday morning's Top 25 And 1. So I'm cool with those schools in that order. But here's my question: If you thought Virginia deserved to be ahead of Gonzaga last week, what happened last week to make you think otherwise now? Again, Virginia beat two top-20 KenPom teams on the road in front of soldout and hostile crowds. What the Cavaliers did last week was so impressive they rose to No. 1 at KenPom. And yet five voters dropped them on Associated Press ballots? Wild.

Like I write each week: it's not the biggest deal in the world.

But it's precisely why these #PollAttacks exist.