Sunday Surmising is back with a look at men’s college basketball, where the usual Associated Press poll shenanigans are at play. We go by math here, not “popularity” and clickbait sports headlines, so once again, we present the Gonzaga Bulldogs—unranked by the AP poll but in the KenPom Top 10, sabermetrically. That’s right: the highly efficient perennial underdogs are a Top 10 team given just eight votes by the mediots.

You really have to wonder why, other than the fact Gonzaga is a small school in eastern Washington that seemingly doesn’t generate enough revenue for the sports media to grift on this season (or ever, really). The eight votes the Bulldogs have received in the AP poll place them 34th in the eyes of the voters, while the mathematical realities of their effectiveness on the court places them ninth in the country. It is ridiculous.

For one, we know the mediots just see eight losses on Gonzaga’s record and write the school off—we wonder if that will happen in 2026-2027 when the Bulldogs are playing in the Pac-X. But we digress: the college sports power brokers always has had it in for the school, despite its record of excellence. The school has the second-longest, continuous streak of NCAA Tournament participation in the nation, so why the lack of love?

Head Coach Mark Few is 24-for-24 in March Madness invites, soon to be 25-for-25. He has never failed to win at least 23 games in a season, either, with the Bulldogs’ record sitting at 23-8 right now with the West Coast Conference Tournament ahead and the NCAAs, as well. Gonzaga has proven its prowess in the tourney, too, reaching the championship game twice (2017, 2021) even though the Bulldogs did not win.

Ironically, the only college program with a longer NCAA Tournament streak than Gonzaga is Michigan State, a team ranked No. 8 in KenPom right now and No. 8 in the AP poll. The two teams are somewhat mirror images of each other this season, with their efficiency ratings putting them in a similar tier for March Madness expectations: the Bulldogs have an elite offense, and the Spartans have an elite defense.

Each team is capable of making a run to the Final Four with those elite-efficiency units, but only one of them is getting “respect” from the mediots. Again, any sports fan worth their salt will do their own research and ignore the talking heads at ESPN, et al. When the math has Gonzaga at the level of a 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament and the AP poll has the Bulldogs at the level of a 9 seed, the answer is not in the middle ground.

It is interesting that even ESPN’s hard-to-find-on-the-website sabermetrics have Gonzaga at No. 9 in its own sabermetric index—yet still buries the Bulldogs with a 5-seed projection for the Big Dance. What gives, ESPN? It’s like the “worldwide leader in sports” is having trouble rectifying its need to make money with its obligation to factual reporting. What a shock, eh? Just keep all this in mind when you fill out your bracket.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.