I'm headed to Temple basketball media day, but I wanted to get this out there before then. The Schuylkill 16 is coming back this season, and I'm looking for new voters to join the existing group. If you are interested, email me and I'll get you set up.

ATLANTIC CITY - I admit this was supposed to get out before today's games started. But in addition to having my laptop stolen last night, my inbox was overstuffed and I couldn't get the ballot sent until I got to Boardwalk Hall today.

Although La Salle and St. Joe's have already played today, I asked voters to not count those results in their ballots. I'll be back later with thoughts on and multimedia from today's action.

Before we get there, however, breaking news this evening: Penn's student newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian, is reporting that Quakers guard Harrison Gaines will transfer.

Gaines' father, Harry, wrote a press release that the paper received, which included Harrison staiting that Penn "wasn't a good fit ... I believe my long-term satisfaction lies in joining another university team."

Gaines also said in the release that he is seeking to join a "fast-paced, inclusive basketball program" and "a school where I have confidence in the basketball team's leaders."

This is obviously a huge blow for Penn and in particular for Quakers coach Glen Miller. I am not very well-versed in the details of what is going on here but Gaines' contributions on the court have been clear for all to see. How Miller replaces Gaines' talents on offense - and how this affects the rest of the program off the court - will be major questions this spring and summer.

Okay, back to the Schuylkill 16, and this is the final ranking of the season. It has been a resounding success, by far the most popular college basketball feature I've done in this blog's three-year existence.

I offer a profound and public thank-you to all of the voters who participated. Some were anonymous and some were not, and you'll hear from many of them one last time here today.

If I'm still doing this next season, I hope the ranking will return. It's been a lot of fun to put together and I hope you've enjoyed reading it. Next week I hope to put together some data with average ranking over the season and also a comparison of where each team started and ended in the ranking.

1. Villanova, 10 points (10 first-place votes)
- "Villanova playing for seeding, and more importantly a trip to the Wachovia Center." (Josh Wheeling)

You wouldn't bet against it right now, would you?   

2. Temple, 24 points
- "Temple rights the ship in time for their trip to Atlantic City, but those losses last week mean Temple's going all-in this week." (Fred David)
- "Will a ranked Xavier team once again fail to win the A-10 tourney? There are a lot of teams that could knock them off - they could face two Big 5 teams in a row." (Josh Wheeling)

3. Penn State, 26 points
- "Penn State, even despite the loss on Saturday, looks like a legitimate tournament team. 3rd in S-16 = trip to NCAA S-16?" (Fred David)
- "Lunardi has PSU as one of his last four in. I still think Temple edges the Lioins for second, though." (Josh Wheeling)
- "The similarities between PSU basketball and football just keep increasing, now that the hoopsters have an upset loss to Iowa when they (probably) controlled their own destiny." (Zach Klitzman)
- '] I swear we've seen this before. Last-second loss to Iowa douses hopes of big game on national stage. As a consolation, maybe the Nits will get to play Southern Cal in the NIT." (Jeff Shafer)

Did I not call this last week?

4. La Salle, 44 points
- "Welcome back to respectability." (Jeff Shafer)
- "I'm going out on a limb and will predict that Friday evening will produce an all-Philly semifinal in the A-10." (Dave C.)

Again, ballots were submitted before today's games. But we can have fun with hindsight.

5. Saint Joseph's, 46 points
- "I can't wait until the Hawks shock everyone to make it to the A10 finals just to blow a halftime lead and lose at the buzzer." (Patrick Carney)

6. Rider, 67 points

7. Rutgers, 74 points
- "Won two of their last 20 games. By my estimation the Knights overachieved." (Jeff Shafer)

8. Drexel, 76 points

9. Delaware, 94 points

10. Princeton, 101 points
- "Princeton could be the only team in the S16 to finish their season with a victory." (Jon Solomon, PrincetonBasketball.com)

A public thanks to Jon for posting about my lost computer bag on his blog.

11. Lehigh, 111 points

12. Penn, 125 points
- "Congratulations to Penn for going 5-2 on the road and 1-6 at home in conference play this season.  Without a doubt, Penn has the worst fans in the Big 5 and despite the lucky win in Manhattan on Saturday, the team earned the coveted 16th spot in my poll." (Fred David)
- "As a Penn student, I'm going to forget everything about this season except for Kevin Egee's buzzer beater against Columbia." (Zach Klitzman)

13. Lafayette, 131 points

14. Bucknell, 135 points

15. Delaware State, 147 points
- "Alas, Delaware State's hopes ended last night to Hampton. But actually winning a game in their conference tourney bumps them all the way up to ninth in my totally objective poll." (Fred David)   

Which is the point, of course.

16. Monmouth, 149 points
- "It's been a fun regular season y'all, looking forward to doing it again next year." (Fred David)

As am I. But the correct word is "youse."

I picked a heck of a time to get sick.

Sore throat, runny nose, general sense of grogginess while sitting at my desk attempting to run the whole of Philly.com at night all week... yeah. Not so good.

Between my health and the ugly forecast for central New York this weekend, I'm bailing on the trip to Cornell and Columbia.

But there's so much to do next week that having a few days around here should help me rest up. And since none of the local teams are at home this weekend, I might even check out some other sports for a little while, heaven forbid. Or maybe the Flower Show.

(A sports guy at the Flower Show? Huh?)

Anyway, here we go with this week's rankings. They may look simple enough, but the raw numbers are pretty messy after Villanova. Penn State moves up to second, but has two fourth-place votes. Temple holds on to third place despite losing to La Salle, while St. Joe's is fifth despite two third-place votes. Delaware got votes ranging from seventh to 13th place.

Speaking of screwy results, which was worse: Temple's loss to La Salle last week or Georgetown's loss to St. John's tonight?

1. Villanova, 13 points (13 first-place votes)
- "Inching toward playing fewer games in the BE tourney.  Stack up against anyone in the top 10." (Rob Falcone)
- "The Wildcats are just playing for seeding right now, so a great week in Madison Square Garden will more than make up for that slip-up against the struggling Hoyas." (Fred D.)

I don't think we can over-estimate the value of getting the double-bye for 'Nova or any other Big East team.

- "Only legit tournament team on this list." (Jeff Shafer)

Objections from State College?

2. Penn State, 33 points
- "Penn State might have a solid 20-9 record, but that's only because they're 12-0 vs. InsideRPI sub-150 teams, according to Lunardi." (Zach Klitzman)

Or from the selection committee?

- "The losses at home to Temple and at the Palestra to Rhode Island are the only games that you can even remotely harp on the Nittany Lions for losing." (Josh Wheeling)

Good thing they squeaked past Indiana.

3. Temple, 40 points
- "Forget about aiming for an at-large bid, thanks to those two losses the Owls are another slip-up away from losing that A-10 Tourney bye." (Josh Wheeling)
- "Apparently I jinxed the Owls with my comment last week.  Now it's A.C. or bust for Fran and his gang." (Fred D.)

I'm sure Dunphy appreciates the confession.

4. La Salle, 54 points
- "Don't be too surprised if the Explorers win a couple games in the A-10 tourney." (Josh Wheeling)

There's still plenty of shaking out left to do in the standings, but the Explorers could do some serious damage if the draw falls right for them.

- "La Salle makes its upgrade from bottom feeder to spoiler official.  Now if they could only figure out a way to stop losing the easy games (see: Cornell, St. Bonaventure) they could take the next step to contender." (Fred D.)

All I'll say is you try making those trips, especially going to Olean in February when the Bonnies are decent for the first time in years. Then factor in Vernon Goodridge not playing against Cornell. Still, both games were certainly winnable.

5. Saint Joseph's, 59 points

6. Drexel, 86 points

7. Rider, 90 points

8. Rutgers, 101 points

9. Delaware, 116 points

10. Princeton, 137 points
- "If the Tigers win out, they can look forward to a date with Alabama State in Dayton. That should really excite the Ohio-based alumni." (Jeff Shafer)
- "Princeton controls its own destiny in the Ivy race?  When did that happen?" (Zach Klitzman)

Not only that, we could still have a three-way tie for first place with the Tigers, Cornell and Dartmouth or Yale. Click here to read the scenarios, if you can make any sense of them.

11. Lehigh, 145 points

12. Penn, 153 points
- "Now is the winter of all Penn fans' discontent." (Fred D.)

Since I'm not making the trip this weekend, I'd be interested to hear from Penn fans out there what the crowd is like at Levien Gymnasium on Saturday night. That game usually draws thousands of Penn alumni from the New York area, but I wonder if some of them won't show up this year because of the team's struggles.

t-13. Bucknell, 169 points
- "The Bison with a dominating win over its conference and Schuylkill 16 rival and jump up all the way up to the 12th spot in my rankings!" (Fred D.)

We celebrate where we can these days.

t-13. Lafayette, 169 points

15. Monmouth, 196 points
- "Lost by 31 to Wagner. I mean, Wagner is the best team on Staten Island." (Jeff Shafer)

Now that is high praise.

16. Delaware State, 207 points

Tonight, I'm unveiling something on the blog that I've wanted to do for a long time.

If you take a look at the right rail, you'll see a new widget called The Big Dance. It's based on a combination of the CoverItLive software we use for live blogging and the microblogging platform Twitter.

Anyone who adds the hashtag #bigdance to their tweets will see their writing show up in the widget automatically in real time, or at least after the few seconds it takes for the system to register the new tweet.

There will also be regular contributions from a pair of college basketball blogs I read regularly: BracketDobber, written by Chris Dobbertean, and Storming the Floor, written by Eric Angevine and Marco Anskis.

I'm happy to share the code for the widget with those of you who'd like it on your blog. Email me and I'll send it over.

Also, if you have an account already and tweet exclusively about college basketball, let me know and I'll add your feed into the widget for automatic publishing.

While the interface may look familiar to you, it's different in one major way: you can't submit comments directly from the blog. Everything you see will come from Twitter.

If you don't have a Twitter account, it's very easy to join. Just click here, sign up and get going.

I've written a number of times about how important building a sense of community here on the blog is to me, and I really do mean it. We've done a pretty good job of that so far this season, but the importance of March Madness gives us a chance to do something even bigger.

Those of you readers who are based in Philadelphia know full well what this community looks like in reality, because it's so much of what the Big 5 is about.

My hope with this project is that we are able to bring that atmosphere online, and to enjoy the wild ride that March always gives us in a new way.

It's Tuesday, which means it's Crunchy Numbers time. So off we go with the City Six rankings table and the Schuylkill 16 teamsheets.

I was thinking about starting this off with a joke about being a day late and a dollar short, but as you've all probably seen by now this isn't a particularly good time for me to do that.

So instead, this week's poll results are accompanied by an extra helping of data. After the rankings, you'll see the regular Tuesday rankings compilation for the City Six and an updated RPI results table for the Schuylkill 16.

You will notice that some of the numbers have changed from last week. That's because there has been movement in and out of the Top 50 as well as the bottom 201+. It's a reminder of how fluid the RPI is as an entity, and also just how much the selection committee does in the short amount of time they have to put the bracket together.

Not that it'll stop us from criticizing their choices on Selection Sunday, of course...

Speaking of tournaments, it's now official that the ACC is selling tickets to its conference tournament next month. They are only selling full-tournament books and they're upper deck seats at the Georgiat Dome, but $363 total for 11 games sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Especially since it's the first ever public sale of tickets for the ACC Tournament.

Off we go with this week's rankings. Is it possible that Monmouth's win over Robert Morris - the next-to-last-place team in the Northeast Conference knocking off the first-place team - was the biggest result of the week?

1. Villanova, 12 points (12 first-place votes)

2. Temple, 27 points
- "If Temple can knock of Xavier or Dayton before the end of the season, I think they can punch their ticket.  Defending their A-10 tourney title isn't a bad idea either." (Fred D.)

3. Penn State, 36 points
- "Considering Penn State scored as many points against Illinois (38) as they did in football, I guess Joe Paterno is taking over for Ed DeChellis." (Zach Klitzman)

That would be a sight.

4. Saint Joseph's, 56 points
- "At 7-5 and tied for sixth in the A-10, the Hawks may need to beat Xavier and Temple to secure one of the four byes. Fortunately for them, their other two games are against Fordham (1-11) and St. Bonaventure (4-9)." (Josh Wheeling)
- "Hawks have to be leading the field in tough losses. Six of their 12 have come by four points or less. Doesn't help that Rick Majerus seems to have Martelli's number." (Jeff Shafer)
- "...And then the Hawks' season came crashing down." (Fred D.)
- "This season is penance for the recruiting sins of Jawan Carter, D.J. Rivera, Alvin Mofunaya, and about 3 other guys who should have been contributors to this year's team." (Dave C.)

5. Drexel, 65 points
- "Needs to finish strong to get a first round CAA Tourney bye.  Proving naysayers wrong." (Rob Falcone)

6. La Salle, 67 points
- "Once again, they fall off the cliff after winning their Super Bowl vs. St. Joe's." (Dave C.)

7. Rutgers, 88 points
- "All is not lost for the Knights. They still have a shot at that coveted 14-seed in the Big East tournament. Ok, maybe an outside shot." (Jeff Shafer)

8. Rider, 89 points
- "What do Lafayette and Rider have in common with Temple and Villanova?  They're the only teams to go 2-0 in the Schuylkill 16 this week." (Fred D.)

9. Delaware, 104 points

10. Lehigh, 122 points

11. Penn, 140 points
- "Steve Bilsky is asking the Ivy League office if the Quakers can play all conference games on the road next season." (Zach Klitzman)
- "I knew Ibby Jaaber; Ibby Jaaber was a favorite player of mine. Tyler Bernardini, you're no Ibby Jaaber." (Fred D.)

It's certainly not Camelot at the Palestra these days, is it?

t-12. Lafayette, 147 points
- "Nice job picking up the slack, Lafayette." (Zach Klitzman)

t-12. Princeton, 147 points
- "Dartmouth's making a fine case for inclusion in the poll." (Jeff Shafer)

Big Green scoring machine Alex Barnett gets my vote for Ivy League Player of the Year. Seriously.

14. Bucknell, 167 points
- "At least Bucknell's consistent: it scored 68 in two Schuylkill 16 losses this week." (Zach Klitzman)

15. Monmouth, 178 points

16. Delaware State, 178 points

All data prior to tonight's games

The headline of the post isn't actually about this week's rankings but about another poll relating to local college basketball.

The Washington Post's college basketball blog, Press Break, is running a knockout tournament in which fans vote on who they think is the best non-BCS coach in college hoops.

Among the first-round entrants are Fran Dunphy, who's paired against George Mason's Jim Larranaga, and Phil Martelli, who faces Butler's Brad Stevens.

Neither matchup is fair to the Big 5, but the former is especially nasty because of Mason's still-recent run to the Final Four and their large alumni base in the D.C. area.

Nonetheless, Dunphy doesn't trail Larranaga by that much, and voting closes tonight. So get to it.

One other blog post worth your attention: the Raleigh News and Observer's outstanding ACC Now reports there might be a public sale of tickets for this year's ACC Tournament. That has not happened since 1966.

The possibility of open seats is in part due to the fact that the tournament is being held at the Georgia Dome instead of a regular baskteball arena. But there is also a lack of demand at some schools, though the blog did not name names.

There was no public sale when the tournament was last played at the Georgia Dome in 2001, and that year the listed capacity was more than 4,000 seats bigger than this year's configuration.

Now for this week's rankings, and it's another Villanova sweep. But there's big news a few spots below the Wildcats, as La Salle has jumped over St. Joe's into fourth place after beating the Hawks at the Palestra for the second year in a row. But the Hawks remain ahead of Drexel. Do you believe there's a statute of limitations on head-to-head matchups?

Further down, Princeton falls back down after last week's big jump, while Penn rises above the Tigers thanks to their weekend sweep. Bucknell remains in 13th place, however, despite winning at Holy Cross.

As for the statistical side dish, we return to the Pomeroy rankings this week.

1. Villanova, 11 points (16)
- "I get this feeling Jay Wright had the banjo music from Deliverance stuck in his head after leaving Morgantown Friday." (Zach Klitzman)

It's not quite John Denver coming over the loudspeakers at the WVU Coliseum, is it?

2. Temple, 22 points (44)
"Owls take a huge step forward to one of the four all-important A-10 Tourney byes by beating the Hawks and Duquesne last week to go to 7-3. Bonnies and Fordham should be a cakewalk this week."

I presume they won't be yelling "Holy Schmidt!" at the Liacouras Center on Sunday.

3. Penn State, 36 points (76)

4. La Salle, 49 points (99)
- "Doormat no more - La Salle with the upset of the year in the Big 5. Giannini's finally earning his paycheck this year."

I'm just saying, but how much of an upset is it if it happens two years in a row like this?

5. Saint Joseph's, 51 points (93)
- "Comcast SportsNet paid tribute to all of the dunks laid on the Hawks by La Salle." (Rob Falcone)
- "St. Joe's lost a close game in the final minute? Not under Martelli!" (Patrick Carney)

6. Drexel, 62 points (135)
- "Seniors had a great game on Sunday. Bruiser for CAA Coach of the Year." (Rob Falcone)
- "I thought Drexel was supposed to come in last in the CAA? What's up with their 10-5 conference record?" (Zach Klitzman)

The Dragons have a legit shot at winning the regular season title. The preseason rankings really do look stupid at this point, don't they?

7. Rutgers, 84 points (137)
- "I have RU, despite losing 12 of their last 13, ahead of eight teams on my ballot. I think that tells you all you need to know about the field's year." (Jeff Shafer)

8. Rider, 92 points (171)

9. Delaware, 99 points (218)
- "Some games, they look incredible. Other games, not so much." (Rob Falcone)
- "Talk about un-American: Delaware beat the George Mason Patriots on Lincoln's Birthday." (Zach Klitzman)

I hear George Washington had a great crossover move. If only he was around for Karl Hobbs to recruit.

10. Lehigh, 108 points (227)
- "Apparently one of the nation's 10 weakest non-conference schedules failed to prepare the Engineers for the rigors of Patriot League play." (Jeff Shafer)
- "After losing to Navy and beating Army last week, Lehigh is getting ready to face the Merchant Marine Academy." (Zach Klitzman)

I expect to get some emails from Coast Guard fans about that one.

11. Penn, 116 points (233)
- "Glen Miller might still be in the doghouse - despite sweeping this past weekend - but Penn fans just need to relax and remember, at least they aren't Princeton." (Zach Kiltzman)

12. Princeton, 131 points (229)
- "Six straight losses to Brown. Let's repeat that. Six straight losses. To Brown." (Jeff Shafer)
- "As a Penn fan I couldn't have gotten a better Valentine's Day present than Princeton losing by 18 to Brown." (Zach Klitzman)

The top two freshmen in the Ivy League are from northern New Jersey and Philadelphia. Which one plays for Penn and which one plays for Princeton?

13. Bucknell, 141 points (285)

14. Lafayette, 155 points (306)
- "If Lafayette actually wants to move ahead in this poll, it'll have two great chances this weekend against Bucknell and Lehigh." (Zach Klitzman)

15. Delaware State, 165 points (310)

16. Monmouth, 174 points (317)

- "Still writing in 15. Kutztown and 16. Philadelphia U. Seriously considering bouncing Lafayette and bringing in Widener." (Tim AumAn)

If this keeps up, Ursinus will start getting votes.

I'll be back at around 7 p.m. tonight for live coverage of the Schuylill 16 showdown between Penn and Princeton from courtside at Jadwin Gym.

And yes, writing it that way seemed a little weird.

Before we get to the rankings, we've arrived at the Fantasy HORSE Invitational championship game. It pits Kentucky's Jodie Meeks against Temple's Dionte Christmas. Voting will be open until tipoff of the Temple-St. Joe's game on Thursday.

Also, it looks like comments are back. Thanks for bearing with us as we shoo the gremlins of the rafters.

Now we turn to the poll results, and Villanova reigns again after taking all the first-place votes. The more interesting news is in second place, where Temple jumped over Penn State after the Nittany Lions lost to Michigan and Wisconsin.

Also of note, we have only the second tie in Schuylkill 16 history: St. Joe's and Penn State are level on 37 points in third place. But the gap between Temple and the Lions-Hawks duet is a whopping 12 points. How much of an effect on that gap would a St. Joe's win Thursday night have?

But the biggest news of all is the aftershock of Princeton's sweep of Columbia and Cornell. The Tigers jumped from 12th place to 9th place this week, and the buzz in Old Nassau will continue growing if they remain the Ivy League's lone unbeaten team.

Your statistical side dish this week is the RPI as calculated by RealTimeRPI.com. Since I only have the free version right now, the numbers do not include tonight's games. But that's fair to our poll voters, who cast their ballots without factoring in tonight's action as well.

1. Villanova, 11 points (12)
- "Who said 'Nova can't get that big win? Good to see the Wildcats playing up to their potential." (Josh Wheeling)
- "Villanova and Princeton: the only two tournament teams in the region? Blue collar fans weep." (Fred D.)

2. Temple, 25 points (44)
- "Olmos had a great game at Xavier, but Christmas didn't do too much. I know they focused on him a lot, but can the Big 5's 'best player' be this inconsistent?" (Josh Wheeling)

t-3. Saint Joseph's, 37 points (71)

I used RPI as the tiebreaker for listing purposes.

t-3. Penn State, 37 points (84)
- "Both losses weren't bad, but would have liked to see them pull off one of them. Wisconsin is good, but was 2-5 on the road before the Penn State game." (Josh Wheeling)
- "Can't spell Nittany Lions without ... N-I-T." (Jeff Shafer)

A point of fact if ever there was, but there's plenty of time left in the season to make another statement.

5. La Salle, 58 points (110)

6. Drexel, 76 points (119)
- "What's that sound from CAA land? That would be a thousand 'I told you so's' " (Jeff Shafer)

7. Rider, 80 points (140)

8. Rutgers, 87 points (162)

9. Princeton, 102 points (250)
- "I never thought we would see the Tigers climb above No. 14 all season, but they produced the biggest "holy crap" win of the S-16 season with the win over Cornell." (Marco Anskis)
- "Well, at least something makes sense in the Ivy League this year." (Jeff Shafer)

I'll be at Jadwin Gym next Tuesday for Penn-Princeton. If the Tigers truly are back to prominence, there's no better game in which to prove it than the visit of their old rival.

10. Delaware, 107 points (233)

11. Lehigh, 115 points (225)

12. Penn, 131 points (251)
- "Any D-I team that knows how to pump fake is guaranteed at least 80 points against Penn."(Josh Wheeling)
- "I think Penn's truly earned the bottom spot in the last three games. Definitely a low point for the program right now." (Fred D.)

13. Bucknell, 147 points (299)

14. Lafayette, 149 points (316)

15. Delaware State, 166 points (283)
- "Del. St. & Monmouth out; #15 Kutztown, #16 Philadelphia U" (Tim AumAn)

Props for Herb Magee are always welcome.

16. Monmouth, 168 points (329)
- "Lost to the only team in Division-I history to lose to NJIT. Enough said." (Jeff Shafer)

A good way to end tonight's post.

Poll: Fantasy HORSE Invitational Championship (624 votes)