Early poll results are in!

Will McCain and Obama exchange long protein strings today?

(Probably would have been cooler if I’d waited until today to unveil the results of the first five polls, too. Oh well.)

Recently got my hands on the USA Today Sports Weekly college basketball preview. Don’t be fooled by it, though: The capsules, like a whole lot of Sports Weekly, are produced by The Sports Xchange. Why I’m annoyed by Sports Weekly’s reliance on wire copy is a blog topic for another time, I suppose.

And since Nate Silver was apparently a little busy (that’s for my buddy Elise), I took the time to crunch the numbers myself. Fifteen seconds later, I came up with this! (In interest of increasing the suspense, I’ll actually post the TSX predictions second)

1.) VCU (6) 6
2.) Old Dominion 21
3.) George Mason 22
4.) Northeastern 23
5.) Delaware 30
6.) Georgia State 40
7.) Hofstra 41
8.) James Madison 48
9.) William & Mary 54
10.) UNC-Wilmington 57
11.) Towson 60
12.) Drexel 66
First-place votes in parenthesis
Polls compiled thus far: CAA, Blue Ribbon, Sporting News, Lindy’s, Athlon, The Sports Xchange

And the TSX poll:

1.) VCU
2.) George Mason
3.) Old Dominion
4.) Hofstra
5.) Delaware
6.) Northeastern
7.) Georgia State
8.) William & Mary
9.) James Madison
10.) Towson
11.) UNC-Wilmington
12.) Drexel

A few quick notes on the TSX rankings and how they affected the overall polling:

—First and foremost, fourth is by the most optimistic prediction for Hofstra thus far. It wasn’t enough to improve the Flying Dutchmen’s overall rank, but it did move them within a point of Georgia State for sixth.

—The 2-3-4 logjam was jostled as Northeastern falls from second to fourth, ODU moves from third to second and Mason moves from fourth to third. All three schools are ranked in the top four in every poll but one. Other than that trio of movers, everyone remained in the same spot as before aside from the William & Mary/JMU tie being broken.

—Six polls in the books and there’s two unanimous picks: VCU first and Delaware fifth. Let’s hope Hofstra is the Dewey to VCU’s Truman come March.

That’s all for today. If you haven’t done so yet, get out and vote. After all, Hofstra magnanimously and selflessly spent millions of dollars and thousands of hours over the past year to educate you about how important it is to cast a ballot. If you fail to vote, the whole year will have been for naught.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

C’mon TP. I know what you have to say to everyone else, but I’ve been there from the beginning. All I want is one ticket.

“It’s a two-party system! You have to vote for one of us!”

Here’s something you don’t get everyday: Multiple Hofstra news links. The men’s hoops team gets some national pub from Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com (am I the only one who still writes http://www.sportsline.com/ into the address window at Internet Explorer?), who writes about the presidential debate displacing the Flying Dutchmen starting next week. Some amusing stuff from Tom Pecora about being housed at Margiotta Hall, practicing at Adelphi and fielding phone calls from friends who want one of the golden tickets wrapped in a chocolate bar Hofstra was allotted. (Seriously, only 200 tickets? That’s a joke)

Bryan Savage’s hometown newspaper has an interesting and extensive piece on the former Hofstra quarterback, who had big hopes for the UConn game as well as his senior season but was instead sidelined with a career-ending injury mere moments before kickoff.

And thanks to loyal reader Anonymous, who sent along a feature from the Albany Times-Union in which Albany coach Bob Ford ranks the win over Hofstra as one of the top 10 games he’s ever experienced in his 36 years at the school. I also learned I was wrong earlier this week when I wrote Albany does not have 30 scholarships. It has one. Seriously, one scholarship? Why even bother at that point? And how do they determine the recipient? Albany Idol? And do they have someone who is barely lucid consoling those who fall short?

Also got some entertaining comments and/or emails recently from Loyal Readers, including Rob, who chimed in with memories of Wednesday night dining at Hofstra. “The sad truth about Steak Night was that the Chicken Cordon Bleu was actually better than the steak—the only two good meals they serve all week, and they served them on the same night? WTF?”

I don’t even remember the chicken cordon bleu. That’s how much I loved steak night: I wouldn’t even ponder another entree. But that sums up Lackmann, doesn’t it? Feed us crap six days a week and then make us choose from two glorious selections on the seventh.

Sully Ray writes in and wonders if the chipped tooth that I referred to Wednesday was the “…same chipped tooth that took a backseat tour of the southeastern US and wound up at 50 cent wiener night in NO?”

Yes it is. In the spring of ’95, Sully Ray, Rob and fellow Chronicle alum Adam asked me to join them on a cross-country spring break road trip…a decision they regretted by the time we reached the George Washington Bridge, I am sure. I don’t travel well, at all…especially when the car is a stick shift and I failed Manual Transmission 101, as taught by my mom (it’s not her fault, my sister aced it).

So I sat in the back, read newspapers from around the country, listened to a mix tape (it’s like the iPod shuffle, except with careful attention paid to the ebb and flow as well as a handwritten song list…you kids these days have no idea what you’re missing) generally acted like a grump and slept a lot. I also apparently snored every sleeping moment, something my so-called friends were only too happy to capture via dozens of shots of me, my agape mouth and my chipped tooth deep in REM sleep.

It’s OK though. I’m the one with the blog. And I’m the one with photos of Sully Ray wolfing down hot dogs at 50-cent hot dog night in New Orleans as well as shots of Sully Ray, Adam and I keeping score during the game. If I could only be the one who also had a working scanner, those photos would be up here. So revenge—for the sleeping shots as well as all my losses in T-Shirt Derby—will eventually be mine, Sully Ray.

And any T-shirts that are fired my way tomorrow will be mine, too, since Sully Ray once again has better things to do than join us. Sniff. So if you see the wife and I, stop by and say hello. I’ll be the guy yelling about Michael Doto.

Jerry is still waiting to hear from Rick, Ted and the rest of the Loyal Readers at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.