Every week (well maybe not every week) we here at Pyramid of Excess will take a look inside the teams in the AP Top 25 poll. Why the AP Top 25 and not the ESPN/USA Today poll? Well, think of the AP Top 25 as your dad’s Playboys, a little musty but still the standard of manliness and classy nudie pics, whereas the ESPN/USA Today poll is your creepy uncle’s Penthouse, titillating but a little tawdry and all too willing too open its legs just for the sake of instant male gratification. Plus we’re still protesting the cancellation of “NHL2Night”, which has left John Buccigross sad and disoriented during highlights of Raptor home games at the Air Canada Centre.
Like the USA Today, our look at the AP Top 25 includes shiny graphics and is written for a fourth-grade reading level. Each team in the Top 25 is assigned a label. The key for that labeling system is as follows.
For The Elite we use the New Yorker’s Eustace Tilley, symbol of elitism for almost 100 years. For these teams, anything less than the Final Four is a disappointment.
For The Contenders it’s our favorite 1970’s heavyweight contender from the golden era of heavyweights, Earnie Shavers. These teams at least have a good shot at the Final Four. They could also make the Championship game, though we doubt they could knock off one of the big boys in the end.
The Pretenders are teams, some highly ranked, who feel a hell of a lot better about themselves than we do. The label is pretty obvious, though I think it’s important to point out that we used the original Pretenders lineup as the first two albums are certified classics while the succeeding ones were certified classics to your dad.
Don’t sleep on The Darkhorses, the teams who, like Jason Bateman’s career, you just never saw coming. They’re legit, as is Bateman for those of you who didn’t watch “Arrested Development”. According to the ratings and the show’s subsequent demise, that’s most of you, but like these teams you’re only hurting yourself if you continue to miss out. Most of the country doesn’t know about, or vastly underrates, these guys. Like Greek food.
600 mg of Lithium for The Bipolars, typically big conference teams we could easily see losing to the Mountain West champ in the first round, yet have the talent to prove everyone wrong and make a run as a 9 seed.
You can access the entire season’s AP Top 25 articles by clicking “AP Top 25” under the categories section on the right.
THE PYRAMID OF EXCESS 
