South Carolina Basketball: National analyst, top-25 voter STILL leaves Gamecocks off ballot

South Carolina basketball is in 2nd place in the SEC and will be ranked in this week's AP top-25. How high they will be ranked is the only question as the Gamecocks are on a five-game win streak that includes road wins over Georgia, Arkansas, and 5th-ranked Tennessee and home victories over #6 Kentucky and Missouri.

National voices in college basketball either have been calling for Lamont Paris' team to be ranked for a couple of weeks, or they have been apologizing for not jumping on the garnet and black hype train sooner as the CourtCocks were snubbed from the last several top-25 polls.

Early Monday morning, just hours before the official AP poll is released, a major name in the college basketball world revealed a strange ballot. CBS Sports' Seth Davis posted on Twitter/X his personal ballot that he submitted to the AP, but South Carolina basketball was nowhere to be found in his top-25.

Not only does this ballot not make any sense based on merit (the Gamecocks are 19-3 overall and 7-2 in the SEC), it does not make any sense based on recent play (USC has the longest active win streak in the conference at five wins in a row, even against the hardest schedule in the league during that span), and it does not make any sense based on what Seth Davis, himself, has said recently about the Gamecocks.

After South Carolina knocked off the Tennessee Vols in Knoxville last week, Davis posted about the Gamecocks being a team that is deserving of a top-25 ranking.

Since the message, Carolina went on to win another SEC road contest against Georgia. Yet, for reasons that Seth Davis needs to explain to the college basketball world, he excluded the Fighting Q-Zips from his top-25 ballot.

If Davis left Lamont Paris' team off of his ballot because he doesn't think they are worth of a top-25 spot, he should have his AP voting privileges rescinded for incompetence. If he left them off to generate engagement from angry South Carolina basketball fans, he should have those privileges rescinded for a lack of voting integrity. Either way, this snub is absolutely egregious.

The official AP top-25 will be released later today. It usually comes out between 12:00 and 2:00 EST. Despite Davis' disrespect, South Carolina basketball fans can rest assured that their favorite team will be ranked for the first time since the 2016-2017 season, the year the Gamecocks made the Final Four.