The Bulletin Preseason Girls Basketball Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What sets The Bulletin's preseason girls basketball vote apart

Most fan ballots a Connecticut reader meets are weekly honors: the Connecticut High School Basketball Player of the Week or the football and lacrosse equivalents reset every few days and start over. The Bulletin Preseason Girls Basketball Player of the Year works the other way round. It is a single award, asked once before the season starts, and the whole September-to-November window feeds that single question rather than a rolling series.

The organizer is The Bulletin, a Connecticut newspaper publishing at norwichbulletin.com. The ballot lives at poll.fm under number 14792882, hosted by Crowdsignal, and the page's own title asks exactly one thing: who is The Bulletin preseason girls basketball player of the year. No category list sits beside that question, no nomination round is printed on the page, and nothing else competes for a reader's attention.

The nominee field is drawn from eastern Connecticut high schools. The 2024 ballot carried names attached to NFA, Plainfield, Norwich Tech, Killingly, Ellis Tech and Griswold, which places the vote firmly in the paper's own coverage area rather than statewide in scope.

The dated record for this preseason award

Two runs of The Bulletin's preseason girls basketball award are on file: one in 2022 and one in 2024. That pair of years is the basis for the annual designation, though the publisher has printed no statement covering the years between them, and no edition year beyond 2024 has been announced. The 2024 ballot page carries a closed marker in its title, so the most recent confirmed run has finished.

Voting falls inside a September-to-November span. That span is the confirmed timing for the preseason vote; The Bulletin prints no opening day and no closing day for the preseason poll, so the live page carries whatever dates apply. No nomination round is printed ahead of voting either, which fits a preseason award that goes straight to a single question.

A few details never reach the published page. The Bulletin has not published a category list, because the ballot poses one question about a player of the year and stops there. Nothing on the poll.fm page sets a per-supporter cap, a daily-return rule or eligibility terms. The next edition year is likewise unannounced. Each of those gaps is a reason to treat the live ballot, not any summary, as the authority when a new preseason poll appears.

The 2024 result supplies the one hard figure: the leading nominee, attached to Griswold, finished with 39 percent of 9,022 votes. That tally shows the scale the preseason vote reached in its latest confirmed run.

How a supporter votes in The Bulletin's preseason poll

Voting here is simple by design, and unlike a weekly ballot it offers a single chance to act. When The Bulletin's preseason girls basketball vote is live, a supporter brings up the poll.fm address, reads the single question, and picks from the published nominee list. Each nominee is shown with a school, so a Plainfield reader can find the Plainfield names, a Griswold supporter the Griswold name, and so on across NFA, Norwich Tech, Killingly and Ellis Tech.

After choosing, the supporter taps the vote control and Crowdsignal registers the choice in the public tally. The 2024 page displayed running percentages beside each name, which is how the leading nominee's 39 percent share of 9,022 votes was visible while the poll ran. The ballot page asks for no account, no email verification and no sign-in of any kind.

Because the poll is closed for 2024, a visitor today finds final standings where an open ballot used to be. The practical sequence for the next preseason edition is the same: find the fresh poll.fm address The Bulletin publishes, check whether the window has opened, choose a nominee, and submit. If the publisher adds any rule about repeat voting or verification to a future ballot, that rule will be printed on the live page itself.

How this ballot sits beside its Connecticut neighbours

Within Connecticut's high school fan-vote field, this program holds a narrow lane. The weekly series, such as the Connecticut High School Girls Lacrosse Player of the Week and the baseball equivalent, honour performance during a season and refresh constantly. The Bulletin's preseason award looks ahead instead: it asks readers to pick their girls basketball player of the year ahead of the first game, in the September-to-November window.

The organizer also differs. The weekly honors and the Connecticut Gatorade Football Player of the Year sit under other publishers and programs, while this ballot belongs to The Bulletin alone, a Connecticut newspaper at norwichbulletin.com. Its nominee pool is the paper's own coverage area, with schools such as NFA, Plainfield, Norwich Tech, Killingly, Ellis Tech and Griswold on the 2024 ballot.

Scale separates it too. Weekly honors split attention across many short rounds, while this preseason poll concentrated 9,022 votes behind a single nominee in 2024. For a supporter, that means the whole campaign rides on one window rather than a fresh start each week, and the football and boys lacrosse weeklies run on an entirely different rhythm from this single preseason question.

Strengthening support in this preseason vote

Support in The Bulletin's preseason girls basketball vote comes down to turnout during a single window. Because the ballot asks one question and closes, a nominee's base cannot wait for a later round: the September-to-November span is the whole opportunity. The natural starting point is the school community itself, since the 2024 ballot tied every nominee to a named Connecticut school, and classmates, families and local youth programs are the people most likely to tap the vote control.

No printed rule from The Bulletin addresses outside help in this poll, leaving no allowance or prohibition to point to. What is printed is the organizer's own question and a public tally, which means visible, genuine outreach is the approach that matches how the poll works. Our page on getting more votes online covers outreach habits that fit fan ballots of this kind, and the buy votes online page explains what purchased support involves generally. Whatever route a supporter takes, the live ballot's own terms govern the next preseason edition.