Bilas's list just seems to have an awful lot of name recognition on it. Based solely on this season, Braden Smith is lucky to make first team B1G, let alone be on a first team All American. Ditto for Stirtz. In my book, neither one was one of the top 5 players in the B1G last season. Jay's got them listed as 2 of the top 10 players in the country. I respectfully disagree.
Many former ESPN analysts have said that the mother ship calls the shots. If you're top tier, you get to have an opinion a couple times a year, but you figure out how to self censor. The way they treat the SEC certainly checks out.