CarnivoreEndurance's Week Pre-Season Ballot
| Rank | Team | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gonzaga | Most returning talent when considering entire season's performance, plus good transfer addiitons |
| 2 | Kentucky | |
| 3 | North Carolina | Slightly lower than consensus because season-long performance was slightly lower than Zags |
| 4 | Houston | |
| 5 | Kansas | |
| 6 | UCLA | |
| 7 | Baylor | |
| 8 | Tennessee | |
| 9 | Texas | |
| 10 | Creighton | |
| 11 | Duke | Hard to justify a team with like 1 returning player much higher until they show it on the court |
| 12 | Arkansas | Same as Duke, so many new pieces |
| 13 | TCU | return everybody from solid team |
| 14 | Alabama | good returning experience plus top recruits |
| 15 | Villanova | tough to place with preseason injuries, but expect Nova to ulitmately be at this kind of level |
| 16 | Auburn | |
| 17 | Indiana | TJD is great but team was mediocre last year and expectations may be slightly high |
| 18 | Arizona | |
| 19 | Illinois | |
| 20 | San Diego State | |
| 21 | Wyoming | tournament team returns a lot. Ike and Maldonado are studs |
| 22 | Dayton | |
| 23 | Michigan | |
| 24 | Texas A&M | |
| 25 | UConn |
Overall Rationale
Rankings are mostly based on last year's results and last year's advanced metrics. Advanced metrics play more of a role here than they will once actual games are played, as they offer a solidly objective look. From there teams were assessed for returning talent, incoming transfers, incoming recruits, and obviously departing players to make subjective determinations about how well each team may perform this year.