DCProf's Week Pre-Season Ballot
| Rank | Team | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Baylor | No dominant team this year. But a healthy Baylor has best blend of talent, depth, coaching & system. Only team projected top 10 in both offense & defense by consensus of KenPom, BartT, & Haslametriics |
| 2 | Kentucky | Addition by subtraction losing some poor defensive players. If Oscar is healthy & Wallace is as advertised could win it all. Nice blend of veteran leadership and freshmen talent. |
| 3 | Arkansas | Freshman class may be 3 future NBA first rounders. Love the athleticism and length of this roster. Opposing teams will not be able to match up with this roster defensively. |
| 4 | North Carolina | Reminds me of '21 UCLA, fringe top 25 team all year, goes on run to Final 4, returns most players, so ranked highly next season. Is there a sure fire NBA player on this roster? Nope. |
| 5 | Houston | Great coaching and defense. Star power in Sasser. Should dominate the AAC. Talent level a tier down from the blue bloods, but legit title contender this season. |
| 6 | Gonzaga | Will dominate the WCC as usual, but looks like worst Zags team in quite some time. I can't see this edition of Gonzaga winning a national championship. |
| 7 | Creighton | Favorites in Big East. Returns nation's best threesome freshmen from last year, add future NBA player Schnerierman from SDSU |
| 8 | Dayton | Favorites in A-10. Finished 2nd in conference last year with no upperclassman. Returns 89% of minutes played. Good on both ends of the court. Great size, rebounding, and perimeter play for A10 squad. |
| 9 | Kansas | Lost 4 of top 5 players. Nice freshmen class & coaching but last year's team lost to Dayton so hard for me to rank this year's worst version ahead of the Flyers. |
| 10 | Duke | Talented, but total rebuild in players and coach. Hard to say how good they'll be. Name on front of jersey is only justification for preseason top 10 ranking to be honest. |
| 11 | Arizona | Appear to still be class of the Pac 12 but probably lost too much to be deserving of preseason top 10. |
| 12 | TCU | Great coach and defensive team. Veteran leadership and star point guard. |
| 13 | Virginia | Coaching, continuity, and system. Returns 5 starters, top 10 freshman class, & newcomer Vander Plas will make a difference. Improved depth will return UVA to being a top 25 program. |
| 14 | Indiana | Probably favorites in B1G by default with conference POY, but was only 9-11 in conference last year. Hasn't shown enough to be preseason top 10. |
| 15 | Texas | Probably would ranked them higher if Carr had left the team. A lot of talent but doesn't seem to mesh well together. |
| 16 | Tennessee | Barnes is great coach, but Vols figure to take a step back without K. Chandler. |
| 17 | Auburn | Loses of Jabari & Kessler are huge, but Pearl has built a program and Broome is nice transfer. |
| 18 | Villanova | Loss of Jay Wright and health questions for key players drop Nova a few spots from where they otherwise would be. |
| 19 | UCLA | Talented team but lost too much to be ranked among the nation's elite in preseason. |
| 20 | Wyoming | Maldonado & Ike might be MWC's best two players. Returns two other starters & adds two contributors from USC. Favorites in MWC in my opinion. |
| 21 | Xavier | Top 40 in country on both ends of the court and Miller can coach. Has size & shooting. Jones & Boum look like good scoring duo on perimeter. PG is question mark. |
| 22 | Illinois | I trust Underwood to rebuilt around transfers Shannon, Mayer, & incoming top 15 freshman class. |
| 23 | Alabama | Absolutely stacked with talent on the perimeter and Oates knows how to utilize it. Top-15 potential if new pieces fit well together. |
| 24 | UAB | Deep and explosive team. Jelly Walker provides star power. Class of CUSA. |
| 25 | San Diego State | Less upside than some teams I left unranked, but much higher floor given defense and 1-2 punch of Bradley/Mensah. Ranking is predicated on an expected jump in production from Mensah. |
Overall Rationale
Others receiving consideration: Tulane, Florida, Miami, Michigan State, & Towson. My preseason rankings are based on a number of metrics: Ken Pom, Bart Torvik analytics, personal opinion on the strength of teams and how I figure that will finish within their conference and other metrics. Annually I find 15-20 sources of preseason rankings and throw them into a spreadsheet to get a consensus. That provides me a baseline for the consensus rankings of the team, but then from there I adjust the teams based on analytics and personal opinion on teams that I view as being under or over rated by consensus. In season I tend to rank teams based mostly on their strength of schedule to date in the season along with my preseason opinion of each team as the starting point. In the preseason, when there are no actual results to go by, my rankings are determined by choosing the teams that I think are most likely to win the national championship in the first tier and then is rounded out by what I view as the best teams in each conference.