NewRCTID22's Week Pre-Season Ballot

Rank	Team	Reason
1	Houston	The consensus darling of the analytical world. It's hard not trust Kelvin Sampson, to be fair.
2	Duke
3	Kansas
4	Iowa State	Analytic consensus had them dead tied with Alabama, but I give the slight edge to the 'Clones. With those returners and that style, I foresee little early season variability
5	Alabama	Awesome offense and may not miss Youngblood too, too much. But just one spot lower than I-St for me
6	Gonzaga	Consensus had Auburn ever so slightly ahead, but even without Venters, I love this backcourt - one of the best in the country.
7	Auburn
8	UConn
9	Arizona
10	North Carolina	Another consensus tie, but I gave the edge to UNC and potential PotY RJ Davis.
11	Tennessee
12	Baylor	Consensus had Purdue ever so slightly higher, but this Baylor team will be as explosive as it gets.
13	Purdue
14	Creighton
15	Texas
16	Texas A&M
17	Texas Tech
18	Cincinnati	Tied with Marquette on consensus, but I gave the edge to Cincinnati. The Bearcats project to be a better defensive unit and still maintain backcourt firepower.
19	Marquette
20	UCLA
21	Illinois
22	Mississippi State	Media seems to love Ole Miss, but the analytics see Miss St. as the better squad entering the season. Hubbard is a stud and Chris Jans always seems to get the best out of his talent.
23	Kentucky
24	BYU	Consensus had Mich. St. . 5 spots higher, but the Cougs bring a ton of upside to the table, and I was surprised to see the Spartans so high in the metrics.
25	Michigan State	I think Pitino and St.John's could be formidable this season, but the consensus had Sparty 4 spots higher. As much as I'm wait-and-see on Izzo and the Spartans, I couldn't leave them out quite yet

Overall Rationale

For the first poll, I used an average of Kenpom, Evanymiya, Haslametrics, and Barttorvik's rankings. For teams that were close or tied in the average, I adjusted those teams based on my confidence level in their early season prospects based on style/coaching/roster talent and noted it in the reason column.