INeedMoreCreativity's Week Pre-Season Ballot
| Rank | Team | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida | wondering if they will miss a single rebound |
| 2 | Duke | once again the most talented team and it's not close |
| 3 | Illinois | No Keaton Wagler but I expect the strong returners to get Illinois the #1 offense |
| 4 | Arizona | Great adds, solid core |
| 5 | UConn | Not doubting the #1 coach in the game |
| 6 | Houston | Kelvin Sampson could get a little league team to lead the NCAA in offensive rebounding |
| 7 | Michigan State | I Fears I know who's going to be NPOY |
| 8 | Gonzaga | Pac 12 legend Mark Few will lead em to yet another conference title. Who says no? |
| 9 | Kansas | Unreal PFs (TKR, Tyran Stokes, Keanu Dawes), but the lack of a strong offensive perimeter presence may cause issues. I expect a stellar defense and an okay offense |
| 10 | Louisville | One of the best transfer portal hauls, if not the best |
| 11 | Texas | David Punch might be pound for pound one of junkyardiest dawgs in CBB |
| 12 | Iowa State | Veterans but not elite talent. I expect another strong Otz defense |
| 13 | Texas Tech | Was worried looking at the loss of Anderson and how low usage Atwell is. Then I saw the two lead guards they're bringing in. This team may put up 100 15 times this year. |
| 14 | St. John's | Keyshawn Hall and Tounde Yessofou will score eleventy billion points but I'm concerned about the rest of the roster. Pitino will get them to play defense |
| 15 | Virginia | |
| 16 | Tennessee | |
| 17 | Michigan | |
| 18 | Miami (FL) | |
| 19 | Arkansas | |
| 20 | Alabama | |
| 21 | Kentucky | |
| 22 | UCLA | |
| 23 | Nebraska | |
| 24 | Vanderbilt | |
| 25 | BYU |
Overall Rationale
In preseason I try to look at talent, returning production, and coaching. Not relevant for preseason, but most weeks I rank teams mostly by resume, as if the season ended today and I were ranking them for the tournament. I am not trying to find the “best” team, I’m trying to find the “most deserving team”. In other words, my rankings are backwards-looking, not forwards-looking. ------------ I use eye-test evaluations along with computer metrics to inform my rankings. I do not place additional weight on more recent games. Having a good record relative to SOS is the most important thing for my rankings. Sometimes, a team may have an excellent resume despite poor SOS (such as previous years’ Gonzaga), or a poor resume despite a great SOS (some .500 power conference teams). If your team wins more games against its schedule than other teams would win against that same schedule, then your team has a good resume. ------------ FAQ: ------------ 1. Why is my team ranked so low? My team is ranked #5 in kenpom! -- It’s likely that your team has a resume that’s relatively poor. I bet your team will do pretty well later in the season, but until then, I’ll rank the team with the better resume higher. ------------ 2. Why is that team ranked so high? They don’t even have any ranked wins! -- That team likely still has a good resume! A win against an okay team can be just as good as a win against a great team, depending on where the game is played. A team is as likely to win on the road against another team ranked #45-75 as it is to win hosting the #10 (The #45-75 range is due to how the spread of team quality varies from year to year). ------------ 3. How do you have Team A ranked over Team B? Team B just whalloped Team A! -- Single game results are only a small part of a team's larger whole body of work. Team A dropped in my rankings according to how bad their loss was, and Team B rose according to how good their win was. I don’t assign any additional