EvanMiya Preseason Rankings Reveal

The EvanMiya College Basketball Show is back for the 2026-27 season! Evan unveils the official EvanMiya.com preseason rankings with Kevin Sweeney (Sports Illustrated) and Jim Root (Three Man Weave), breaking down the top teams, top players, mid-major contenders, and some of the biggest questions facing college basketball heading into the season. The group discusses the unprecedented uncertainty surrounding fifth-year and international player eligibility, the teams most affected by those decisions, and the methodology behind EvanMiya's updated preseason computer model. They also dive into Florida, Duke, Illinois, Arizona, Gonzaga, UConn, Houston, Michigan State, Texas Tech, LSU, Kansas, UCLA and more, plus some of the most intriguing players and potential breakout candidates in the country. Evan also previews major upcoming updates to EvanMiya.com, including new player projections, team and player uncertainty tools, website upgrades, game predictions, and an upcoming API.

Chapters:

(00:00) Intro
(02:36) Kevin Sweeney and Jim Root join!
(03:09) Navigating the Offseason Challenges
(06:27) Eligibility Issues and Their Impact
(11:56) Team Rankings Methodology
(17:34) Top Preseason Players
(28:12) Teams 1-3
(36:13) Teams 4-7
(41:59) Teams 8-12
(48:09) Teams 13-18
(56:33) Rest of Top 30
(01:02:21) Best Mid-Majors
(01:10:04) Outro

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Creators and Guests

Host

Evan Miyakawa

College basketball analytics at EvanMiya.com, trusted by 100+ D1 teams. PhD Statistician.

JR

Guest

Jim Root

Three Man Weave

KS

Guest

Kevin Sweeney

Sports Illustrated

What is The EvanMiya College Basketball Show?

The EvanMiya College Basketball Show is a weekly college basketball podcast covering the biggest national storylines and emerging trends men’s college basketball. Hosted by Evan Miyakawa — PhD statistician and founder of EvanMiya.com — the show blends expert analysis, data-driven insights, and conversations with national analysts and insiders from around the sport.

Evan (00:02)
Welcome back, everybody. It is officially college basketball season again. And today we are unveiling the official Evan Mia.com preseason rankings. It is a big show today and will be the first of several preseason content episodes for you guys. Today we will be talking about the top teams according to the Evan Mia preseason computer model, breaking them into tiers, top mid majors, best players in the preseason.

And a whole lot more, so without further ado, let's get to it.

Evan (00:45)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Evan Mia College Basketball Show. I'm your host, Evan Mia Kawa, and we are so back after a summer hiatus for the show where I've been working really hard behind the scenes. We are officially in college basketbason again. Today is a big day. We are pulling back the curtain on the official Evan Mia.com preseason rankings. And I've got Kevin Sweeney and Jim Root here in a second joining me to analyze every angle of this thing.

Before we go further, this show got some enhancements over the summer. If you're listening on audio, you'll notice there's new music. If you're watching on YouTube, there is a bunch of really cool new show intro animation, new video assets, and stuff like that to make the show even better. So shouts to Cred Media Co. and Devin House Creative for making that happen. All right, here's what you need to know for today. this episode is coming out today. The EvanMia.com is

Preseason team and player rankings will update on the site on Friday, but you get a sneak preview of everything today, all the most notable stuff, top teams, top players, all that good stuff, exclusively on this show. For so for about 48 hours, this will be the place to find where a bunch of teams are ranked and that sort of thing in the preseason. On Friday, the full site will update every single team, every single player will have their rankings on there.

but today we're gonna talk about a bunch of the nodal stuff there and and break it down. Interesting tree team trends today as well. And then at the end of the show today, I have some really exciting announcements for what to expect the next for the rest of the preseason, as well as some other big site upgrades coming. So stay tuned for the end of the show for that stuff. but I'm really excited to get into it today. All right, Kevin Sweeney of Sports Illustrated and Jim Root of Three Man Weave.

Evan (02:46)
All right, Kevin Sweeney of Sports Illustrated and Jim Root of Three Men Weave and Basket Under Review are here with me today to unveil these preseason rankings. And these two guys here are both here because they individually do a great job of covering pretty much every single team in college basketball and their rosters and what they're doing in the offseason, and what has been a very challenging offseason to kind of keep track of of what's going on. I know Jim already has his rankings being published over at Basket Under Review.

Sweeney's rankings, if they're not already out, are landing soon over on Sports Illustrated. Before we get started, I wanted to ask you both. Let's start with you, Jim. how has this offseason treated you

overall? And what are some of the challenges that you face this summer in kind of assessing all of these teams?

Jim Root (03:32)
It has been a I would say brutal off season for somebody that maintains a roster document and is trying to keep it current and and have an accurate picture of every team going forward. there's plenty of teams out there that still don't have official rosters posted or they're incomplete, that sort of story. And as you mentioned, we've got top fifty rankings coming out.

basket under review and we had to do that voting I guess didn't have to, but we did the voting way back in June to have the whole thing set up, lead into the top 50 countdown. And that was before really any of the five and five stuff truly hit the fan. So we've had to really clarify that those rankings are excluding five and five players, even if they are currently eligible, we we just have this top 50 without them. And I know that contrasts to what

the rankings we're gonna discuss here where you've got the five and five guys all built in, and that just, you know, therein lies the problem. Like, are we counting these guys or are they not? Which ones are gonna be eligible, which states? It has been an adventure, and I'm not sure where we're gonna land. I'm hoping by opening day we'll figure it out, Kevin, but we might not. We might not know if guys are playing until the actual team takes the court.

Kevin Sweeney (04:43)
Yeah, it will be I I don't envision this ending. I get that question a lot from coaches, like, hey, like what's the end date? Like when will we know? And like there is no answer to that question because it is operating on several different timelines and and you know, d again by a patchwork of state rules and regulations and different suits that are in different places and appeal processes and all of that. So yeah, it's it's been frustrating.

like I think this has been an exercise, you know, I've been ranking every team in the preseason for five years now. Jim obviously does the conference rankings and you know top fifty and things like that. Like I think he he and I would probably both agree that it's it's gotten more difficult just as teams turn over more, there's less like kind of certain there's less certainty. Not not not not in that like I I think there's there's an instinct of like, well, we don't know anything about these teams because they're all transfers. Like I don't think that's true. I I think it's it's it's more complicated than that. Like

We actually have lot more data on a lot of these guys, whether they be transfers, high school kids, international even. we have a lot of data on those guys that you can rely on. And it's not simply based on like trying to like scrape away for max prep stats from like a random high school team that you don't know really really know the level of. Like that that has made like it easier in some respect, but I think you because of the way that everything has changed, like there's a lot more teams you can kind of squint at and sort of talk yourself into. that that makes the process very difficult.

And then you layer in you know all the eligibility conversations, who's gonna play, who's not, and yeah, it becomes quite the task. So I'm probably behind this year. Usually I have more work done, more stuff kind of locked in. I've tried to kind of pace it and take it slow and kind of see where clarity will come, but also yeah, accepting that there may not be a ton of clarity and that'll be something that everyone has to deal with throughout the season, both people ranking teams, people gambling on games, people coaching games and trying to figure out like who they're playing against on a week to week basis.

yeah, it's it's a it's a unique time in college basketball, that's for sure.

Evan (06:37)
Yeah, I was originally planning on putting this show and my my site update like a couple weeks earlier than this. And I decided to wait just to kind of see if we could get a little bit more closure on exactly who's gonna play and who's not. Spoiler, we still don't know. And you know, so that certainly is a challenge and something that we're gonna talk about in today's show is the difference between where I have a team ranked based on if they have all other guys who could be eligible, eligible, and if they have none of them, the reality is it's not gonna be that cut and dry.

If you've not been paying attention all offseason, we've got all of these fifth-year eligibility cases along with international players and and former NBA players and all this stuff going on. Kevin, I know you do a really good job of kind of tracking all of this stuff. So can you just if someone is watching this show and has not been locked in, and hey, I don't blame you. If if you're someone who has not really been following the the the court case Twitter in the last month, I don't blame you at all. Can you give people just kind of a quick summary of

where things stand with the general buckets of players who may or may not be eligible and what we can kind of expect in the next next couple of weeks as we're kind of gearing up for the start of the season and hopefully having rosters that are kind of finalized by that point, but we don't really know.

Kevin Sweeney (07:47)
Yeah, so there's two main eligibility question buckets. There are quote unquote five for five guys and then international guys. So the five for five guys, those are players that largely graduated high school in twenty twenty two, played four college basketball seasons, graduated last spring, went through senior day, yada yada, it's all done. We we did we did it. We graduated, and then June came around and the NCAA officially implemented their five for five or age-based eligibility that they like to call it. that

reshapes the eligibility conversation going forward. Gets rid of red shirts, gets rid of most of the ways you had an exception and basically says you have five years to play as much as you want. Well the guys who played four years have played played four seasons in four years are like, well, we should get included in that. The Instably says no. and so that has led to a sprint to the courts. as of now, about half of the major state level lawsuits that have been filed and initially won injunctions

About half of them have been stayed on appeal, essentially meaning these guys can't play while the process is taking place. That's the main question. There's longer term legal questions with these cases, but at its core, for the average college basketball fan, I don't think anyone cares if like in four years somebody gets a $750,000 check from the NCAA. They care like is RJ Godfrey gonna play for Arizona in in two months, right? So those cases are are very much ongoing. my sense from the people I've talked to is that.

an appe the a stay pending appeal is not a death knell for these players' eligibility. So we've seen that in Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia. it does not mean that those guys are completely out of luck, but it means that now they need to go back and win something in in in court on appeal here in the coming weeks. And again, the dates on that still still unknown. So the the big picture answer here is that there is it is unlikely that there will be a federal

ruling one way or another that every five for five player is eligible or every five for five player is ineligible. And so it will be d determined based on a patchwork of individual lawsuits. then there's the international side, the NCAA is attempting to crack down on more professionalized players who are coming to the states, a lot of them 22, 23 years old, some of them playing at the highest level outside of the NBA, the Euro League.

many of those players committed colleges. they did so basically under the same premise that players who came last year did, guys who had played, you know, think about Testa Ritter at Virginia, who played in the ACB in Spain, the best domestic league in the world other than the NBA. or Elias Rapiek, who went to Kansas State. He was a Euroleague player, he played for Alba Alba Berlin. essentially the NCAA now trying to walk that back, which is going to be very difficult. but the process right now is less lawsuit driven and more. Just wait and see. The NCAA has

Essentially drag their feet on most of these rulings. there's a good handful of guys that have been cleared, but a lot of really notable players, you know, the LSU guys, the Auburn guys, the St. John's guys have been very much in limbo and the NCAA, I think, is deliberately not really giving clarity to these schools in an attempt to talk them out of recruiting these guys in the future. So that's the angle that most people perceive it as. but for now, all that means is that there's a lot of key players, again at on key teams, potential starters that

have not received clearance yet and there's no timeline that they will or won't. So the hope, the expectation from a lot of coaches this this will get resolved before the season starts, but like we're we're getting we're getting close, man. And there's definitely some angst that is building on coaching staffs around the country over that issue as well.

Evan (11:20)
Well, when my preseason site update officially drops in just a couple days, one of the things that I'm gonna do is have a ability for on the team ratings page for you to toggle essentially like include all players who could be eligible or disallow all of them. And hopefully on the player ranking side of things as well, I will have some sort of label or delimiter for players who are still kind of in that limbo period. It's not gonna be a perfect tracker of that, but I do hope that that will number one.

make it a little bit easier for people to track which players are still kind of up for debate of whether they'll play or not. And two, how that feeds into how good or bad the team could be based on how all these cases go. With that said, it's it's you know, a lot of this stuff is about following lawsuits and whatnot. I can't get this from an official database, so it's not gonna be a perfect tool. On that note, before we kind of jump right into some of the players and teams from the preseason rankings, I will kind of mention now some of the new methodology updates that kind of went into

My team rankings, this team rankings and player rankings for this season, I really do put a lot of pride into the preseason projection side of things because this also kind of serves as a dual transfer portals portal scouting tool and just in general recruiting tool that number one fans can use, but also a lot of teams are using in terms of scouting players who could be on their roster in in a given offseason. So essentially a guy's p preseason player rating, their BPR.

Is essentially the same as what you're seeing during the end of a previous year as you're trying to decide who to scout for your team. So one of the big things that I did this summer was I have a new projections model for most incoming players to division one, specifically high school players as well as D2 and international guys. So in the past, for high school players, the way I typically did this was use essentially kind of their like consensus recruiting rankings.

And then basically looked at players who were rated similarly in previous seasons to kind of get a baseline of how they roughly typically perform in their freshman season. And that sort of served as a rough guideline for where they started in the preseason. It was like fairly useful, but very much not player-specific. It was more just based on, you know, where did on three and 24-7 and these types of sites have them. Now the way this works is I actually have access to high school box score data for AAU and a lot of high school games.

The recruiting ranking still plays a part in that, but essentially it also looks at kind of if, say, if you're the 15th best player in your class, do your box score statistics and how well you performed and who you played kind of suggest that you're better or worse than that. And so I have gained a lot of accuracy in terms of the preseason side of these high school projections and have a similar deal now going too for division two transfers, where when the site updates, you're going to see.

For every single division two transfer. And most international players, especially guys who played in Europe, are all going to have individual profile-based projections based on how well they played, their level of competition. As that's especially a challenge for international players, because half the battle is not just like you average eight points per game. It's who did you play for? You know, how good was the competition and all of that sort of stuff. A very, very challenging task. It's not perfect, but it's gonna, it has added a lot of

Accuracy to my preseason projections. So coming soon, I don't know if this will be available right away when that site updates, but you'll actually be able to see the like skill areas in which all of these players are good or bad based on their incoming profiles before they've even played a game of Division I basketball. So all of that has fed into updated player rankings and then, of course, increased the accuracy of the team rankings. Cause ultimately the accuracy of the team rankings for me comes a lot down to.

How good are the individual evaluations of the players? Now that's not the only thing that goes into the team rankings. There is also a like essentially like a recent head coaching success if they've had the same coaching staff for a while, and a little bit of program pedigree that that's way less important nowadays because rosters can change mostly just based on the money that you have. But for a program like Houston, for example, they're gonna get more of the benefit of the doubt in their preseason team ranking.

than a a team with a a new head coach or a team with a head coach that has struggled to meet expectations. So all of that kind of goes into the sort of updated methodology for how these team rankings are are computed. So any thoughts or comments on that before we dive into some of the top players in the preseason?

Jim Root (15:47)
I think it's it it's awesome that you're able to have those individual projections. I can't wait to see it on the site where you you're even mentioning like guys' individual strengths from a division two level and just being able to look into that and having more, you know, it's not just generic international guy X. So that's part of the projection. It's is he a good international edition? Is he medium versus the rest of the landscape or is he like an actual detractive player?

We we like the accuracy. it's it's pretty cool to see. It's gonna be fun to measure it up against, you know, actual or an eye test or a a ranker who's going off vibes. You know, what what does Evan Mia say compared to somebody else that's just putting together an A P ballot? But being able to get that granular, I think, like you said, should only make it more accurate and it's awesome you're able to build that this off season.

Kevin Sweeney (16:32)
Yeah, we talked offline about the the international side of things, which I think is super fascinating and I think something that schools, quite frankly, are are starting to try to lean into and figure out what's the best way to model what these guys are worth based on the level they've played at, the production. it's something people are still working on, as you told me, it's a it's a difficult thing to

To navigate right now because the level of player coming from Europe is is a much higher level now than it ever has been. and and so it's going to take some time for any like good model that you know calls in past data to to really quantify what those look like. I I I I will go on the record and say that I think you probably are underrating international players still a little bit. just yeah, I'm Mr. Mr. Europe, it's

Evan (17:13)
Who could have seen this coming?

Kevin Sweeney (17:16)
me. So

I I will say that, but I also do think it's it's again, it's it's very cool to have actual data behind it. especially for again, I think for fans and and for coaches, but also for fans. I mean, like like a lot of fans is only introduction to a lot of international players is like what Gavoni says when he like po posts about their commitment. And so the fact that like we can you know, it's easy it's i the fact that we have a resource to show kind of strengths and weaknesses is very cool and excited to see how that evolves into the future.

Evan (17:43)
Well, let's go ahead and start by dwelling we're gonna spend more time in this episode on the team rankings, but I do want to give a little bit of time to some of the top players in the preseason. So right now we are looking at the top 30 players in the preseason according to my player prediction model. And just kind of as an overview, the metric being used here is Bayesian performance rating, which is my all in one metric that essentially values how much you do on a per possession basis.

On offense and defense, it takes into account your box score statistics, but as well also your impact on team performance kind of outside of what can traditionally be measured. it I do often put a little bit more emphasis on defense than what you'll see from most, say, you know, AP voters or preseason award list type stuff, because offense is typically what people care about most. But defense gets a lot of or maybe more the proper amount of emphasis here. and then when on the preseason side of things, as I mentioned.

A player's history, not just how they performed last season, but if they played multiple years, how have they performed in all those seasons? What was their pedigree coming out of high school or D2 or international? All of that plays apart into one number that uses all the information that I have available through this data to suggest how good they're going to be. So looking at this list, I'm just going to kind of, I'm not going to name every single player here. Maybe I might, but the main takeaways for me here.

Jeremy Fears is the number one player in the preseason coming back for Michigan State. And there's not really a clear second place. He is a tier above everyone else. I am not really surprised by seeing this. His his impact numbers, both from a like scoring, playmaking, and team impact perspective for Michigan State were have been incredible his entire career. and you know, him just being one year older, I think is only going to help his case there. But rounding out the top 10, Tyler Tanner is in second.

Patrick Ngongba in third for Duke. That's going to be one of the maybe the biggest like whoa players that's going to be on this list. But my model has loved Patrick Ngongba for a long time. And I think he could have a big year in a larger role for Duke. Alex Condon for Florida in fourth. Silas Demary fifth. Thomas Haugh another Florida player who has been for some going to be the preseason national player of the year, comes in sixth. Joseph Tugler for Houston, the top defensive player in this list, seventh.

Flory Bidunga eighth, Chance Mallory for Virginia ninth, David Mirkovic tenth. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the rest of this list. Any comments, guys, on on names that stick out, players that you're buying hype for or or surprises here on this list. Jim, I'll start with you.

Jim Root (20:19)
Yeah, I think the Condon ahead of Haugh is even fun just right off the bat for maybe the presumptive number one team in the country, Florida bringing back so many pieces from a number one seed. It's rare for a team that good to have the continuity that Florida was able to secure. I know Houk is I think discussed as maybe the highest paid NIL player in the sport. Kevin can correct me if I'm wrong there, but I think he's got quite some

Kevin Sweeney (20:40)
That's about right.

Jim Root (20:41)
some some great deals behind the scenes going on. I like a few of these rankings because Evan, they back up my own.

Perceptions. And we did a top 100 players listed basket under review. And a couple of the guys I was really high on. I I was the only one of the three voters that had fears number one. So I like seeing him on a tier of his own. I think what he did to just make other players better around him is captured in that offensive BPR. You've got there, it's not all his own scoring. It's what he does to set everybody up, to get into the right spots, to put stress on the defense. I like seeing him number one. I think that's a worthy spot.

Chance Mallory at number nine stands out. I know your model loved him last year, and quite honestly, so did pretty much every analytical measure. He was a standout guy on per minute stats. any all-in-one measure, he was incredible and he wasn't playing huge minutes for them. But man, it sets up well for a guy stepping into a sophomore breakout. I think there's been some comparisons, maybe not explicitly in their games, but in impact to Christian Anderson at Texas Tech last year.

guy that was really good and then suddenly burst onto the scene at an all American caliber as a sophomore. that one makes sense. And then a little further down the list outside of the top ten, I would cite Malachi Moreno at twelve. I was really high on him in our Baskin Review player rankings and I think there was some consternation about that. But I I like to see some support there. Mason Falslev at seventeen outside of the P five. He's playing for his third coach at Utah State, but he's just been

good every single year. So I think those are some good names that maybe wouldn't have been thought of as All American candidates based on production last year, but what you've got them at as is impact, I think shows just really how the how how good they are.

I don't know, Kevin, any any of these I I I maybe my Moreno comment would be I'm shocked he's ahead of Krievas. 'Cause I think we know what Mo Krievas is defensively and was so maybe in a bigger role offensively this year with what they've lost. but leaping ahead of him with Moreno, that that stood out to me.

Kevin Sweeney (22:40)
Yeah, I think it's it's the Moreno ranking is ambitious but certainly possible. And I do think you see like the the clear pathway for for some of these breakouts. You mentioned Mallory. you know, certainly Moreno qualifies. David Mirkovic to me is like the number one breakout guy in the country. I think David I I I I picked him in one of my bold predictions pieces in the summer is the national player of the year. I'm kinda sticking by that. I I think he's that good and you know, all reports out of Champagne are that he has had just like an unfathomably good summer before his foot injury.

so excited about him. I did think big picture, one of the things that was fascinating to me was just the concentration around point guards and bigs. Like there's very few guys outside of those positions in these rankings, at the very elite part of the sport. I think, you know, a a big part of that number one is probably just the fact that the best wings tend to be the clearest NBA prospects. They leave earlier. but I do think it also reflects itself in how

you know, schools are spending their money and and concentrating their resources very heavily into the front court. again, a lot of guys that you might think are a little overrated here are are guys that got massive, massive paydays because of the value that they bring to their teams. Moreno certainly would would be an example of that. Both the Vic brothers being top twenty players, I certainly disagree with I disagree on Savanimir. he he's sho he's shown too many times like that's my thing. But I I know the the the Evan Mia model has long long loved

Big Z. So Big Z can can have his spot in the top 20, but it look it's a good reflection. Like Big Z is making a ton of money for a reason. And it's because like people see his value even when the lows are certainly very low. So I think that is that is notable. certainly in the top 20. It's just like very, very heavily point guards and fives. and I think that that that backed is backed up pretty well with the the the state of the market NIL wise. The only other thing I would point out, no freshman in the top thirty. that surprises me. I do think

you know, a couple of guys who are just below that in in your rankings, Tyron Stokes and Jordan Smith, probably belong a little bit higher. But again, I fully I fully acknowledge the challenges of modeling modeling freshmen. And so yeah, w don don't think it's egregious, even though I do think I would certainly rank Tyron as a top ten player in the country, maybe top five, and then Jordan Smith would probably be in the the top fifteen to twenty for me.

Evan (24:57)
You guys literally hit

Jim Root (24:57)
Right on that note.

Evan (24:58)
on all of the the main points here that I thought were interesting and fleshing out here because I'll just kind of go from from from most recent to last. Yes, no freshmen or notably no newcomers at all in the top 30 here. This is something that has been kind of a trend in what I've seen from from modeling freshman performance in college over the last 10 years, is outside of the cases where you have a Cooper Flag coming in, who is clear like the best NBA prospect in years, or a year like last year.

Where you had a top three in Cameron Boozer, A.J. Abanta, Darren Peterson, who all were just regarded as being some of the best talent we've seen in a long time. Oftentimes, when you look at the top, say, five guys in a freshman class, in terms of how they actually do in their freshman year, not necessarily NBA career if they stay multiple years in college, their freshman season, oftentimes you're gonna have a freshman who's gonna be an all American or second or third team all American.

But you don't always necessarily know which of those top three to five guys it will be. And everyone is often more bullish on their team's player who's coming in than what actually happens. And so there's as many misses as hits. A miss being a guy who's a very solid player for his team, but maybe not a top 50 player in the country or you know, necessarily a lock for first team all conference or something like that. So this year, notably, it's been talked about the freshman class is a lot lower, at least in terms of the top players.

Than we've had in previous seasons. And from a modeling perspective, and looking at their individual profiles, like coming into previous years, I had Cooper Flag as I think the second best player in the country coming into his year. Cameron Boozer was the same in last year. This year, Jordan Smith is the top-ranked freshman. He's 31st in the country, and Tyron Stokes is 35th. I'm like, that does seem low. And if you were putting odds on one of these guys ending up as a top 10 player in the country,

You could certainly say they have a much higher ceiling than a lot of the players on this top 30 list. But there is just a lot more uncertainty in terms of for a season-long consistency in terms of impact at the college level, especially offense and defense. A lot of times it's a little bit more hit or miss than that. on the freshman to sophomore year thing, looking at guys like Chance Mallory, David Merkovich, you know, Merck obviously being a little older, but Malachi Marino.

This is another thing that I've often seen is my model takes into account not just how they performed in their freshman season, but there is a lot of often for some of these top high school recruits who stay in college multi multiple years and expected freshman to sophomore year leap that you're not gonna expect the same from someone who's going from the third season to the fourth season. So that really does help a lot of guys like Chance Mallory, Malachi Moreno being examples there. And towards the top bottom of the top 30 list, there's some other guys as well.

and then yeah, Sweeney mentioned this too. I have noticed this for for the last couple of years. There really is a lack of elite wings in the sport, especially when you look at preseason and postseason stuff. Like point guards and bigs are demanding the most in the NIL market for good reason. And in the college game, the point guard obviously point guard play is very important, and bigs are able to dominate in this sport in particular, more so than they may when they go on to the NBA.

Whereas the wings are often the ones who aren't staying as long in college because they have more draft potential. So all of that stuff was was astute there. okay, we're gonna go ahead and move on to the starting unveiling the top 30 or so teams on the site. And one of the things that you're gonna to see on the site as well as it on YouTube here is we're unveiling this and we're gonna talk about this. There's a very important distinction because I have rated every team based on if their full roster of guys is available.

But I have also rated them based on if many of their eligibility case situations don't go in their favor and those guys aren't on the roster. With that being said, I haven't accounted for everything. so there's gonna be some examples where where you know a team may have a a player or two who should be on that's not, but that's an important thing to keep in mind as we we go through this. So the way I wanted to do this is from a numerical perspective.

The most important thing to keep in mind with the ordering of the team rankings is not so much like, do I have a team ranked fifth or sixth? It's what's the numerical gap there? Because I have gone through iterations of these preseason team rankings where I've tweaked the model slightly, recomputed, and then some teams shuffle. And it's not because, my goodness, I suddenly decided that this team was better than this team. It's because they were so close in in difference that

You know, one team went slightly up or slightly down. So I thought the appropriate way to unveil the top 30 here was to do it in tiers based on teams that are grouped relatively similarly. And this kind of gives a much better perspective of how these teams are really separated from the rest of the pack. So we're gonna start with the top three teams here in what I'm calling tier number one. It's Florida, Duke, and Illinois in that order. And you guys saw a pre s a version of these rankings last week when I had Duke ahead of Florida. That's because Duke and Florida.

Are really neck and neck here, and Illinois is a little bit behind them that, but they're still comfortably ahead of the rest of the teams in this top 10. And so I felt like it was appropriate to group these three teams together. And specifically to mention, Florida will be going in as my number one team, but the gap between them and Duke is very close. And if you were to take Denzel Aberdeen off the Florida team, for example, Duke would would jump to number one. Illinois is is solidly in third there, but all three of these teams.

Did a great job of roster retention and getting key pieces here, especially in the in the cases of Florida and Illinois, who return pretty much everyone that they're possibly able to get. so Jim, any thoughts here on on these three teams in terms of the ordering? And do you think it's appropriate that Florida, Duke, and Illinois are kind of in their own tier at the top here?

Jim Root (30:55)
I definitely agree in the top two. I I think I've but gone back and forth a little bit with Florida and Duke and I've tried to decide myself if Aberdeen is out. Does that actually bump Duke ahead? So it's funny that it does change the outcome for you between those two. I have Illinois comfortably in the top four. There's a a fourth team that I I guess I can just say is I think UConn is up in that level and

I I've seen Illinois fans joke about, well, we can't be above them until we beat them, given the the history of Brad Underwood against Dan Hurley. So I get that head-to-head that that little hang-up for them. But on an overall season-long basis, yeah, maybe they'll end up with the higher efficiency margin and and differentiate themselves here. But to me, like these are clearly three of the top four most talented teams in the country. They all have outstanding coaches and

Yeah, Kevin, I I have no issue and there's like a my god, what is Evan he he's got this big reveal at a top three team. I I think we've settled on on three of the best teams in the country for sure.

Kevin Sweeney (31:56)
Yeah, I totally agree. I have maybe like an ounce of reticence around Duke that doesn't seem like is captured by just about anyone else right now nationally. And it it essentially just comes back to the fact that Duke has had like an analytically broken player the last two years, one in Cooper Flagg, one in Camboozer. Like they like those guys are are two of the most productive college basketball players in like the two thousands, you know? It's it's remarkable what they accomplished.

And I think while Duke's roster is still very, very good, they don't necessarily have that. I know there's a lot of excitement about Joaquin Boomchay Boomche. I know in in your rankings, Evan, he's a little bit more that that's more wait and see, which I think is rational given his age. He's 17 years old. you rank Patrick Gongba as a top five player. I'm not quite there. I know that obviously will raise alarms. And and part of that is just like health, right? P he he has dealt with a lot of injuries, especially injuries that are difficult for for bigs to deal with with their feet.

those things tend to tend to linger. So I do think there's a world where Duke maybe isn't quite in tier one. I did have UConn in in my tier one as well. but I think these are the those are the four three to four teams that you feel feel best about. also just very quickly, I know there's a lot of talk like the last several years, the preseason number one team more in the polls than in, you know, Ken Pom, Evan, Mia, et cetera, has has really disappointed. I do think Florida's sort of uniquely built to not experience something like that, if only because, you know

A lot of times those teams have been how do I say this? Though th those teams have that that were number one, we you were like projecting a leap that probably was never going to come from a returning established group, right? Like so Purdue is a perfect example. They returned everyone from a good team and everyone expected it to go from good to magnificent. And their floor was very high, but their ceiling wasn't high enough to deal with the the monsters of last year, the Michigans, the Arizona's, etc. Right? Florida was

a monster or darn close last year in terms of the way they play their two way profile defensively, offensively, and they bring all of that back. I have a hard time believing that they aren't elite, right? Again, is it possible Florida's not the best team in college basketball? Of course. They could they could be fourth or fifth, but like there there's no North Carolina fall off or Kansas level fall off with Dickinson or even last year's Purdue, I think, would be like a pretty surprising outcome. It would require some injuries and bumps that you wouldn't expect to to happen for them to to wind up

you know, more mediocre in in my opinion. So certainly this a safe choice for Florida as as number one.

Evan (34:27)
Yeah, I think the floor for Florida is arguably the highest of any team we've seen ever in terms of the fact that this team already got at one seed last year. Most of the players on this team won a national title two years ago. They get everybody back and they add in some d potentially Denzel Aberdeen and some other pieces to increase the strength of the roster. The only notable player that they're, you know, losing is is, you know, Xavier Lee, potentially. So like the

There's really not a lot of reason to suggest that maybe they don't win a national championship. It's certainly not that or bust from a like, will their season be successful perspective? But like they've they've already shown that they're one of the top five teams in the country last year, and they have all those pieces back. So I think they're unless something crazy happens, they're going to be the preseason number one in the AP poll. And I think that's a very obvious choice. Illinois is the other team here that, from a roster retention perspective,

Did everything right. You know, basically they're losing Keaton Waggler. But other than that, they've got all of their European guys back, Merkovich, both of Viesic brothers, Stoyakovich is back, and some new talent as well. Like their their floor is also super high. And I've been a big believer in this, in this Duke squad. I think the reason I like Duke so much is they have such a that they may not have a Cooper Flagg or a Cam Boozer this year, but bringing in John Blackwell as a transfer really helps. He's going to be a proven scorer.

They have such a deep team. They have 10 players in my top 400 players nationally in the preseason. That's the only team that has 10 players in their rotation, all that ranked that high. So I just think that there's going to be such a relatively small quality drop off when they go deep into their bench. They're going to have such luxuries. They should be very injury proof this season, which is something they struggled with a little bit late last year.

so I I really like them from that perspective, and that's why they're ranked so highly. Let's go ahead and move to the next tier of teams. This is where things get a little interesting here. The next four teams that I've grouped together in this tier are Arizona in fourth, Gonzaga in fifth, Yukon in sixth, and Houston in seventh. If you're watching on YouTube, one thing that you will notice here is that I have the teams rank on the left and then rank ex excluding ineligible, which essentially means on every team.

If you stripped all of their players who are my my model has tagged as potentially in limbo eligibility wise, it also shows the difference in their ranking here. So for example, Gonzaga is fifth full healthy. But if some of their players in limbo, Xavien Lee, Javon Bennett, a transfer from Dayton, and Chauncey Wiggins transfer from Florida State, if they're all ruled ineligible, along with everyone else being ruled ineligible too, it's not just them, they would move down to ninth here. So that's an important distinction to to watch.

And the other thing I will point out here is something that I often look at here when I'm looking at why is a team ranked where they're ranked. I will look at two things. One is what is their roster talent rank, which is listed here and will be on the team rankings page. You can see the difference between a team's roster talent and where they're ranked now. And you can also see where they were ranked last year at the end of the season. So when I look at a team like Houston, for example, Houston only has the 17th best roster in terms of just on paper the collection of talent they have.

But they end up seventh in the overall preseason rankings. And that is because Kelvin Sampson and the success that he has had year over year in extracting a lot more value out of his roster than most other coaches could. That gets a lot of benefit here, benefit of the doubt. and so that's an interesting trend here to watch as as we kind of look through these. Kevin, I'll start with you. Any any comments on this group of teams here?

Kevin Sweeney (38:08)
Yeah, I think certainly a fair group. a group that definitely you know, I think the two teams that might raise a little bit of eyebrows would be Gonzaga and Houston and like those have been the two best analytically analytical profile teams of the last decade plus, right? Really of the Ken Pom era, certainly of the last decade for Houston for you, Gonzaga case longer. so yeah, I I would say I no no real palms as as you said, the eligibility question certainly loom large for both Arizona and Gonzaga.

you know, without Godfrey, Arizona doesn't have the quite the like snap you in half physicality, that that has really defined the Lloyd era. they really could use him and then certainly Gonzaga their guard play, very up in the air because not only do you have, you know, the the the Lee question mark and the Javon Bennett question mark still working through a European clearance and Nathan D'Souza, who played in France, who's like a sta stabilizer at point guard after they lost Mario Saint Superior to to to

return to Spain. So yeah, no qualms here really. although I am I am curious if you can answer this question briefly. Yukon's roster talent is fourth, yet they rank sixth. Is this like Danny Hurley hatred? Are you gonna should we should we should we stick some stuff in his office? Should we should we send this

Jim Root (39:19)
Yeah.

Kevin Sweeney (39:20)
clip to make sure that he knows that he's being doubted?

Evan (39:24)
my goodness. no, Dan Hurley, I do not doubt you on a personal or model basis. I I think something part of what goes into this is the the most recent season does carry the most weight in terms of looking at the the coaching aspect overall. And last year was a year when relative to and obviously, you know, or sorry, not last year, the the year prior when UConn was coming off back-to-back national champions, championships, and then

underwhelmed relative to their standards. Last year obviously was a very successful year. but it it's they're maybe two years ago is docking them a little bit here. Honestly, I I wouldn't the I haven't looked specifically at the separation between why their roster talent is fourth and they go down to six. It's probably fine margins there. but but I'm not not no Dan Hurley disrespect in that regard.

Kevin Sweeney (40:12)
Bullets and board material. Bullets and board material.

Jim Root (40:14)
Yeah.

Like he needs any more of it. Like he needs any more of it. He'll he'll create it from thin air if he has to. the thing that stood out to me is all four of these teams have a top ten or fifteen player in your in your player ratings as the anchor to what they're good at. Like Gonzaga is the number four offense because Bradenhoff is an elite offensive player. Houston and Arizona have got their incredible defensive anchors with Crevas and Tuggler. Look at where they're ranked defensively. And then you've got Connecticut with Demery as the kind of the two-way star at point guard.

and and that's why they're slotted at six, or a big reason why. The questions with with some of these teams is like range of outcomes. You know, I I would say like Houston and UConn maybe have a pretty high floor, especially UConn. I think they've got so many player options. But if you take out Godfrey from Arizona, like who are their players, six through nine? D does that team have multiple lineups that can dominate, or is it just the one? And you look back at last year they played

one starting lineup in all but three of their games when Co-opete had to sit out. Like they had really good health luck. And if you're a team that's come coming into the season thin and you're relying on the same kind of health luck, that that makes me a little bit concerned. and 'cause I think Arizona with their lack of proven bench options could be one that has the the season that dips down to fifteenth or something if it doesn't all go right.

Evan (41:33)
Yeah, certainly compared to some of these other teams, Arizona will be relying more on some of the transfers that they have coming in, right? They have, you know, five notable guys and Caleb Holt, who's a newcomer. I do really think even though you know, Krievas could arguably be the best defensive player in the country, just having him back and and Karchenkov coming back both, I think is just really, really massive. and certainly is is a big factor in why they're they're ranked so high. And Tommy Lloyd

Has been excellent in recent years in really getting his teams to perform better than the the sum of their parts. okay, let's go ahead and move to the next tier here in tier three, kind of starting in eighth. Here we have Michigan State, Alabama nine, Louisville 10, St. John's 11, and Texas Tech 12. I do think it's very important with this group to note the difference between their fully healthy or fully available roster and their ineligible roster. Alabama.

has its own particular case going on or situation with Aiden Holloway due to legal matters. Will he be able to play or not? That's pretty much entirely the difference between Alabama being ranked ninth if he's there and 14th if he's not. And then you've got St. John's and Texas Tech, both of whom have a lot of guys kind of pending there. And I think for St. John's, I haven't even accounted for some of the international guys who could be kind of in that status. but for Texas Tech, they really

went all in on potentially getting some of these fifth year eligible guys. Darion Williams, they're trying to get back. Donovan Atwell, Jamicha Stilwell. The difference between Texas Tech with all those guys and not is 12th to 27th. And that is already with me kind of assuming JT Toppin's not going to be fully healthy. And so it's a question mark of of how much he'll be able to play throughout the season or be full healthy at the end of the season. But if they had all of their pieces and e everyone there, you know, Texas Tech with a top twelve ranking,

So that certainly sticks out to me. I think St. John's is maybe a little bit higher than than than you might see on consensus. But I think if they get all of their guys who they could get, Reed Bailey and Keyshawn Hall are still kind of in that eligibility window, limbo. They have some international players who who could potentially be in trouble there, but they've got everybody. I really like a lot of the pieces that they have. I think they have a really strong squad. And Rick Pettino is Rick Pettino as well. so he gets a lot of credit there too. Kevin, any thoughts on this list here?

Kevin Sweeney (43:56)
Yeah, I mean just so many fascinating groups. You know, Texas Tech, the ultimate chaos agent, you you basically laid it out. No idea what to expect from them. I also think like and this is probably where n where numbers can't capture, fascinated with a lot of these fifth year guys. Like, where is their head at? How much do they actually want to be playing college basketball right now? you know, I think

Evan (44:17)
Yeah, notably

where is your head at is not a variable I have in my model. So I'm gonna work on that for next year.

Kevin Sweeney (44:20)
Yeah, it's it's not Yeah, I mean,

y y get get to work. But like like like someone like Darion Williams, who has been essentially chewed up and spit out by the NBA, like it's been made it's made it's made pretty clear to him over the last three years really that like college basketball is the best he's gonna do, he's not gonna not give me an NBA player, didn't even come close to to being a draft pick this year, was kind of like lingering lingering in Lubbock, hanging around and all of a it's like, we have a path to eligibility, let's get this thing done. Like, what just just what does it look like? Is is is are you a

70% and taking a paycheck or like where where where are you at? Like those are the things that will be really difficult to to to wrap your head around. So even beyond will these guys play? It's like will they play to their potential? I think is an interesting question with a lot of the lot of these guys. And then I think the St. John's question is fascinating. Like the ultimate winner of a coach with some guys that maybe don't play the most winning style of basketball. Tunde Yesafu known to pound it a little bit and you know, did d him and Cam Carr seemed to kind of take turns at Baylor last year shooting the basketball.

Keyshawn Hall has never been shy about shooting the basketball. Ian Jackson loves to shoot the basketball, won wants the ball in his hands. It's a lot of balls and only one there. There's a lot of guys who want the ball and only one basketball. And, you know, the guy who probably will have it in his hands most is their point guard, Quinn Ellis, who's also an eligibility limbo as he works through the international stuff and tries to get cleared after being a starter on a on a Euroleague team. So yeah, two those two teams it it are truly like toss your hands up. We'll see what they look like on on November second.

Jim Root (45:45)
I had to double take because I was like, wait, which which Alabama guy is five for five? But it makes sense that it's it's the Holloway issue that's that's causing the gap between their two different rankings on on the left side there. Michigan State and Louisville being the stable ones here makes sense, particularly Michigan State. You know, I I think with fears and the depth of wing scoring options, you know, they've suddenly got a ton of guards in wings. After last year it was like, who's that gonna be?

Now you have Tang, you have Jervis, the freshman coming in, Caleb Glenn is back, he gives you like another 3-4 option. Suddenly their questions are at center. You know, no Carson Cooper, no Jackson Kohler walking through the doors. Is Bonk gonna be the guy that actually figures it out for Tom Ezra? I'm skeptical there, and I don't know if they can climb all the way to number one in the country, but they seem like such a stable floor. Louisville brought in Floyd Badunga. I'm curious, Evan, if you would know, or you can even speak to the process. Had Badunga stayed at Kansas

Where does he rank in the player rankings? I I think he was eighth in the list we just looked at now that he moved and transitioned over to Louisville. But if he is still in Bill Sell's system and and developing there, does that elevate him even higher? but either way, Louisville is they they've gotten him, they brought in a ton of talent. I think they really opened the checkbook this off season. And that's a team that, you know, curiously is higher if everybody is ineligible.

But they also have, you know, Melo Trim or Seth Trimble is is lurking as a potential addition for them. And then they just added LJ Wells as a depth option over the weekend. so it's almost like Louisville, they I'm sure the fans want Trimble in the lineup, but they're like, wait, if we're gonna rank higher without all of these guys, maybe we should just start cheering against five for five, because we're we're better off than a lot of these other teams would be.

Evan (47:27)
Yeah, notably on the Badunga question. I don't change a player's ranking based on what team they play for. It's all just kind of based on the the individual player quality. However, I do have a different number for a guy or different model based on if he's returning to the same team or transferring, because oftentimes there's a slightly different data that matters for returners versus transfers. Your impact on team performance can often be more consistent, whereas if you're being in a different style and fit, some of those factors are don't correlate as often.

So I don't have this in front of me, but Bedunga probably would have an even higher ranking slightly if you were returning. That's usually the case for a lot of the top guys, is that oftentimes the top players, if they return to their team, they end up playing better than if they transfer. so I don't think it would have changed that much, but might be slightly higher. but but yeah, I do agree with that. Okay, let's move to the next tier here of teams. number 13 is Texas, 14 Iowa State.

15 Michigan, 16 Tennessee, 17 LSU, 18 Kentucky, a slew of notable SEC teams here. Texas, I think I probably have a little bit lower than where I've seen some of the the the conversation around them this year. I have them as the ninth best roster, so a top 10 roster. one of the factors here is you know they they finished, they barely got in the tournament. Obviously, they they had a great tournament run, but we're relatively

lower success-wise than they could have been based on the talent they had. So that might be hurting them a little bit. I do think from a roster perspective, one of the big pieces that they got this offseason is David Punch. And I my model just does not like him as much as as some others might. I don't think he's in my top 100 players going into the season. In fact, I don't think Texas has a top 50 player. so that certainly is is maybe a factor why they're a little bit lower here. I do also think it's worth

having a conversation here about LSU because LSU is going to be by far the biggest case of difference between if they get everyone eligible and not. And I'm not even accounting for all of the all of the players here who could miss out. Right now, LSU I have ranked 17th, 12th best roster if everyone is available. but when we're talking about players who are still kind of hoping to get eligible, they've got two fifth year guys and Donovan Dent, who would be the number one player on the team according to my preseason rankings.

And Sky Clark, number four, who are still trying to get eligible. and they also have a myriad of very good international players coming in, a bunch of guys who my international model really likes. there's four of them in particular that are, you know, three or four of them who are 22 or 23 years old, who are have great success playing internationally. and all of them could potentially be

ineligible right now if you look at LSU's official roster page they still only have four guys listed there it's Mohammed Diabate Bashir Uguchuku and Asan Nunez so at best this is we're looking at like a team that could be a top 20 team based on the the pieces they have obviously if everything goes to plan but my my down case for them here says 35th. I think it's much worse than that because there could be more than just two or three players who get ineligible. So

That certainly is just a a very notable point there. Of like, I don't think anyone I I I wouldn't be happy saying, like, hey, I guys, I'm a an LSU backer this year. I don't think no one really wants to be in that camp given how much they're ruffling feathers. But I just will say based on just purely the roster, if they were to get everyone available, it is gonna be a pretty formidable squad. So I think that is notable. and then I'll just mention something on Kentucky and then open it up to you guys. Kentucky, another one of these teams that would benefit a lot from

A bunch of other teams losing their players. Kentucky, I have 18th, but they would move up to twelfth because I as far as I know, they don't have anyone that is has questionable eligibility after they went ahead and dropped Mark Mitchell from potentially on their roster. I'm I'm really high on Malachi Marino as we talked about. Manchillovich, maybe not quite as high as some, but top fifty player. Usman and Jai is one of the better international guys according to my model. So you know, top fifteen ish team there.

Jim, I'll start with you. Any thoughts on this list here?

Jim Root (51:47)
Yeah, to continue the LSU discussion, and maybe that's a whole separate one relative to this entire tier. I I think the angst with them is that the other teams that are super reliant on the fifth year guys, you know, look at this list, Texas Tech, St. John's, you you can kind of understand why. Like Donnie Freeman tore his ACL and St. John's like, we need to go get Keyshawn Hall. Texas Tech is dealing with the JT Toppin injury and how that affected their budget and everything. I don't know exactly, but it it was a s

of a hard how how do you figure out how to build that roster there? Will Wade entered with a blank slate and decided what I'm gonna do is test the rules. I I'm I'm gonna build this roster through international guys. And if that doesn't work, no five for five is an option now. I'm gonna rely on that. And I think that's where everybody has so much like the the the the collective college basketball fan opinion is cheering against LSU. And I'm sure Tiger fans are gonna love that, be like us against the world, let's circle the wagons.

They've kind of got the same thing going in football too, so why not? but that that's where that animosity comes in. One question I I would have, just I think it would jump out to people from this this group, is that roster rank of Tennessee being 29th, because I think the reputation of their transfer portal class is whoa. Like look what they brought in, look at all the scores. You add up their points per game, they're gonna score 140 a game this year. You do all that that math. but that's not the whole story. there's not a you know defensive

Portion of the points per game aspect. So I think your model captures that a little bit. And it's probably a little sobering for Tennessee fans that are like, man, we brought in every transfer that visited. We got everybody we wanted. And yes, they have Jalen Washington as the five for five guy waiting to come in and hopefully fix the defense. But looking at that number, 29th roster rank, I think there would be some some Valls fans that would say, wait a second, what what happened here compared to our our transfer class?

Kevin Sweeney (53:41)
Yeah, I don't want to speak for Evan, but I think that's all really defensive numbers. It's how you end up with like Juke Harris as the hundred and fiftieth or hundred and forty ninth ranked player in the country, and Miles Rubin is their highest rated player. I I do not agree with those things. I do think Juke is a lot better than that. I think Jalen Harrelson's a lot better than that. I think Terrence Hill is a a whole lot better than two hundred and forty sixth. But like b again, I think it's the beautiful thing of of a model. Like you don't want to

But put your hand on the scale too much and let the thing cook. And those guys those guys produce produced a lot, but were also in in many cases in like very good environments to produce. Like Terrence Hill was successful in part because he was surrounded with like some absolute goon athletes that could like cover for him defensively, and protect protected him. you know, that that's a great example of it. But you know, ju you know, Juke's team didn't win, Harrelson's team didn't win. Like there's a reason why. And I think that's I would I would imagine that's what the model's saying. The one other thing I'd point out,

The Texas rank is interesting to me, mostly in the sense of you have Texas as the eighth best offense and sixteenth best defense. I would be s again, and and we're saying the the model is a little lower on Texas than national consensus. I would be very surprised if Texas is a sixteenth best defense in the country. That seems very ambitious to me with the way that they're built, around Boca Titus, who is is not the type of anchoring big that can really like set up your defense. You're gonna have to play a certain way. Defensively, you're gonna have to let sit and drop and

play very conservatively. their defense in in some ways will remind me of like EYU or Purdue, the last couple of years where like they had like these clear flaws and are probably gonna play just like super conservative and try to survive on that end of the floor. so if you know, but maybe maybe that this is a good kind of sobering reminder to the national national national media, the other people doing rankings like, hey, Texas is super talented, but for them to get where we're talking about them being a top five to ten team.

They either have to really overperform defensively compared to what I think people are expecting, or they have to be a absolute fire hose offensively and be, you know, one of the two to three best offenses in college basketball. It's gonna be hard to do. It's not impossible, but it's gonna be hard to do. It's a tight rope tight rope they're gonna have to walk to to to meet expectations.

Evan (55:44)
Yeah, we'll comment on on Tennessee really quickly because yeah, they have been one of these teams that I think any no any single player here could be better than what I'm projecting. But as a team build, they are definitely the kind of build that generally my my statistical model doesn't love as much as what they're they're trying to achieve with this kind of roster build. A team that's full of a bunch of guys who get high volume scoring numbers, maybe with some questionable efficiency, maybe aren't as good on the defensive end.

And putting those all in the same team and having a bunch of mouths to feed, you know, it's maybe you're limiting how much all those guys can individually shine. With that being said, though, roster rank of 29th, but a final team ranking of 16th, Rick Barnes factor here is pretty huge. And so from that perspective, like the the coaching staff here gets a lot of the benefit of the doubt to kind of help, you know, raise the the the level of performance here for these players.

Let's go ahead and get the rest of this top 30 in here. I'm just gonna kind of drop the rest of these teams and we don't have to talk about all of them, but but just a point or two here. Arkansas 19, Miami 20, UCLA 21, Virginia 22, Auburn 23, BYU 24, Nebraska 25, Baylor 26, Oklahoma 27, Kansas 28, Georgia, 29, Villanova 30. And again, just as a disclaimer, this is with

All of the guys that they want being able to play, the difference between that and ineligible you can see on the site. any I I think generally speaking, I'm a probably a little bit lower in Arkansas. I like Auburn a little bit more. I also really like Baylor's roster. but but Jim, I'll start with you. One or one or two teams that stick out to you here on this list.

Jim Root (57:29)
Yeah, I'm sure Arkansas fans were like, There's I see seven SEC teams and we're not up there yet. Like they were they were shy. Maybe it's not seven. I I didn't do the individual math, but like that that twelve through eighteen group had plenty of SEC squads and suddenly there's there's Arkansas at nineteenth. Virginia stands out to me. Down there at at twenty-second, they were really a kind of an analytical darling last year in Odom's first season.

And you look at some, there there's not a lot of other analytical projections out there, because it's it's hard to be brave when you don't know who the rosters are gonna be. But they're sitting at third at Bart Torvik. And I I think maybe there's a couple individual pieces that are measured differently. But we talked about how high you are and your system is on Mallory. And Tys de Ritter was also sneaking in the back end of that top thirty players. So that that goes to show how maybe questionable the the complimentary guys are are unproven there at this level with Odom.

coming in there because I I think there is a a case that they could be really, really good. We're recording this on Monday and that's when they came out at number ten in the basket under review top fifty to to always be plugging there. but they're they're down there at twenty second. Another team that's probably hoping there aren't fifth years eligible because they would slide up a little bit in the rankings. But it jumped out to me there. one other one I I I guess Baylor and Oklahoma stand out, but y you mentioned those two a little bit. Kansas down at twenty eighth. This is

Unfortunately, the zone that Bill Self has sort of lived in the last three years in the portal era and you know the roster is certainly reflective of where Stokes is ranked outside the top 30th. I'm sure, you know, Kevin, you can mention how how you are on Stokes himself and changing his projection would probably slide them up quite a bit. But you know, we grew crew go so comfortable in a world where Bill Self was gonna be a one or two seed almost every single season and and now they're not even top twenty-five in the preseason projections. It's it's a wild turn of events in in Lawrence there.

Kevin Sweeney (59:20)
Yeah, a lot of you know real questions about the roster outside of Tyron. that's part of the deal of spending, you know, many millions on one guy. I do think Tyron is probably closer to the Boozer Debanza Peterson grouping than like your average number one recruit. if you're just looking up your talent and pr and production. I mean the guy was unbelievable. you know, I think those the the questions that reside with him are, you know

the maturity, the the questions, you know, he's bounced around high schools, things like that that will be difficult for any system to capture and difficult for scouts to wrap their brains around as as we get closer. So Kansas certainly relying on him being that level of dude for them to get where they want to go. I I think he has the ability to ability to and it'll be a a real test of self in his in his approaching retirement, I suppose, to see what what type of juice he has with a an elite recruit like that to to get them to kind of keep their head on straight.

The other one I'm fascinated by was was UCLA. Obviously a team that has a a truly difficult piece to evaluate. Nicola Kusterica, who's 17 years old, super talented, might be the number one pick contender in 2028. How good is he? We mentioned him with we mentioned it with Boomchay Boomchay. Hard to model a guy like that because of the lack of actual like senior production. it's been done done a lot of his stuff in in at the youth level. But the one thing I wanted to circle is, you know, you have their defensive they rank at twenty-fourth nationally, Evan. They were forty-ninth last year.

was the second we one of the worst defenses in Cronin's tenure, especially with like a normal team that was good. you know, they they they were bad defensively. some of the early years when he wasn't very good. They were bad defensively when, you know, they were you know, with with the way that the roster was built the one year with all the internationals didn't pan out. but you you seem to be projecting a bit of a bounce back and like the personnel doesn't necessarily scream that to me, right? Number one, a seventeen year old, probably not great for your defense.

Give Xavier Booker, probably not great for your defense in terms of like his phys l lack of physicality. some questions of like a true four. Eric Daly's a little undersized, he'll play a lot of four this year. The guards are are smaller, right? Trent Perry is not or Trent Perry's an okay defender. Jalen Petty is not a good defender, at least at this stage in his career. that balance with losing Sky Clark, who is a a bit of a demon on that end of the floor and was really, really good. just fascinated by by UCLA generally because I think they have a lot of pieces I like.

But maybe not necessarily a a true thrown in type operation and and what do they end up looking like will be a a fascinating one for me early in the year and how good is is Kusteritza, who's it's one of the most unique talents in the country.

Evan (1:01:50)
Yeah, I mean, certainly from a numerical perspective, like there's not a standout defensive player on UCLA, but notably some of these other teams on this list have some players who have a projected defensive rating that's below zero, which would be like below national average. As far as I can tell, like UCLA's top eight or nine guys are all above a one point zero, which isn't great, but there's no like massive defensive, like ser at least according to the model, no massive defensive holes. So I think their ranking being that high is less to do with.

one or two key standout players and more that the model just isn't you know massively bothered by by anyone in particular. I don't know if that's exactly the way that you would want your team to be talked about, but that's just kind of how that works there. we could certainly spend more time on this top 30 list. for the sake of time, we're gonna wrap that conversation up and I will certainly be analyzing this. Some of these top teams that I'm really into more later on this preseason. Two other things I want to quick just do some quick hitters on

I wanted to just talk about some of the top mid majors in the country. So here we're looking at the top 20 preseason mid majors. This is basically all of the the conferences outside the the power conferences, including the new Pac 12 here. so just some notable teams here Grand Canyon at 43rd, VCU 45th, New Mexico 56th, St. Louis 58th. Those are the four teams that come inside the top 60.

but there's there's some other teams here which you can see if you're watching on YouTube. Jim, just any thoughts real quickly on on some of these teams and who are you most excited for from this list?

Jim Root (1:03:23)
I like to see Grand Canyon at the top and the the gap between their rank with players and rank without shows what they've done in the the fifth year market. They're bringing back some key pieces, they're bringing in some key pieces, and and I think that raises both the floor and the ceiling. And we'll we'll see whether Bryce Drew can, you vault them all the way up to like a top 30 team with everybody eligible, but it's possible. VCU, not surprising to see them here. Slew with with Josh Shirts back as well, two really, really strong squads in the A ten.

Then you see three others on this list, and maybe the A ten is gonna push for a three-bid league finally at long last with the expansion to seventy-six teams here. high point sitting there at sixty second, roster rank of sixty-fifth. That's like they're in P five talent levels, like fringe P five type stuff. Like I don't know, Kevin, you could tell me they they're outspending how many ACC teams this year? That's that's an interesting question. but

That's a really good team that won a game in the NCAA tournament last year and can s could conceivably do it again this coming season. And then the last thing I'll mention before handing it off to you is those two Missouri Valley squads tangling back to back in the rankings, eighty-fifth, eighty-sixth, Murray State is loaded with especially international talent. What they spent on some of those pieces coming over from from Europe is really impressive and they got some continuity as well. And then UIC more of an internal develop.

'cause they brought so many pieces back from last season. it's a cool little one versus the other atop that league there.

Kevin Sweeney (1:04:54)
Yeah, I mean that's th that's again, maybe I'm like too broken brained on NIL figures, but like seeing UIC and Murray back to back when you know the the gap in roster spend I think is something like five X what Murray has versus what UIC has. and look, I I I think to me that is as much the story as anything of of looking at this list of like the investment that some of these programs have made to tr to try to be competitive. you know, and again some some to s bigger scales than others, right? High point is literally trouncing everyone else in their league financially.

whereas you know, and Murray too is trouncing the valley. Whereas, you know, the A ten, there's a number of really good spenders. the WCC there's a handful of very good ones. And again, teams that have at least spent competitively, right? Like a San Diego has spent a lot more, St. Mary's has spent a lot more. So maybe Santa Clara isn't, you know, head and shoulders above anyone, but they're certainly committed and got Elijah Mahi back while awaiting eligibility clearance there. That's an interesting one for sure. But yeah, I think a lot of teams have an opportunity to take advantage of expanded tournament fields if they can

kind of win some some marginal games, especially early in the non-conference and stack some stack some wins, even if they're not monster needle mover wins. all those like fringe Q2, Q3 games do add up. We've seen that with especially in the in the web world. So yeah it's a it's a it's an interesting crop of of mid-majors. Again, it it sucks that there aren't a a ton with like tons of continuity roster wise. you know VCU is a a bit of an outlier there. St. Louis certainly an outlier there. a lot of these had to go

Wichita, great continuity, impressive there. But a lot of these teams had to go build it again. And that that takes resources but also shrewd coaching and of roster talent evaluation and a lot of these guys have done a really good job. So thought that was an

Evan (1:06:31)
Yeah, Grand

Canyon, you know, at the top here, 43rd, you know, we'll be hoping to make the tournament. If things go the way that they want with their roster, you're gonna look up and see a starting lineup that includes Trey Holoman, Dan Skillings, and Dylan Darling, which very much does not feel like a mid-major team. So they could have some heavyweight firepower there. And VCU, like notably, unlike a most mid-majors, is pretty much able to bring almost every notable player back from last year, other than Terrence Hill Jr. so that's part of why their roster stacks up so well there.

something I'll mention real quick before we get out of here is I'm not gonna have this, you won't be able to see this on the site, but something that you can I have internally calculated for all these teams is not just their their projected rating, but also the level of uncertainty attached to that rating. So if you have a team with a lot more returning players or continuity versus a team with a lot of newcomers or or talent that's coming in that's a little bit more uncertain, you can kind of tally that up to a team level.

So when I was looking at the teams in the top 75 of the preseason team rankings, the top three teams in terms of the least amount of uncertainty or the most predictability, you could say this in some ways is like just having the highest floor, was Florida number one, Illinois number two, Michigan State number three. We already talked about Florida and Illinois having, you know, massive roster continuity. So that makes sense. Michigan State, especially with Jeremy Fears back, but also a bunch of other rotation players.

Again, not super surprising that they would have there would be a lot of confidence that they're gonna be around as good as what they're expected to be. On the flip side of things, the teams in the top 75 with the most amount of uncertainty, and this is with everyone on their roster coming back and that already being settled, LSU number one, obviously that that makes sense. with a new coach and a completely new roster, and and honestly, even just the the part that's not accounted for here, but like how much time

Do has that team had in the preseason to make things work? And what is the outside scuttlebutt around the team and how is that going to affect things? They're the most uncertain. North Carolina number two, Syracuse number three. Those are two other teams that stuck out to me as having a a wide range of outcomes for how those seasons could go. so I thought that was interesting. All right, great discussion today, fellas. We covered a lot. We could totally go longer with this, but I'm gonna go ahead and leave it there so we can kind of get this out. I really appreciate both of you joining me today.

Your analysis was excellent. Kevin and Jim, thank you so much for joining me today.

Jim Root (1:09:00)
Appreciate you having a seven. Appreciate you like I said, I was always always plugging. So if anybody's listening to this and is not a member at Basket Under Review, highly encourage you to do that. only ten dollars a month. You get website and Discord access. There's a lot of good stuff there. So be sure to check that out. The three man weave college basketball pod. We've got previews rolling out the way everybody does, conference preview time. So check that out too. And happy to have the opportunity to talk about it on your show here.

Kevin Sweeney (1:09:24)
Yeah, check out yeah, Sports Illustrated, our college coverage, rolling out at the season gets closer and also Bask under Review where I have my show with Eric Fawcett, Scout team, a lot of fun. Get into deep dives on some of these teams like Texas, like Yukon, like Florida, like Tennessee. we've we've talked about those from a more of a X in ro and film room lens, so definitely check that out. and yeah, this these are cool rankings. Please please support Evan's site and yell at him. It's not my fault. I had I had nothing to do with the rankings, so it's all on Evan if you don't like him.

Evan (1:09:54)
It is a part of my full-time job taking abuse from people who think that this is all just my own bias and opinion that goes into these things. so I'm well weathered at this point, but I'm sure there will be some people who are thrilled and unhappy, as is always the case. So, you know, we'll see how that goes.

Evan (1:10:15)
Thank you to Kevin Sweeney and Jim Root. They already mentioned where you can find them. Kevin Sweeney Sports Illustrated, Jim Root Basket on a review. They do such great, fantastic work. It was really awesome having them on the show today. EvanMia.com is updating on Friday. As I mentioned earlier in the show, you're going to have the full list of all teams and players out on Friday. And that should change fairly minimally over the rest of the preseason, though, as some of these more

this these cases get settled. Some of that stuff will will change back and forth a little bit. but there will be you you will on the site be able to toggle looking at a team's ranking based on if they have all their players eligible or ineligible. And hopefully I'll have some way of tagging which players are still in limbo as well. So on the team ratings and player ratings pages at evanmia.com is where you can find that. If you are not a subscriber at Evanmia.com, you can see.

Player pages with skill grades for all players in terms of how I'm actually predicting their three-point shooting and their offensive rebound and their overall offense and defense and court impact and all that stuff. If you're a subscriber, a premium subscriber, you can drill into that stuff at EvanMia.com. And that's going to include all of these newcomers. So Tyron Stokes, Jordan Smith, top D2 transfers, top international players, you can actually see.

Where my model expects for them to be relative to all other college basketball players based on their different skill sets. So definitely check that out. Also for subscribers as well. Game predictions are not up yet, but they will be sometime in the preseason leading up to the start of the season in November. so that's exclusive for subscribers as well. In terms of upcoming preseason content, there will probably be a couple week gap, but

When we get to early October-ish, I haven't exactly nailed the schedule down. We're going to have a couple really fun preseason episodes of additional content where we're going to get more in depth on what I find the most interesting, bringing on some other guests as well to talk about teams that I'm really excited, really high on. We're going to potentially be on the bandwagon for. we're also going to have a team statistical trends episode looking at

Certain teams with unique profiles this year and how that has played out historically, and whether that means we should be buying or selling on those teams. So that's going be really interesting. so I've got a couple things like that planned for the rest of the preseason on this show. And then in terms of the website itself at evanmea.com, some exciting new updates. as mentioned earlier on the show, I have a new projections model for all incoming international players, D2 players, and high school players.

So you're gonna be able to see all of that on the site very soon. And in addition, I've also been working on upgrading the website itself. Not that the look and feel is gonna change at all, but there are some things performance wise, you know, pages being slow and not having individual page links and things like that that have been kind of a pain for a while. It's all gonna get handled and refreshed. And I think the new website, you guys are really gonna like it. It's gonna be way faster, way easier to use.

And it's going allow for me to much more quickly in the future add and enhance new new site features there. So that's gonna drop it sometime in the preseason. I'm very, very excited about that. I think that's gonna be a real sort of life enhancer for a lot of people like myself who use the site on a regular basis. And then the last thing that I'm working on having ready before the season starts is a lot of people have been asking if I have an API available for.

More quickly accessing a lot of the data that's on the website. I am working on building that and building that as its own thing that you can purchase as a part of the EvanMia.com subscription packages. so I'm really excited to get the API done. Hopefully that will be done before the start of the season. So for those of you who are really in the weeds with that sort of thing, or if you're working for a team who really wants to use the Evan Mia model data as a part of your pipeline, the API is going to be really helpful too. So all of that stuff is coming up for the rest of this preseason.

So got a lot of stuff going on, but I'm very, very excited about it.

Well, that is a wrap for our show today. I really hope you guys enjoyed it. It was super, super fun after this long summer hiatus to have this dedicated episode for the preseason team rankings. and we're gonna have more stuff in the preseason, as I mentioned. As always, this is an ad free show. and so because of that, the reviews really, really help. If you are a podcast audio listener, give a five star review on Apple or Spotify. If you're on YouTube, there is a lot of really, really great reasons to be watching on YouTube.

Lots of visuals, lots of graphs that I put up. and of course the new intro animations and video assets that I mentioned at the beginning. Really check out the YouTube channel if you haven't. Subscribe to the channel if you're not subscribed already. That really helps for you to keep track of new videos that are coming. And again, I just thank you guys so much for listening and for being here. I'm really excited for this new season coming up. I will see all of you guys next time.