2022-23 MBB Preseason rankings

[gumbomoop]

Not sure if you're saying UNC isn't an ACC team (cus the cheatin and all that), but they are $1 in Borzello's rankings...

Ah, no, meaning yes, I just Freudian slipped up.

[Kedsy]

... you could potentially put Kansas and/or Creighton above us, and maybe Arkansas if you think they're going to turn their new OAD recruiting into results, but that's about it.

What would the rationale be for putting Arkansas above Duke? As I understand it, they have one returning player (who played more than 205 minutes last season), two upperclassmen transfers and a great recruiting class. We have one returning player, two upperclassmen transfers (who should be in the rotation), and a better recruiting class. I can see saying they might not be too far behind us, but it's hard to see why they would be ranked better than us (at least preseason).

[chrishoke]

What would the rationale be for putting Arkansas above Duke? As I understand it, they have one returning player (who played more than 205 minutes last season), two upperclassmen transfers and a great recruiting class. We have one returning player, two upperclassmen transfers (who should be in the rotation), and a better recruiting class. I can see saying they might not be too far behind us, but it's hard to see why they would be ranked better than us (at least preseason).

More proven coach?

[AGDukesky]

What would the rationale be for putting Arkansas above Duke? As I understand it, they have one returning player (who played more than 205 minutes last season), two upperclassmen transfers and a great recruiting class. We have one returning player, two upperclassmen transfers (who should be in the rotation), and a better recruiting class. I can see saying they might not be too far behind us, but it's hard to see why they would be ranked better than us (at least preseason).

Yeah I see UNC and Gonzaga as the only teams I would definitely put ahead of Duke. Houston looks really good on paper and Sampson has a nice system going, but two starters are returning from missing most of the season due to injury. Kentucky and Kansas can be argued of deserving a higher spot. Baylor might deserve some consideration given Drew’s recent regular season success vs Jon coaching his first season. Anyone else like Creighton, Indiana or Arkansas would be arguable but less justifiable.

So I see Duke being likely 3-7 but no worse than 10th.

[gumbomoop]

What would the rationale be for putting Arkansas above Duke? As I understand it, they have one returning player (who played more than 205 minutes last season), two upperclassmen transfers and a great recruiting class. We have one returning player, two upperclassmen transfers (who should be in the rotation), and a better recruiting class. I can see saying they might not be too far behind us, but it's hard to see why they would be ranked better than us (at least preseason).

This is a good point (or several), and is as much a challenge to my own listing of Arkansas as scottdude8’s. In fact, sd8 did say he thinks #5 is about right for Duke, whereas I think we’ll be consensus a bit lower. But maybe, consensus-wise, we will be #5. Do you, Kedsy, sd8, anybody else, think Duke either should or will be consensus top 4?

Re Arkansas: I’d guess they'll be ahead of Duke in somebody’s preseason rankings, as someone will say their incoming class is actually a bit underrated, Duke's maybe a little overrated. I will say, their 3 frosh I saw looked very good, made some impressive plays.

ETA — I see ^ that AGDukesky thinks we might be as high as preseason #3.

[CDu]

More proven coach?

Yeah the arguments I see as reasonable are Musselman > Scheyer and Mitchell bros plus Graham plus Council plus Brazile > Grandison plus Young.

And those are certainly strong arguments to make. We know Musselman can take a team filled with new faces and produce a winner. We don’t know if Scheyer can do that. And surely the five transfers (Mitchell brothers, Council, Graham, and Brazile) are better than our combo of Grandison and Young and Catchings.

So then it comes down to how much better the Duke freshman class is. It will likely need to be MUCH better than Arkansas’ class to offset the Hogs’ edge in transfer talent.

[scottdude8]

What would the rationale be for putting Arkansas above Duke? As I understand it, they have one returning player (who played more than 205 minutes last season), two upperclassmen transfers and a great recruiting class. We have one returning player, two upperclassmen transfers (who should be in the rotation), and a better recruiting class. I can see saying they might not be too far behind us, but it's hard to see why they would be ranked better than us (at least preseason).

To clarify, I wouldn't put Arkansas above Duke, but I think the argument could be made for it in the hypothetical world we're currently living in, in large part based on them bringing in more experienced guys from the portal. Arkansas' team will look very much like ours construction wise... if you put more of a weight on incoming freshman, our team looks better, but if you put more of a weight on the impact of experienced transfers, Arkansas may look better. I've seen Arkansas in the Top 5 in some early rankings, not that I agree with it.

This is a good point (or several), and is as much a challenge to my own listing of Arkansas as scottdude8’s. In fact, sd8 did say he thinks #5 is about right for Duke, whereas I think we’ll be consensus a bit lower. But maybe, consensus-wise, we will be #5. Do you, Kedsy, sd8, anybody else, think Duke either should or will be consensus top 4?

Re Arkansas: I’d guess they'll be ahead of Duke in somebody’s preseason rankings, as someone will say their incoming class is actually a bit underrated, Duke's maybe a little overrated. I will say, their 3 frosh I saw looked very good, made some impressive plays.

ETA — I see ^ that AGDukesky thinks we might be as high as preseason #3.

I actually think Borzello's rankings do a good job of delineating the "tiers", as I see them right now. I think Gonzaga and UNC are a clear Tier 1, followed by us, Houston, Kentucky, and Kansas. Close behind are the likes of Creighton, Baylor, and Arkansas.

To answer gumbo's question, you have to ask whether you'd place Duke ahead of 3 of the four of Houston, Kentucky, and Kansas. I'd place us clearly ahead of Kansas at the moment considering Jeremy is a stronger returning point guard than Dajuan Harris, and Kansas' incoming freshmen are a tier below ours. It's very hard to rank Houston since their team will look a lot different this year because of the return of the injured players, but I think they merit being #3. So it comes down to us versus Kentucky. I personally would place Duke above Kentucky given that our incoming freshman are superior to theirs, we should be a deeper team, and we should be more balanced whereas Kentucky will be very reliant on a dominant Tschiebwe. But I think the consensus will put us behind Kentucky because of the weight of a returning NPOY, and rightfully so. Hence why I thought having us at #5 was about right.

[SkyBrickey]

#5 feels about right to me with the additions of Grandison and Proctor. If Jon does his job, we should be a lot better in March than November with at least 3 frosh starters.

With Proctor on board, can we now agree this is Duke's greatest recruiting class ever on paper?

<I'm very certain we can't agree, because a lot of people on here don't think Lively+Whitehead+Flip belong in the same conversation as Zion+RJ+Cam. Here comes the "weak class" argument. >

[scottdude8]

#5 feels about right to me with the additions of Grandison and Proctor. If Jon does his job, we should be a lot better in March than November with at least 3 frosh starters.

With Proctor on board, can we now agree this is Duke's greatest recruiting class ever on paper?

<I'm very certain we can't agree, because a lot of people on here don't think Lively+Whitehead+Flip belong in the same conversation as Zion+RJ+Cam. Here comes the "weak class" argument. >

I think on paper you can certainly make the argument this class is the greatest ever given it has depth that the Zion class did not. It’s a very reasonable argument, and reasonably minds can disagree about whether a recruiting class is best evaluating on depth or top talent. That said, entering the year we did not know Zion would be ZION… heck, RJ had more buzz from certain well respected circles. Who knows whether any of our top 3 guys can be THE guy this year.

[Kedsy]

I think on paper you can certainly make the argument this class is the greatest ever given it has depth that the Zion class did not. It’s a very reasonable argument, and reasonably minds can disagree about whether a recruiting class is best evaluating on depth or top talent. That said, entering the year we did not know Zion would be ZION… heck, RJ had more buzz from certain well respected circles. Who knows whether any of our top 3 guys can be THE guy this year.

In the recruiting rankings, Zion was #4. RJ was #1 and Cam Reddish was #2. So RJ probably had more buzz from most well-respected circles.

[Kedsy]

Do you, Kedsy, sd8, anybody else, think Duke either should or will be consensus top 4?

My view on pre-season rankings is there are three buckets:

(1) That's crazy (e.g., Arkansas higher than Duke (although JMO, because from this thread I see there are those who think this wouldn't be crazy));

(2) That should be crazy (e.g., UNC as top three; though clearly it's going to happen, I just don't think it should);

(3) That's not crazy (e.g., Duke in the top five).

Splicing between top five and top four is not something I feel competent to do at this time.

[Kedsy]

Yeah the arguments I see as reasonable are Musselman > Scheyer and Mitchell bros plus Graham plus Council plus Brazile > Grandison plus Young.

And those are certainly strong arguments to make. We know Musselman can take a team filled with new faces and produce a winner. We don’t know if Scheyer can do that. And surely the five transfers (Mitchell brothers, Council, Graham, and Brazile) are better than our combo of Grandison and Young and Catchings.

So then it comes down to how much better the Duke freshman class is. It will likely need to be MUCH better than Arkansas’ class to offset the Hogs’ edge in transfer talent.

First of all, they have three top 20 freshman but they also only have three top 75 freshmen. So it's the Mitchell twins, Council, Graham, and Brazile vs. Grandison, Mark Mitchell, Proctor, Young, and Schutt. And, to me at least, it's not clear their five are better than our five. Or at least not much better.

Second, if you assume that their three top 20 freshmen and their returning 6th man will all be in their top 6, along with two of the transfers, then even if their five transfers are better than our five transfers/add'l freshmen, that advantage will only show itself in the 7th through 9th men in the rotation. And I'd argue the opposite from what you've said: Arkansas 7th through 9th guys will have to be MUCH better than ours to offset our edge in high-end freshmen talent.

[CDu]

This is a good point (or several), and is as much a challenge to my own listing of Arkansas as scottdude8’s. In fact, sd8 did say he thinks #5 is about right for Duke, whereas I think we’ll be consensus a bit lower. But maybe, consensus-wise, we will be #5. Do you, Kedsy, sd8, anybody else, think Duke either should or will be consensus top 4?

Re Arkansas: I’d guess they'll be ahead of Duke in somebody’s preseason rankings, as someone will say their incoming class is actually a bit underrated, Duke's maybe a little overrated. I will say, their 3 frosh I saw looked very good, made some impressive plays.

ETA — I see ^ that AGDukesky thinks we might be as high as preseason #3.

I don't know what will happen with regards to the preseason rankings. But I will say that this year's team has even more uncertainty than usual. On top of nearly an entirely new roster, we have a new coaching staff. With that uncertainty comes a lot of risk. Some will not find that overly concerning, some will.

I think there is a strong argument that we'll have the best collection of raw talent in the country. But it will also have a rookie coach (see what happened to UNC for the first 2/3 of last year) and the talent itself is mostly very young. Other teams either have way less uncertainty (like Gonzaga and UNC and even UK) or brought in a lot more experienced talent (like Arkansas, who brought in a 2nd Team All-PAC12 guy and the AAC 6th Man of the Year along with 3 solid frontcourt guys to augment their 5-star freshman guards and wing forward).

It's certainly possible that the talent edge wins out over the experience edge. Where folks see the starting point will largely come down to how much folks place value on uncertainty.

[CDu]

First of all, they have three top 20 freshman but they also only have three top 75 freshmen. So it's the Mitchell twins, Council, Graham, and Brazile vs. Grandison, Mark Mitchell, Proctor, Young, and Schutt. And, to me at least, it's not clear their five are better than our five. Or at least not much better.

I was simply comparing the three segments:
- Coaching
- Transfers
- Freshmen

I don't think there is any argument that our freshmen are a better collection than their freshmen. They are. I also don't think there is any argument that their transfers are better than our transfers.

Second, if you assume that their three top 20 freshmen and their returning 6th man will all be in their top 6, along with two of the transfers, then even if their five transfers are better than our five transfers/add'l freshmen, that advantage will only show itself in the 7th through 9th men in the rotation. And I'd argue the opposite from what you've said: Arkansas 7th through 9th guys will have to be MUCH better than ours to offset our edge in high-end freshmen talent.

I assume that their top 3 freshmen will be in their top 7. I think Davis, Council, and Graham will join them. And I think they'll rotate their 3 center options from there.

I think our top 3 freshmen will be in our top 7. I think Grandison and Roach will join them. One of our 4th/5th freshmen will be in the top 7. And then our transfers will scrap it out with the other frosh for minutes.

If we want to do it player by player:

C: Mitchell < Lively (here I think the talent outweighs the experience)
PF: Graham > Filipowski (here I think the opposite, because the experience is an All-conference player)
SF: Council > Grandison (I think Council is better than Grandison)
SG: Smith ~ Whitehead (these are two of the best freshmen in the country)
PG: Black/Davis < Roach
Backup C: Mitchell/Brazile > Young
Backing guard/wing: Davis/Black ~ Proctor/Mitchell

Honestly, I think it's really close. Is it possible that our freshmen blow up and flip the PF and backup guard/wing rankings? Sure. But I'm not sure I'd set that as the expectation.

And that is ignoring the coaching experience difference. Which, again, may not end up mattering. But one guy is clearly a good coach, and the other guy is basically a complete unknown as a coach.

[gumbomoop]

My view on pre-season rankings is there are three buckets:

(1) That's crazy (e.g., Arkansas higher than Duke (although JMO, because from this thread I see there are those who think this wouldn't be crazy));

(2) That should be crazy (e.g., UNC as top three; though clearly it's going to happen, I just don't think it should);

(3) That's not crazy (e.g., Duke in the top five).

Splicing between top five and top four is not something I feel competent to do at this time.i

Crazy, man. It’s a useful schema, can further the conversation.

To take your implicit (4), your final sentence, trying to splice that finely probably wouldn't be very productive. And I don’t even remember why I myself happened to use the words “top 4.” So, forget that.

As to your (1), CDu’s provided a plausible counterpoint; and you’ve countered his counterpoint. It’s close. [ETA— Ah, as CDU has just posted.]

Your (2) has a history behind it, namely, your own posts detailing your view that UNC’s overall performances last season do not bespeak a “talent/experience/depth” powerhouse next season.

As this and other threads have proceeded, it strikes me that your (3) by now is an increasingly common view. For, if one thinks Duke should be, say, “somewhere around 6-8,” then placing them at 5 could hardly be thought crazy.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

My view on pre-season rankings is there are three buckets:

(1) That's crazy (e.g., Arkansas higher than Duke (although JMO, because from this thread I see there are those who think this wouldn't be crazy));

(2) That should be crazy (e.g., UNC as top three; though clearly it's going to happen, I just don't think it should);

(3) That's not crazy (e.g., Duke in the top five).

Splicing between top five and top four is not something I feel competent to do at this time.

You left out #4 - preseason rankings in college basketball are far less important than in college football. Thankfully, our team will earn their ranking as the season progresses.

I think the crucial piece is the coaching. I'd love to see our young guys start strong and finish even stronger, but it will be an uphill battle with our youth and our new staff.

I'm excited to see what we can accomplish. If we slip, people will be excited to watch us fall.

[gumbomoop]

I think the crucial piece is the coaching. I'd love to see our young guys start strong and finish even stronger, but it will be an uphill battle with our youth and our new staff.

I'm excited to see what we can accomplish. If we slip, people will be excited to watch us fall.

My impression is that, except for their respective fans, most college bball watchers are happy to see Duke, UNC, and UK fall. Is Duke still the only devil?

Scheyer as coach — Have I heard that he’s a “bball savant”? If yes, what’s that supposed to mean?

I thought he was a “savant” as a player, his intuitive quickness off the charts. He made a few plays that couldn’t be made. And he made the most incredible shot I ever saw, involving full-speed reverse spin from what appeared to be under the side of the rim.

[Kedsy]

...

Backup C: Mitchell/Brazile > Young
Backing guard/wing: Davis/Black ~ Proctor/Mitchell

Honestly, I think it's really close. Is it possible that our freshmen blow up and flip the PF and backup guard/wing rankings? Sure. But I'm not sure I'd set that as the expectation.

And that is ignoring the coaching experience difference. Which, again, may not end up mattering. But one guy is clearly a good coach, and the other guy is basically a complete unknown as a coach.

Yeah, the coaching experience difference might be important (or, as you pointed out, it might not). I agree it's closer than I at first thought.

Though, also, our "effective" backup C might be Mitchell, rather than Young (with Mitchell at PF and Filipowski moving to C). Or maybe "Mitchell/Young" comparing to Mitchell/Brazile). No idea if that changes the calculus in a comparison to Arkansas' backup C's or not.

I thought he was a “savant” as a player, his intuitive quickness off the charts. He made a few plays that couldn’t be made. And he made the most incredible shot I ever saw, involving full-speed reverse spin from what appeared to be under the side of the rim.

For me, it was that behind-the-back, full court pass while falling out of bounds against Texas in the 2009 NCAAT. I just watched it again to make sure I wasn't misremembering, and it looks even more amazing now.

[CDu]

Scheyer as coach — Have I heard that he’s a “bball savant”? If yes, what’s that supposed to mean?

It's a platitude until we see it in action. It's quite possible that he's a great coach. We have no idea. He's so far managed to keep the recruiting juggernaut going, and that's a good start. Will he be able to manage the season and make the necessary game-to-game decisions needed to excel as a coach? I certainly hope so. But we just don't know.

[CDu]

Yeah, the coaching experience difference might be important (or, as you pointed out, it might not). I agree it's closer than I at first thought.

Yeah, I hope that Scheyer hits the ground running. And he has certainly put himself in as good a position as one could hope in terms of talent and general structural similarities to last season (it's not an exact match of course, but it's not a terrible facsimile either). But how good he'll be this coming year is just such an unknown, and I suspect some out there will downgrade Duke a bit this season under the "Scheyer isn't as good as Coach K" umbrella. And, frankly, for this season at least I think that's reasonable. Hopefully by next offseason they won't be doing that .

Though, also, our "effective" backup C might be Mitchell, rather than Young (with Mitchell at PF and Filipowski moving to C). Or maybe "Mitchell/Young" comparing to Mitchell/Brazile). No idea if that changes the calculus in a comparison to Arkansas' backup C's or not.

Yeah, I like this grouping better actually. And I think it does shift things a bit. I'd now say Mitchell/Young ~ Mitchell/Brazile, and Davis/Black ~ Proctor/Mitchell.