2024-25 MBB Rankings

KenPom for the 2024-25 season was released overnight. Like with T-Rabk and EvanMiya, Duke is up towards the top. KenPom has Duke at #2 behind Houston. These rankings tend to settle in around late December, so take it with a grain of salt. Here is the ACC:

2. Duke
14. North Carolina
24. Clemson
38. Pitt
44. Wake Forest
52. NC State
55. Miami
64. Louisville
68. Syracuse
69. Notre Dame
70. Georgia Tech
74. SMU
78. Virginia
90. Florida State
92. Virginia Tech
99. Stanford
113. Boston College
135. Cal
 
KenPom for the 2024-25 season was released overnight. Like with T-Rabk and EvanMiya, Duke is up towards the top. KenPom has Duke at #2 behind Houston. These rankings tend to settle in around late December, so take it with a grain of salt. Here is the ACC:

2. Duke
14. North Carolina
24. Clemson
38. Pitt
44. Wake Forest
52. NC State
55. Miami
64. Louisville
68. Syracuse
69. Notre Dame
70. Georgia Tech
74. SMU
78. Virginia
90. Florida State
92. Virginia Tech
99. Stanford
113. Boston College
135. Cal

While I don't have preseason data handy, this would be one of the better years in the ACC in the past 5+ years. At least at the bottom. If we can get everyone in the Top-100, our conference schedule will be much stronger. Need to take care of business in the OOC schedule - we all know how this goes...

- Chillin
 
how does gonzaga end up in front of duke here? Mind bending.
It makes sense to me when you consider that the past couple of classes of freshmen were underwhelming. Duke's narrative entering this season is that the team is going to ride its freshmen. So if you think that freshmen can't win in the current environment and Duke is heavy on freshmen, then that's how I could see Duke being where they are. Personally, I am more concerned about how much improvement we will see from Proctor and Foster. If they have noticeable improvements, this team is going to stomp opponents.
 
The AP Poll was just released and Duke comes in at #7.


55 different teams got votes. Duke's opponents this season:

#51 Arizona State (10/27 exhibition)
#23 Kentucky (11/12)
#10 Arizona (11/22)
#1 Kansas (11/26)
#11 Auburn (12/4)
#47 Louisville (12/8)
#38 Miami (1/14 and 2/25)
#30 Wake Forest (1/25 and 3/3)
#9 UNC (2/1 and 3/8)
#41 Clemson (2/8)
#26 Illinois (2/22)
 
It makes sense to me when you consider that the past couple of classes of freshmen were underwhelming. Duke's narrative entering this season is that the team is going to ride its freshmen. So if you think that freshmen can't win in the current environment and Duke is heavy on freshmen, then that's how I could see Duke being where they are. Personally, I am more concerned about how much improvement we will see from Proctor and Foster. If they have noticeable improvements, this team is going to stomp opponents.
Yes I think it is both somewhat an acknowledgement that times have changed. I think it is also somewhat of an overrotation. I also think K would get a bit more grace in that regard than Jon is, which is also probably fair.

That doesn't mean i'm sold on gonzaga though.
 
The AP Poll was just released and Duke comes in at #7.


Here's a breakdown of the votes for Duke:


Highest voter had Duke at 3, lowest at 12, both with one voter. Seven or more votes for each rank between 4 and 9.

Looking through some of the other teams, crazy delta on Gonzaga. One voter had them #1, two voters had them unranked.
 
Herding is absolutely a thing when it comes to these polls. Most of the pollsters look at what the other preseason rankings are saying and then they largely follow suit.

I think it would be fascinating to somehow bar AP poll voters from looking at other polls starting in April and then all season long -- not even allow them to look at what the AP poll in showing -- and then see how their votes came out. Now that would really be fun!
 
Herding is absolutely a thing when it comes to these polls. Most of the pollsters look at what the other preseason rankings are saying and then they largely follow suit.

I think it would be fascinating to somehow bar AP poll voters from looking at other polls starting in April and then all season long -- not even allow them to look at what the AP poll in showing -- and then see how their votes came out. Now that would really be fun!
One of the very few things that college football has done right over the past few years is not have the first CFP rankings come out until midway through the season. Pre-season rankings and brand recognition skew the polls long into the season, so having a (somewhat, because obviously these people aren't blind to the AP/Coaches polls) fresh start midway through the season when we actually know something about these teams makes a ton of sense.

Theoretically this shouldn't be as big of an issue in basketball because the NET rankings are so numbers driven, but even they are (I believe) somewhat dependent upon pre-season projections because analytical rankings like KenPom have to have some set of initial conditions... but since the sample size is so much larger, these have less of an impact. Still, it would be nice to have some sort of system where, for instance, rankings don't come out until after non-conference play or something like that. Won't ever happen, but one can dream.
 
Yes I think it is both somewhat an acknowledgement that times have changed. I think it is also somewhat of an overrotation. I also think K would get a bit more grace in that regard than Jon is, which is also probably fair.

That doesn't mean i'm sold on gonzaga though.
The pollsters are definitely thinking about the coaches in the rankings.
 
Herding is absolutely a thing when it comes to these polls. Most of the pollsters look at what the other preseason rankings are saying and then they largely follow suit.

I think it would be fascinating to somehow bar AP poll voters from looking at other polls starting in April and then all season long -- not even allow them to look at what the AP poll in showing -- and then see how their votes came out. Now that would really be fun!
Certainly agree with Jason. How can one rank a team preseason? Maybe after the new year starts when one sees their record. Enen then......
 
55 different teams got votes. Duke's opponents this season:

#51 Arizona State (10/27 exhibition)
#23 Kentucky (11/12)
#10 Arizona (11/22)
#1 Kansas (11/26)
#11 Auburn (12/4)
#47 Louisville (12/8)
#38 Miami (1/14 and 2/25)
#30 Wake Forest (1/25 and 3/3)
#9 UNC (2/1 and 3/8)
#41 Clemson (2/8)
#26 Illinois (2/22)
It's fantastic that we're going to get a sense of this team against real competition in the pre-season this year. I wanted to see what we "learned" from similar exhibitions last year and found this post that went into some detail. Some of the takeaways were clear outliers from what happened during the season (Purdue losing to Arkansas being the biggest), but Tennessee beating Michigan State was our first indication that MSU was overrated and Dalton Knecht was for real, while Illinois beating Kansas was the first warning sign for a similarly overrated KU team and also a sign that Illinois would be one of the better teams in the Big Ten.

While the final score may not be a true indication of our (or ASU's) quality, since I'm sure both coaches will use the fact that the game is an exhibition to experiment, this will be the earliest point in recent memory that we have any sort of real data on which to judge all of our offseason overanalysis. That'll be fun :)
 
One of the very few things that college football has done right over the past few years is not have the first CFP rankings come out until midway through the season. Pre-season rankings and brand recognition skew the polls long into the season, so having a (somewhat, because obviously these people aren't blind to the AP/Coaches polls) fresh start midway through the season when we actually know something about these teams makes a ton of sense.

Theoretically this shouldn't be as big of an issue in basketball because the NET rankings are so numbers driven, but even they are (I believe) somewhat dependent upon pre-season projections because analytical rankings like KenPom have to have some set of initial conditions... but since the sample size is so much larger, these have less of an impact. Still, it would be nice to have some sort of system where, for instance, rankings don't come out until after non-conference play or something like that. Won't ever happen, but one can dream.
surprised we don't have way-too-early 2026 bracketology yet..... Dopey Brackets is the worst offender in this space.
 
Certainly agree with Jason. How can one rank a team preseason? Maybe after the new year starts when one sees their record. Enen then......
Let's throw another curveball in here....some voters cast their "pre season" votes as a prediction on how teams will finish. Others cast it as how they think the teams are now. So there's not even a consensus on what is being voted on....
 
It makes sense to me when you consider that the past couple of classes of freshmen were underwhelming. Duke's narrative entering this season is that the team is going to ride its freshmen. So if you think that freshmen can't win in the current environment and Duke is heavy on freshmen, then that's how I could see Duke being where they are. Personally, I am more concerned about how much improvement we will see from Proctor and Foster. If they have noticeable improvements, this team is going to stomp opponents.
I'm a bit surprised Duke is ranked as high as #7 because of our youth. An ESPN article discussing each team in the AP Top 25 projects Duke will start 3 freshmen, a sophmore, and a junior. It projects only 5 other teams in the Top 25 will start freshmen-#3 UConn (Liam McNeeley), #8 Baylor (VJ Edgecombe), #9 UNC (Drake Powell), #19 Texas (Tre Johnson), and #25 Rutgers (Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey). Some of the projected lineups for other teams appear to be really old and experienced, like Kansas and Alabama. https://www.espn.com/mens-college-b...season-poll-reaction-biggest-game-top-25-team

My conclusion: While we have some grizzled veterans on the bench, we have the youngest projected starting lineup by far in the AP Top 25, and until our young guys prove themselves, the more experienced teams will have the edge in rankings.
 
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