2017 College Basketball Preseason Rankings & Ratings

2017 College Basketball Preseason Rankings & Ratings

November 4, 2017 – by David Hess

One of our 2017 New Years resolutions (along with cutting down on sweets, and taking more “walking meetings”) was to post our 2017 college basketball preseason rankings earlier this year. And … we’ve technically stuck to that one. Last year we got these up the Saturday before the season tipped off. This year they’re up on Friday!

Who Is #1?

Last year, Duke was the obvious preseason favorite. This year, a great case could be made for a few different teams:

Duke has one of the best recruiting classes of all time (more on this below), and a Hall of Fame coachArizona finished last season strong, returns preseason All-American Allonzo Trier, has a very good recruiting class by normal standards, and adds one of the more valuable 2017-18 transfers (Dylan Smith)Wichita State brings essentially everybody back from a team that played like a top 5 team down the stretch last season. The Shockers have a combination of previous-season rating and returning production equaled by only one team in recent memory — the 2008-09 North Carolina team that won the national title. (Of course, that UNC team also featured a better class of incoming recruits than does this WSU team.)Michigan State returns 3 freshmen (Bridges, Ward Winston) who all performed last year at levels that hint at borderline All-American production this season.

For our preseason projections, we rate them in the order listed above, with Duke as the #1 team. But there’s only a 0.6-point gap between #1 Duke and #4 Michigan State — meaning we’d favor Duke over Michigan State on a neutral court by less than a point. It’s essentially a 4-way toss up at the top.

Duke’s Great Recruiting Class

Some of you may be surprised with Duke’s high ranking, given all the talent and production they’ve lost from last season. They’re one of only 9 teams returning less than 20% of both their offensive and defensive production from last season. The others are Kentucky, Oregon, California, Pittsburgh, Green Bay, North Florida, Pepperdine, and Mississippi Valley State.

Of course, that number is mitigated by a couple factors:

A) That returning talent includes Grayson Allen.B) They have the second best recruiting class in our database (which goes back to the 1998-99 season).

While not without hiccups, the overall performance of the other top rated classes has been very good:

#1: 2011-12 Kentucky … 38-2, national champs#2: 2017-18 Duke … ???#3: 2013-14 Kentucky … only an 8 seed, but lost in the title game#4: 2013-14 Kansas … upset by Stanford in the second round … but they were missing Joel Embiid to injury, and obviously wouldn’t have been the #4 class without him#5: 2014-15 Duke … 35-4, national champs#6: 2016-17 Duke … upset in second round … 3 of the 4 main freshman missed several games, disappointing season overall, but still a #2 seed#7: 2006-07 Ohio State … 35-4, lost in title game to Florida, which was one of the greatest teams in recent history#8: 2005-06 Duke … 32-4, #1 seed, upset in Sweet 6#9: 2009-10 Kentucky … 35-2, #1 seed, lost in Elite 8#10: 2012-13 UCLA … 25-10, lost in first round

If Duke had actually returned a core of solid rotation players from last season, and added this class, they’d be the clear title favorite. As it stands, they’re still our #1, but by just a hair.

2017 College Basketball Preseason Rankings Method

To create our preseason rankings, we first establish a baseline prediction for a team, given their power ratings from recent years, and assuming an average amount of roster turnover. Then we make some adjustments based on how much value each team is returning on offense and defense, as well as the strength of their recruiting classes from the past few years, and the value of any transfers they’ve added this season. The result is our 2017 college basketball preseason rankings. For a more complete description, check out our blog post from four years ago.

As always, we’ve refit the model during the offseason, in order to take into account another year of data.

What Do We Use Them For?

The resulting ratings drive our preseason projections, and they serve as the Bayesian priors for our predictive ratings as the season progresses. (Translation: our preseason ratings still impact our team ratings even months into the season, because that has shown to be more predictive than not.)

Below you’ll find a preseason top 25 comparison between TeamRankings, Ken Pomeroy, Dan Hanner/Sports Illustrated, the AP poll, and the ESPN Coaches poll. And at the end of the post you’ll see the full rankings and ratings for all 351 Division I teams.

Using these ratings, we’ve run full season projections, which are live on the site now. Go check’em out! Pages include:

College Basketball Projected Conference Standings. Projected conference records and full regular season records, plus win odds for both the conference regular season title and the postseason tournament.Bracketology Projections. Odds to make the NCAA tournament, plus projected seeding, and lots more details. (One of our faves is the Bracketology By Conference page.)NCAA Tournament Bracket Predictions. Round by round advancement odds, including probability of a team making the Sweet 16, making the Final Four, and winning the championship.

This is all data-driven, and automated, so it will update every day throughout the season.

Ratings Accuracy

Before we get to the 2017 college basketball preseason rankings themselves, it’s worth noting that Ken Pomeroy and Dan Hanner have compared our preseason ratings and/or projections with other stat-based prognosticators in past years. Our finish has been consistently good, though also consistently a bit behind Dan Hanner’s bottom-up, player-based projections. (Links below go to the comparison blog posts from Ken and Dan.)

2016-17: 4th of 7 (behind Torvik, Hanner, Gasaway)2015-16: 2nd of 7 (behind Hanner)2014-15: 2nd of 4 (behind Hanner)2013-14: 2nd of 4 (behind Hanner)2012-13: 1st of 3

Taking a few years of data into account, we feel we probably have the second best preseason ratings, behind Dan Hanner’s player lineup based projections, but ahead of Ken Pomeroy, ESPN, and human rankings.

We say this not to brag, but to try to preemptively defend ourselves against the inevitable “Team X is WAY too high/low! You don’t know what you’re doing!” comments. While these are by no means perfect rankings, the projections they drive have held their own in comparisons with other top projection systems. We expect them to do so again this season. We’re going to get plenty of individual teams wrong, but that’s inevitable when the challenge is to project 351 teams.

Preseason Top 25 Comparison

Let’s take a look at all the teams that made it into at least one preseason top 25 from among this group:

Our 2017-18 college basketball preseason ratings (TR)Ken Pomeroy’s preseason ratings (KP)Dan Hanner’s preseason rankings, posted at SI.com (SI)Bart Torvik’s preseason ratings (BT)AP poll (AP)Coaches poll (Coach)

The table below lists all such teams, and shows the preseason rank in each system. It also shows the average rank, and a column indicating how far TR is from the consensus. (Positive numbers mean we project a team to rank better than the consensus, and negative is the reverse.) For teams receiving no votes in the polls, we used a rank of 50. Teams are listed in ascending order by average rank.

Team	TR	KP	SI	BT	BPI	AP	Coach	AVG
Arizona	2	3	1	2	11	3	5	3.9
Duke	1	6	3	4	14	1	1	4.3
Wichita St.	3	4	4	3	1	7	8	4.3
Michigan St.	4	10	2	1	13	2	2	4.9
Villanova	5	1	5	9	2	6	6	4.9
Kansas	7	5	7	6	3	4	3	5.0
Florida	6	8	10	7	10	8	7	8.0
Kentucky	8	2	8	12	19	5	4	8.3
Cincinnati	10	11	6	8	6	12	13	9.4
West Virginia	9	7	11	10	12	11	10	10.0
North Carolina	12	13	18	17	7	9	9	12.1
Purdue	11	17	17	11	4	20	21	14.4
Louisville	13	16	9	14	31	16	16	16.4
Xavier	15	26	15	13	15	17	17	16.9
Virginia	14	9	30	5	8	27	27	17.1
Notre Dame	18	22	16	31	9	14	14	17.7
Miami FL	21	27	12	22	18	13	12	17.9
USC	19	12	13	20	42	10	11	18.1
Saint Mary’s	17	30	14	15	16	22	22	19.4
Baylor	16	19	19	29	17	24	24	21.1
Gonzaga	20	20	23	26	24	18	19	21.4
TCU	24	14	24	25	5	29	30	21.6
Seton Hall	23	28	25	21	26	23	23	24.1
Northwestern	30	18	22	34	29	19	20	24.6
Minnesota	22	36	26	40	21	15	15	25.0
Alabama	26	23	21	28	30	26	25	25.6
Texas A&M	32	15	29	19	38	25	26	26.3
Providence	25	25	36	35	27	30	33	30.1
UCLA	29	29	20	69	52	21	18	34.0
Oklahoma	36	21	40	33	37	36	35	34.0
Texas	28	37	44	24	51	35	37	36.6
Iowa State	37	34	50	38	20	50	50	39.9
Auburn	60	46	33	16	34	50	50	41.3
Texas Tech	52	33	43	41	22	50	50	41.6
Missouri	46	81	39	23	53	31	29	43.1
SMU	39	24	63	74	35	43	41	45.6
Virginia Tech	65	53	42	67	23	32	39	45.9
Vanderbilt	40	38	59	70	25	50	50	47.4
San Diego St.	62	71	47	18	105	50	50	57.6

Preseason Top 25 Comparison Highlights

A few points stick out:

FIVE different teams are ranked #1: Duke, Arizona, Wichita State, Michigan State, and Vilanova.There are two top tiers of 3 teams each that are ahead of the pack, based on the consensus averages. The 3 teams in the top tier (Arizona, Duke, and Wichita State) all have an average rank of about 4. The 3 teams in the second tier (Michigan State, Villanova, and Kansas) all have an average rank of about 5. After that the average rank drops all the way down to 8 (Florida and Kentucky), 9 (Cincinnati), and 10 (West Virginia).TeamRankings is the only “computer” ranking with Duke at #1, agreeing with the human voters. BPI, on the other hand, doesn’t even see Duke as a Top 10 team.The computers all rank Wichita State higher than the humans. The Shockers are an interesting case. They probably don’t have as high of a ceiling as, say, Duke. But they have an extremely high floor. There are very few unknowns with this year’s WSU team. Because most analytical projections are designed to forecast the average rating they expect a team to have if the season is played out millions of times, that high floor boosts the Shockers’ rating. AP Poll an Coaches Poll voters, on the other hand, are probably paying a bit more attention to ceilings, and less to floors.Our rankings have the highest correlation with the consensus, among the 39 teams listed here. Bart Torvik’s have the lowest. The rank order is: TeamRankings (0.944), Dan Hanner/SI (0.922), AP Poll (0.920), Coaches Poll (0.918), Ken Pomeroy (0.842), BPI (0.723), Bart Torvik (0.722).BPI has some very big outliers in their Top 10. BPI has the most optimistic projection by far for Purdue (BPI #4, average #14) and TCU (BPI #5, average #22). They’re also at least 5 spots higher than the consensus on North Carolina, Virginia, and Notre Dame. BPI is also the only ranking not to have Arizona, Duke, or Michigan State in the top 10.Compared to the crowd, we’re most pessimistic about Auburn, who we rank 10 to 44 spots lower than other projections. We suspect this may be due to our ranking being published later than the others, though. Key players Austin Wiley and Danjel Purifoy have been caught up in the ongoing FBI investigation into NCAA corruption, and are temporarily suspended. We’re treating them as if they’ll miss the season, while other rankings may be assuming they’ll play.Among teams not at the center of a FBI investigation, we’re most pessimistic about Virginia Tech (19 spots lower than the average), Texas Tech (10), Texas A&M (6), Northwestern (5), and San Diego State (4).On the other hand, we’re more optimistic about Texas (9 spots higher than the average), Vanderbilt (7), SMU (7), Baylor (5), Providence (5), and UCLA (5). The common thread among several of these these teams seems to be that they are losing very visible, key pieces this year. We’re projecting they won’t take giant steps back, and will be able to at least partly make up for the lost production.

 

Full 2017 College Basketball Preseason Rankings & Ratings, From #1 To #351

Below are our full 2017 college basketball preseason rankings.

Keep in mind that sometimes teams can be separated by several ranking spots, but have nearly identical ratings. On the flip side of the coin, two teams can be ranked adjacent to each other, but can have a big ratings gap.

Let’s look at the top of the rankings this season for an example. #5 Villanova and #6 Florida are separated by 0.9 ratings points. That’s the same as the difference between Florida and #11 Purdue.

And a 0.9-point gap isn’t huge to begin with. Given the tight bunching at the top of these ratings, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see one of our top four teams finish the season outside the top 10, or for a team in the bottom half of the top 10 end the season ranked #1. That’s why they play the games!

***UPDATE***

After we posted this article, but before the season started, we made a couple adjustments based on late breaking college basketball news. We are leaving the table below unchanged, but the following changes have been made to the ratings on our site (and are reflected in our season projections):

USC: DeAnthony Melton is reportedly being held out of scrimmages due to eligibility concerns related to the FBI investigation (2 point penalty, moving them from #19 to #29).UCLA: 3 freshmen have been arrested for shoplifting in China, and may miss part of the season (0.5 point penalty, moving them from #29 to #34).

***END UPDATE***

Rank	Team	Rating
1	Duke	19.5
2	Arizona	19.4
3	Wichita St	19.2
4	Michigan St	18.9
5	Villanova	18.3
6	Florida	17.4
7	Kansas	17.2
8	Kentucky	17.0
9	W Virginia	16.8
10	Cincinnati	16.6
11	Purdue	16.5
12	N Carolina	16.3
13	Louisville	15.7
14	Virginia	15.2
15	Xavier	15.1
16	Baylor	14.8
17	St Marys	14.8
18	Notre Dame	14.6
19	USC	14.5
20	Gonzaga	14.4
21	Miami (FL)	14.4
22	Minnesota	14.3
23	Seton Hall	14.3
24	TX Christian	14.1
25	Providence	14.0
26	Alabama	13.5
27	Oregon	13.1
28	Texas	12.9
29	UCLA	12.7
30	Northwestern	12.6
31	Wisconsin	12.5
32	Texas A&M	12.3
33	Butler	12.3
34	Creighton	12.2
35	Michigan	12.1
36	Oklahoma	11.8
37	Iowa State	11.8
38	Iowa	11.8
39	S Methodist	11.8
40	Vanderbilt	11.7
41	Rhode Island	11.6
42	Maryland	11.6
43	Oklahoma St	11.4
44	Arkansas	11.3
45	Kansas St	11.3
46	Missouri	11.2
47	Indiana	11.0
48	Mississippi	10.8
49	Clemson	10.3
50	St Johns	10.2
51	Florida St	10.0
52	Texas Tech	10.0
53	Marquette	9.8
54	Central FL	9.5
55	Georgia	9.5
56	Wake Forest	9.1
57	Tennessee	9.1
58	Stanford	9.0
59	S Carolina	9.0
60	Auburn	8.9
61	Bucknell	8.8
62	San Diego St	8.5
63	VCU	8.4
64	Houston	8.4
65	VA Tech	8.2
66	GA Tech	8.2
67	Utah	8.2
68	Penn State	8.0
69	Ohio State	8.0
70	Miss State	7.7
71	BYU	7.4
72	Boise State	7.2
73	St Bonavent	7.2
74	Col Charlestn	7.2
75	Georgetown	6.7
76	Temple	6.5
77	Tulsa	6.5
78	Belmont	6.3
79	LA Tech	6.3
80	Vermont	6.3
81	Nevada	6.3
82	Syracuse	6.1
83	Fresno St	5.8
84	Loyola-Chi	5.8
85	Connecticut	5.8
86	Oakland	5.6
87	N Mex State	5.5
88	Boston Col	5.4
89	Illinois	5.2
90	Dayton	5.2
91	Iona	5.1
92	Princeton	4.8
93	Middle Tenn	4.8
94	St Josephs	4.8
95	Harvard	4.8
96	TX-Arlington	4.7
97	LA Lafayette	4.7
98	San Fransco	4.5
99	Davidson	4.4
100	LSU	4.3
101	E Tenn St	4.2
102	Nebraska	4.1
103	California	4.1
104	Mercer	4.0
105	Yale	3.8
106	Fla Gulf Cst	3.7
107	Colorado	3.6
108	DePaul	3.6
109	Elon	3.5
110	Wyoming	3.4
111	Oregon St	3.4
112	N Iowa	3.4
113	NC-Wilmgton	3.2
114	Furman	3.2
115	NC-Asheville	3.2
116	Arizona St	3.1
117	Albany	2.9
118	Illinois St	2.7
119	Missouri St	2.7
120	Samford	2.7
121	Old Dominion	2.7
122	Lipscomb	2.6
123	NC State	2.5
124	S Dakota St	2.4
125	Richmond	2.4
126	Towson	2.3
127	Ohio	2.2
128	Murray St	2.2
129	GA Southern	2.2
130	Georgia St	1.9
131	Rutgers	1.8
132	Grand Canyon	1.7
133	U Mass	1.6
134	Monmouth	1.5
135	Northern Kentucky	1.5
136	La Salle	1.4
137	UC Irvine	1.2
138	Toledo	1.1
139	U Penn	1.1
140	Washington	1.0
141	W Michigan	1.0
142	Ball State	0.9
143	Denver	0.8
144	Buffalo	0.7
145	Hofstra	0.7
146	E Michigan	0.7
147	New Mexico	0.7
148	Valparaiso	0.6
149	South Dakota	0.6
150	UNLV	0.5
151	Northeastrn	0.5
152	Memphis	0.5
153	IPFW	0.4
154	S Illinois	0.3
155	Santa Clara	0.2
156	Colorado St	0.2
157	CS Bakersfld	0.2
158	Geo Wshgtn	0.2
159	Pittsburgh	0.2
160	Utah Val St	0.1
161	Ste F Austin	0.0
162	North Dakota State	0.0
163	Pacific	-0.1
164	Bradley	-0.1
165	Arkansas St	-0.1
166	E Carolina	-0.2
167	Kent State	-0.2
168	Akron	-0.2
169	NC-Grnsboro	-0.3
170	Montana	-0.3
171	Saint Louis	-0.3
172	Troy	-0.4
173	Weber State	-0.4
174	Winthrop	-0.4
175	Wofford	-0.6
176	Utah State	-0.6
177	Geo Mason	-0.6
178	Wm & Mary	-0.7
179	Lehigh	-0.8
180	UAB	-0.8
181	Jksnville St	-0.8
182	TX El Paso	-0.9
183	Evansville	-1.2
184	Montana St	-1.2
185	Idaho	-1.3
186	Navy	-1.3
187	San Diego	-1.4
188	Wright State	-1.7
189	UCSB	-1.7
190	St Peters	-1.7
191	Colgate	-2.0
192	LA Monroe	-2.1
193	E Washingtn	-2.2
194	Hawaii	-2.3
195	Cleveland St	-2.3
196	Gard-Webb	-2.4
197	Boston U	-2.4
198	Fordham	-2.4
199	E Kentucky	-2.4
200	Indiana St	-2.4
201	IL-Chicago	-2.5
202	Liberty	-2.5
203	Columbia	-2.6
204	Manhattan	-2.8
205	Stony Brook	-2.9
206	TN State	-2.9
207	Army	-2.9
208	Niagara	-3.0
209	WI-Milwkee	-3.0
210	Drake	-3.0
211	Marshall	-3.0
212	Drexel	-3.1
213	Coastal Car	-3.2
214	Canisius	-3.2
215	James Mad	-3.2
216	NC Central	-3.3
217	IUPUI	-3.3
218	TN Tech	-3.3
219	Detroit	-3.3
220	Air Force	-3.4
221	Nebraska Omaha	-3.4
222	N Hampshire	-3.5
223	Tulane	-3.5
224	W Kentucky	-3.6
225	Duquesne	-3.6
226	Charlotte	-3.6
227	Lamar	-3.6
228	Wash State	-3.7
229	Fairfield	-3.7
230	Maryland BC	-3.9
231	Chattanooga	-3.9
232	Texas State	-3.9
233	Loyola-MD	-4.0
234	WI-Grn Bay	-4.0
235	American	-4.0
236	TN Martin	-4.0
237	TX A&M-CC	-4.0
238	Cornell	-4.0
239	N Colorado	-4.1
240	Radford	-4.2
241	Central Mich	-4.3
242	TX Southern	-4.3
243	Rider	-4.4
244	Mt St Marys	-4.6
245	North Dakota	-4.7
246	N Illinois	-4.7
247	SE Louisiana	-4.8
248	Sam Hous St	-4.8
249	Delaware	-4.9
250	Siena	-4.9
251	Bowling Grn	-5.0
252	St Fran (PA)	-5.1
253	Lg Beach St	-5.1
254	App State	-5.1
255	F Dickinson	-5.4
256	Campbell	-5.4
257	Dartmouth	-5.5
258	UC Davis	-5.5
259	Youngs St	-5.5
260	E Illinois	-5.6
261	Holy Cross	-5.7
262	Abilene Christian	-5.7
263	Portland St	-5.8
264	High Point	-5.9
265	South Carolina Upstate	-5.9
266	Loyola Mymt	-5.9
267	Oral Roberts	-6.0
268	Rice	-6.0
269	Morehead St	-6.1
270	LIU-Brooklyn	-6.4
271	Seattle	-6.5
272	CS Fullerton	-6.6
273	S Florida	-6.7
274	Portland	-6.8
275	Incarnate Word	-6.9
276	Austin Peay	-7.0
277	Cal Poly	-7.0
278	W Carolina	-7.1
279	Hampton	-7.1
280	Miami (OH)	-7.1
281	S Alabama	-7.1
282	Fla Atlantic	-7.4
283	Bryant	-7.4
284	UC Riverside	-7.4
285	Wagner	-7.5
286	Charl South	-7.5
287	S Mississippi	-7.6
288	Sacred Hrt	-7.7
289	Massachusetts Lowell	-7.8
290	Binghamton	-7.8
291	AR Lit Rock	-7.8
292	San Jose St	-7.9
293	Brown	-7.9
294	New Orleans	-8.0
295	SE Missouri	-8.0
296	Norfolk St	-8.1
297	New Jersey Tech	-8.2
298	Jacksonville	-8.3
299	TX-Pan Am	-8.3
300	Southern	-8.3
301	TX-San Ant	-8.4
302	Lafayette	-8.4
303	Rob Morris	-8.5
304	UMKC	-8.5
305	Marist	-8.9
306	Quinnipiac	-8.9
307	W Illinois	-9.1
308	Sac State	-9.2
309	Kennesaw St	-9.2
310	Cal St Nrdge	-9.5
311	Morgan St	-9.6
312	SIU Edward	-9.7
313	N Florida	-9.7
314	Alcorn State	-9.7
315	Hartford	-9.8
316	Houston Bap	-9.9
317	N Arizona	-9.9
318	Pepperdine	-9.9
319	Citadel	-10.1
320	North Texas	-10.1
321	NW State	-10.2
322	Stetson	-10.4
323	Jackson St	-10.6
324	St Fran (NY)	-11.1
325	Maryland ES	-11.2
326	McNeese St	-11.2
327	NC A&T	-11.2
328	Florida Intl	-11.3
329	Savannah St	-11.3
330	Prairie View	-11.7
331	Idaho State	-11.8
332	S Utah	-12.1
333	Nicholls St	-12.4
334	Central Ark	-12.7
335	S Car State	-12.7
336	VA Military	-12.8
337	Longwood	-12.8
338	Alabama St	-13.5
339	Chicago St	-13.6
340	Central Conn	-13.8
341	Florida A&M	-14.1
342	Maine	-14.3
343	Grambling St	-14.4
344	Howard	-14.6
345	Delaware St	-15.2
346	Beth-Cook	-15.2
347	Ark Pine Bl	-15.2
348	Coppin State	-16.3
349	Alab A&M	-17.4
350	Presbyterian	-17.7
351	Miss Val St	-18.6

Before You Go …

As a final reminder, be sure to check out the season projections we create using these 2017 college basketball preseason rankings. There’s a ton to see:

College Basketball Projected Conference Standings. Projected conference records and full regular season records, plus win odds for both the conference regular season title and the postseason tournament.Bracketology Projections. Odds to make the NCAA tournament, plus projected seeding, and lots more details.NCAA Tournament Bracket Predictions. Round by round advancement odds, including probability of a team making the Sweet 16, making the Final Four, and winning the championship.

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