Duke is at the top, but who is way, way down at the bottom?
I start with how good a team was last year, and then I tally up the percentage of possession-minutes that team is bringing back from last season. Then I take a look at where the top freshmen in this year's class will be playing, paying particular attention to (the ones we think will be) the best of the best. Lastly, I make due allowance for coaches who have shown they can work consistent statistical wonders across multiple personnel cycles, transfers who could make a difference and any team-specific concerns regarding regression to the mean in areas like close-game clutchness/luck and 3-point defense.
For the record, the start of the preceding paragraph is all algorithm, but by the time you get to the end it's mostly yours truly. This kind of capricious methodological pluralism may be heresy in election forecasting, but fortunately this is a game to see who can put a ball through a hoop the most times.
Before we get to the actual rankings, let me answer a few questions that may arise ...
"Why is Kentucky so low?"
In the one-and-done era, no team with the Wildcats' very low level of returning experience has earned a top seed in the NCAA tournament. The best seed given to a team this young was the spot on the No. 2 line earned by Kansas in 2013-14, and even that was the exception to the rule.
It's true that the Wildcats were similarly inexperienced in 2013-14, and that team, of course, made it all the way to the national title game despite its No. 8 seed. Maybe this season's UK team will perform similar tournament wonders, but history suggests John Calipari's guys will likely be doing so with a number other than 1 next to their name in the bracket.
"What assumptions did you make in terms of personnel with Oregon and Arizona?"
Good question. I assumed that Oregon's Dillon Brooks will return from his foot injury in November or December as the team says he will.
I have also assumed that Arizona's Allonzo Trier will sort out what appears to be an eligibility matter and play, at some point, this season. Who knows. This second assumption may turn out to be faulty. For his part, coach Sean Miller is maintaining solemn national-security-level secretiveness with a studied vagueness wrapped in the heavy sighs of an exasperated parent. In other words, he's behaving exactly like every Division I head coach ever. Make of the do-si-do in Tucson what you will.
"What does RPM% mean?"
This is a team's percentage of returning possession-minutes from last season. For any given player, this is simply the percentage of minutes that he recorded for this same team in 2015-16, multiplied by the percentage of possessions that he used, as listed at KenPom.com.
Wisconsin, Saint Mary's and Princeton all return every player who averaged at least four minutes per game last season, so they all show up with 100s in this column. Conversely, Hawaii has hardly anyone coming back, so coach Eran Ganot is looking at a 14 in that department this season. Coincidentally, Princeton and Hawaii will play each other on Dec. 7, a game that promises to be an epic clash of experiential extremes.
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John GasawayESPN Insider
- Here are my rankings for the 2016-17 college hoops season. You may be wondering whether these selections are the product of a laptop-based algorithm or simply the sum of my subjective evaluations. The answers there would be yes -- and yes.
I start with how good a team was last year, and then I tally up the percentage of possession-minutes that team is bringing back from last season. Then I take a look at where the top freshmen in this year's class will be playing, paying particular attention to (the ones we think will be) the best of the best. Lastly, I make due allowance for coaches who have shown they can work consistent statistical wonders across multiple personnel cycles, transfers who could make a difference and any team-specific concerns regarding regression to the mean in areas like close-game clutchness/luck and 3-point defense.
For the record, the start of the preceding paragraph is all algorithm, but by the time you get to the end it's mostly yours truly. This kind of capricious methodological pluralism may be heresy in election forecasting, but fortunately this is a game to see who can put a ball through a hoop the most times.
Before we get to the actual rankings, let me answer a few questions that may arise ...
"Why is Kentucky so low?"
In the one-and-done era, no team with the Wildcats' very low level of returning experience has earned a top seed in the NCAA tournament. The best seed given to a team this young was the spot on the No. 2 line earned by Kansas in 2013-14, and even that was the exception to the rule.
It's true that the Wildcats were similarly inexperienced in 2013-14, and that team, of course, made it all the way to the national title game despite its No. 8 seed. Maybe this season's UK team will perform similar tournament wonders, but history suggests John Calipari's guys will likely be doing so with a number other than 1 next to their name in the bracket.
"What assumptions did you make in terms of personnel with Oregon and Arizona?"
Good question. I assumed that Oregon's Dillon Brooks will return from his foot injury in November or December as the team says he will.
I have also assumed that Arizona's Allonzo Trier will sort out what appears to be an eligibility matter and play, at some point, this season. Who knows. This second assumption may turn out to be faulty. For his part, coach Sean Miller is maintaining solemn national-security-level secretiveness with a studied vagueness wrapped in the heavy sighs of an exasperated parent. In other words, he's behaving exactly like every Division I head coach ever. Make of the do-si-do in Tucson what you will.
"What does RPM% mean?"
This is a team's percentage of returning possession-minutes from last season. For any given player, this is simply the percentage of minutes that he recorded for this same team in 2015-16, multiplied by the percentage of possessions that he used, as listed at KenPom.com.
Wisconsin, Saint Mary's and Princeton all return every player who averaged at least four minutes per game last season, so they all show up with 100s in this column. Conversely, Hawaii has hardly anyone coming back, so coach Eran Ganot is looking at a 14 in that department this season. Coincidentally, Princeton and Hawaii will play each other on Dec. 7, a game that promises to be an epic clash of experiential extremes.
