AP Preseason Poll

This morning, the AP preseason was released, and we were put at number 11. The top 10 was the following. Notice that there are 3 ACC teams, and then us at 11. Like always, the ACC is going to be very competitive, this year. I wanted to know what your thoughts were on this. I think that throughout the season we’ll definitley move up and down. It’s just how things go. Do you think we should be higher or lower than 11, or is 11 the perfect ranking for us? WAHOOWA
1)Michigan State
2)Kentucky
3)Kansas
4)Duke
5)Louisville
6)Florida
7)Maryland
8)Gonzaga
9)North Carolina
10)Villanova
11)UVA

2 Likes

I think we should be lower starting the season. I expect some growing pains with a much better team come March

4 Likes

Just win, baby. Let the rankings fall where they may.

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4 teams in acc in there…wow

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I was expecting a bubble team…borderline top 25… But we’ve never come off a title before, so who knows…

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with what Bennett lost (4 starters), and how poorly pollsters have done in the past towards his teams, I would say it is #respect,

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Looks reasonable, after taking a quick survey of some of the efficiency-based preseason rankings out there:
KenPom - #5
Bart Torvik - #17
Luke Benz - #6

All of the rankings try to account for comings and goings player-wise, but they do it differently. Notably, KenPom’s rankings only allow for impacts from top-30 freshmen (but does include transfers and players returning from injury), in addition to evaluating the returning players, whereas Bart Torvik tries to project every single player (I think) in a true lineup-based fashion that accounts for expected minutes played. As far as I can tell, Luke Benz approaches preseason rankings more like Bart than like Ken. The differences end up in making the projections more team-based (which gives a little more credit to the coach) or player-based.

Bart’s site has a good blurb that summarizes the differences: “[Team-based approach is] to look at past team performance, then adjust up or down based on the characteristics of the returning players. Now the [player-based] model starts with projected player performance, and builds a team projection from that.”

So the rankings that have UVa higher almost have the expectation baked in that the coaching staff will be able to get the players to the same performance levels as they have in the past, while Bart’s ranking holds that the projected player performance will be a little lower than the past, based on what these players have shown already and what the newcomers are able to show.

What ends up being closer to the truth will be interesting to see.

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I believe this is close to right, we will have some troubles at first with having a new team, but I fully believe we’ll do good in march

1 Like