The hope. The anticipation. Sneakers squeaking. Basketballs bouncing. Whistles chirping. Coaches already in full-throat before the season is in full throe.
Find a quiet spot and, if you really try hard enough, you’ll hear college basketball building for its long-awaited return in the first week of November. College hoops season is less than three weeks away, but more than 360 teams across the United States have been ramping and tuning up for weeks. We’re all just about ready to tip this thing off — and angst grows as we lurch toward Nov. 4. Once the games begin, we can only hope the phantasmagoric will arrive as scheduled — but without a hint of its imminent entry, for maximum impact — as this beautiful mess of a sport is sure to take us on another great journey of joy, shock and madness.
Ah, we know it will. We just don’t know the when, who, how or why. That’s why we love this sport so much.
Before we get another college basketball campaign going, let’s zoom out and lock in. As has been the case for a decade now, I’ve foolishly and enthusiastically taken to a master preseason ranking of teams. My methods are uncomplicated but diligent: examine the rosters, check in with coaches for intel, evaluate programs based on recent success (or a lack of it), factor in (and try to discern) inevitable surges and fades, and mostly avoid preseason metrics as to not be influenced by the (often accurate) biases of algorithms. Oh, and: Be sure to just let a few inexplicable predictions rip and hope for the best.
A note on this year’s process. With the Big Ten and ACC now 18 teams, plus the Big 12 and SEC beefing up to 16 apiece, I found myself wrestling a bit with how to place power-conference teams from about the No. 60 spot and below. Will we see the 79 teams from the power conferences (Big East has 11 and is also in that class) all mostly wind up as top-100 teams in most ratings…
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