College Basketball Preseason Rankings & Ratings For 2014-15

November 12, 2014 - by David Hess

In the wee hours Wednesday morning, we finished crunching the numbers, and loaded our official preseason team ratings for the 2014-2015 college basketball season into our database. These are the ratings that drive our preseason projections, and 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, the AP poll, and more. We’ve also posted 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 Method & Accuracy

The basic idea is that we 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.

For a more complete description, check out our blog post from last year. This year featured no major changes, just a re-fitting of the model with another year of data.

Before we get to the rankings themselves, it’s worth noting that Ken Pomeroy has compared our conference win projections with his and a couple other stat-based prognosticators the last two years. In terms of average error, last year we finished second best out of four, and the year before we finished as the best of three by a whisker.

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 more than held their own in comparisons with other top projection systems, and 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 on the order of 350 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 preseason ratings (TR)
• Ken Pomeroy’s preseason ratings (KP)
• Dan Hanner’s preseason ratings, posted at SI.com (DH)
• AP poll (AP)
• Coaches poll (Coaches)

The table below lists all such teams, and shows the preseason rank in each system, along with an average rank (using 60th for the AP or 55th for the Coaches poll for unranked teams), and finally a column showing 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).

A few points stick out:

• We rank Arizona #1, while Pomeroy has Duke, and Hanner and both polls have Kentucky
• Our biggest pessimistic outliers are Connecticut and Harvard, both of which we rank about 20 spots lower than any other system
• Our biggest optimistic outliers are Kansas State, Arkansas, and Maryland

Preseason Rankings Comparison
Team	TR	KP	DH	AP	Coaches	AVG	TR Diff
Arizona	1	5	2	2	2	2.4	1.4
Duke	2	1	4	4	3	2.8	0.8
Kentucky	3	2	1	1	1	1.6	-1.4
Kansas	4	4	5	5	5	4.6	0.6
Louisville	5	3	7	8	9	6.4	1.4
Wisconsin	6	6	3	3	4	4.4	-1.6
Florida	7	7	6	7	7	6.8	-0.2
Villanova	8	9	8	12	12	9.8	1.8
N Carolina	9	20	11	6	6	10.4	1.4
Texas	10	19	12	10	10	12.2	2.2
Ohio St	11	14	13	20	20	15.6	4.6
Gonzaga	12	18	10	13	13	13.2	1.2
Iowa St	13	25	15	14	14	16.2	3.2
Virginia	14	8	9	9	8	9.6	-4.4
Wichita St	15	10	16	11	11	12.6	-2.4
Michigan St	16	12	21	18	18	17.0	1.0
SMU	17	36	17	22	22	22.8	5.8
Kansas St	18	35	22	32	28	27.0	9.0
Oklahoma	19	28	27	19	19	22.4	3.4
VCU	20	17	18	15	16	17.2	-2.8
San Diego St	21	29	14	16	17	19.4	-1.6
Pittsburgh	22	23	29	34	29	27.4	5.4
Iowa	23	31	20	28	25	25.4	2.4
Arkansas	24	44	28	33	36	33.0	9.0
Maryland	25	32	33	46	--	38.2	13.2
Utah	28	42	25	25	30	30.0	2.0
Michigan	29	15	24	24	23	23.0	-6.0
Syracuse	30	11	23	23	24	22.2	-7.8
Georgetown	31	22	31	44	42	34.0	3.0
Oklahoma St	34	21	47	41	--	39.6	5.6
UCLA	35	13	35	30	33	29.2	-5.8
Nebraska	38	33	36	21	21	29.8	-8.2
Connecticut	39	16	19	17	15	21.2	-17.8
Baylor	40	24	56	--	47	45.4	5.4
Harvard	49	30	30	25	27	32.2	-16.8

Full Rankings, From #1 To #351

Here’s the full list.

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.

This is important at the top of the rankings this season. #1 Arizona, #2 Duke, and #3 Kentucky are separated by only half a ratings point total. But #4 Kansas is a full 1.6 ratings points behind Kentucky. So our preseason ratings essentially see a triumvirate of “best teams in the land.”

Rank	Team	Rating
1	Arizona	21.3
2	Duke	21.1
3	Kentucky	20.8
4	Kansas	19.2
5	Louisville	19.2
6	Wisconsin	18.9
7	Florida	18.2
8	Villanova	16.7
9	N Carolina	16.6
10	Texas	16.4
11	Ohio State	15.9
12	Gonzaga	15.9
13	Iowa State	15.7
14	Virginia	14.4
15	Wichita St	13.9
16	Michigan St	13.9
17	S Methodist	13.8
18	Kansas St	13.7
19	Oklahoma	13.3
20	VCU	13.1
21	San Diego St	12.8
22	Pittsburgh	12.7
23	Iowa	12.5
24	Arkansas	12.5
25	Maryland	12.4
26	Illinois	12.4
27	BYU	12.3
28	Utah	11.7
29	Michigan	10.8
30	Syracuse	10.7
31	Georgetown	10.7
32	Indiana	10.7
33	Memphis	10.6
34	Oklahoma St	10.5
35	UCLA	10.5
36	Colorado	10.2
37	N Iowa	10.1
38	Nebraska	10.1
39	Connecticut	9.9
40	Baylor	9.9
41	Creighton	9.8
42	NC State	9.6
43	Clemson	9.5
44	Mississippi	9.3
45	Alabama	9.3
46	Stanford	9.2
47	Minnesota	9.2
48	Florida St	9.1
49	Harvard	8.9
50	W Virginia	8.8
51	St Johns	8.6
52	Cincinnati	8.4
53	Purdue	8.3
54	Texas A&M	8.1
55	Marquette	7.9
56	St Marys	7.9
57	Georgia	7.8
58	California	7.8
59	Colorado St	7.8
60	Oregon	7.5
61	Lg Beach St	7.4
62	Tulsa	7.2
63	Georgia St	7.2
64	Geo Wshgtn	7.2
65	Tennessee	7.1
66	Xavier	7.1
67	Iona	6.9
68	Boise State	6.9
69	Notre Dame	6.8
70	LA Tech	6.7
71	New Mexico	6.5
72	Murray St	6.5
73	Dayton	6.4
74	WI-Grn Bay	6.3
75	LSU	6.2
76	Missouri	6.1
77	Butler	6.0
78	Wyoming	6.0
79	Penn State	6.0
80	Washington	5.9
81	Evansville	5.9
82	Miami (FL)	5.9
83	UNLV	5.9
84	UCSB	5.9
85	Providence	5.8
86	U Mass	5.8
87	Richmond	5.7
88	UC Irvine	5.7
89	Ste F Austin	5.7
90	N Mex State	5.5
91	Old Dominion	5.4
92	TX El Paso	5.1
93	Boston Col	4.7
94	Temple	4.6
95	Belmont	4.6
96	Arizona St	4.5
97	Saint Louis	4.5
98	Fresno St	4.4
99	S Carolina	4.3
100	Northwestern	4.2
101	St Bonavent	4.0
102	San Fransco	4.0
103	Seton Hall	4.0
104	La Salle	4.0
105	Portland	4.0
106	Buffalo	3.7
107	Cleveland St	3.7
108	Toledo	3.7
109	Wofford	3.4
110	Rhode Island	3.3
111	Vanderbilt	3.3
112	W Michigan	3.2
113	Siena	3.0
114	Denver	3.0
115	NC Central	2.9
116	S Mississippi	2.9
117	GA Tech	2.9
118	San Diego	2.8
119	Yale	2.8
120	Auburn	2.8
121	Coastal Car	2.7
122	Akron	2.7
123	Princeton	2.7
124	American	2.7
125	Texas Tech	2.5
126	Indiana St	2.5
127	Illinois St	2.5
128	Manhattan	2.3
129	Wash State	2.2
130	Wake Forest	1.9
131	Ohio	1.8
132	Miss State	1.7
133	Northeastrn	1.7
134	Columbia	1.6
135	North Dakota State	1.6
136	Santa Clara	1.5
137	VA Tech	1.4
138	Davidson	1.4
139	Kent State	1.3
140	TX Christian	1.2
141	St Josephs	1.0
142	Holy Cross	1.0
143	LA Lafayette	0.9
144	USC	0.9
145	Detroit	0.8
146	Middle Tenn	0.7
147	Geo Mason	0.6
148	W Kentucky	0.5
149	Duquesne	0.5
150	Bowling Grn	0.5
151	Morehead St	0.5
152	Bucknell	0.4
153	Cal Poly	0.4
154	Quinnipiac	0.3
155	Missouri St	0.3
156	Houston	0.3
157	Vermont	0.2
158	Central FL	0.1
159	Lafayette	0.0
160	Hampton	0.0
161	Charlotte	-0.2
162	Mercer	-0.2
163	Nevada	-0.3
164	SE Missouri	-0.3
165	Rutgers	-0.3
166	Valparaiso	-0.3
167	Stony Brook	-0.4
168	Drexel	-0.4
169	IPFW	-0.5
170	Fla Gulf Cst	-0.6
171	S Dakota St	-0.6
172	E Tenn St	-0.6
173	Air Force	-0.7
174	Wm & Mary	-0.7
175	E Carolina	-0.7
176	Charl South	-0.8
177	Army	-0.9
178	Brown	-0.9
179	Col Charlestn	-1.0
180	Loyola-Chi	-1.0
181	AR Lit Rock	-1.1
182	Drake	-1.2
183	E Washingtn	-1.3
184	Oral Roberts	-1.3
185	Lehigh	-1.3
186	Hartford	-1.3
187	NC-Wilmgton	-1.4
188	St Peters	-1.4
189	Dartmouth	-1.4
190	Pepperdine	-1.4
191	S Illinois	-1.5
192	E Kentucky	-1.5
193	WI-Milwkee	-1.5
194	Tulane	-1.5
195	Colgate	-1.5
196	Oakland	-1.7
197	Radford	-1.7
198	Seattle	-1.8
199	Cal St Nrdge	-1.8
200	Elon	-1.8
201	Weber State	-1.8
202	CS Fullerton	-1.8
203	Utah State	-1.9
204	TX-Arlington	-1.9
205	Oregon St	-1.9
206	UAB	-1.9
207	Monmouth	-1.9
208	Sam Hous St	-1.9
209	High Point	-2.1
210	Wright State	-2.1
211	DePaul	-2.2
212	Rob Morris	-2.4
213	Boston U	-2.4
214	N Illinois	-2.5
215	E Michigan	-2.5
216	Winthrop	-2.6
217	NW State	-2.6
218	Albany	-2.7
219	Fairfield	-2.7
220	N Arizona	-2.7
221	Lipscomb	-2.7
222	San Jose St	-2.8
223	South Carolina Upstate	-2.8
224	Fla Atlantic	-2.8
225	Hawaii	-2.8
226	Central Mich	-2.8
227	Delaware	-2.9
228	N Colorado	-2.9
229	N Florida	-3.0
230	Marshall	-3.0
231	St Fran (NY)	-3.1
232	S Florida	-3.3
233	Youngs St	-3.3
234	NC-Asheville	-3.3
235	Rider	-3.4
236	Miami (OH)	-3.4
237	Sac State	-3.7
238	Northern Kentucky	-3.7
239	Marist	-3.7
240	Fordham	-3.7
241	Hofstra	-3.8
242	Montana	-4.0
243	CS Bakersfld	-4.1
244	Idaho	-4.2
245	Gard-Webb	-4.4
246	TX Southern	-4.4
247	W Illinois	-4.4
248	Canisius	-4.4
249	Nebraska Omaha	-4.5
250	VA Military	-4.5
251	Loyola Mymt	-4.5
252	South Dakota	-4.6
253	Bryant	-4.6
254	Navy	-4.7
255	Incarnate Word	-4.8
256	Alabama St	-4.9
257	Bradley	-4.9
258	Pacific	-4.9
259	James Mad	-4.9
260	New Jersey Tech	-5.0
261	Southern	-5.0
262	North Texas	-5.0
263	Towson	-5.1
264	Portland St	-5.3
265	Central Conn	-5.3
266	Utah Val St	-5.3
267	LA Monroe	-5.4
268	Wagner	-5.4
269	Arkansas St	-5.5
270	St Fran (PA)	-5.5
271	TN Tech	-5.7
272	Ark Pine Bl	-5.8
273	U Penn	-5.9
274	TX A&M-CC	-6.0
275	W Carolina	-6.2
276	Austin Peay	-6.4
277	IL-Chicago	-6.4
278	Grand Canyon	-6.5
279	UC Davis	-6.7
280	Florida Intl	-6.9
281	UC Riverside	-6.9
282	S Alabama	-7.1
283	Idaho State	-7.2
284	Delaware St	-7.2
285	IUPUI	-7.2
286	SE Louisiana	-7.3
287	Loyola-MD	-7.3
288	Sacred Hrt	-7.4
289	Coppin State	-7.4
290	Texas State	-7.4
291	Mt St Marys	-7.5
292	Rice	-7.6
293	Jksnville St	-7.6
294	LIU-Brooklyn	-7.6
295	Chattanooga	-7.8
296	Morgan St	-7.8
297	Ball State	-7.9
298	GA Southern	-7.9
299	SIU Edward	-8.0
300	Norfolk St	-8.2
301	TN Martin	-8.3
302	Liberty	-8.4
303	E Illinois	-8.5
304	Campbell	-8.5
305	Howard	-8.6
306	NC-Grnsboro	-8.6
307	Savannah St	-8.6
308	Niagara	-8.9
309	North Dakota	-9.0
310	Jackson St	-9.0
311	McNeese St	-9.0
312	Montana St	-9.1
313	Troy	-9.2
314	TX-San Ant	-9.3
315	Stetson	-9.3
316	App State	-9.4
317	UMKC	-9.6
318	TN State	-9.6
319	Kennesaw St	-9.7
320	N Hampshire	-9.7
321	Alcorn State	-9.9
322	Binghamton	-9.9
323	Cornell	-10.0
324	Furman	-10.3
325	Nicholls St	-10.4
326	Beth-Cook	-10.4
327	Maryland BC	-10.5
328	TX-Pan Am	-10.5
329	Massachusetts Lowell	-10.7
330	Citadel	-10.7
331	Maine	-11.1
332	Chicago St	-11.7
333	F Dickinson	-12.0
334	Presbyterian	-12.0
335	Alab A&M	-12.4
336	NC A&T	-12.5
337	Prairie View	-12.5
338	New Orleans	-13.3
339	Lamar	-13.3
340	Maryland ES	-13.4
341	Houston Bap	-13.4
342	Jacksonville	-13.6
343	Samford	-14.2
344	Florida A&M	-14.3
345	S Car State	-14.3
346	S Utah	-14.7
347	Longwood	-15.2
348	Miss Val St	-15.2
349	Abilene Christian	-17.1
350	Central Ark	-17.5
351	Grambling St	-19.7

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