2024-25 Rankings

ADORAZ

ADORAZ

Well-known member
2023 $upporter
I know a lot of us, myself included, lost some interest in the rankings with how last season ended. The Committee underrated us relative to nearly every mock bracket out there. Not even making the First Four OUT when Vegas gave us nearly 2:1 odds to make it on Selection Sunday was unacceptable. Our #32 NET ranking wasn't enough and there wasn't a logical reason why certain teams were placed ahead of us.

It sucked, but truth is we were a bubble team with some big flaws on our resume. This year we simply can't be on the bubble. There can't be any doubt that we're a Tournament team, which there shouldn't be given how stacked our roster is. Just play to expectations and the only question on Selection Sunday will be which seed we'll be.

Now, obviously the AP Polls are (mostly) meaningless outside of publicity, but we have a pretty good shot at being ranked in the AP Top 25 tomorrow (something that hasn't happened for us in decades preseason). Four ballots I've found so far (more will release today):

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Thompson): #15
www.post-gazette.com

Our men's basketball top-25 ballot: UConn retains top spot entering 2024-25

College basketball season is just around the corner, and while so much is unknown for the vast majority of men’s Division I teams in the age...
www.post-gazette.com www.post-gazette.com

Connecticut Post (Borges): #17

CBS Sports (Rothstein): #24
www.fanduel.com

ROTHSTEIN 45: PRESEASON EDITION

Jon Rothstein ranks college basketball's top 45 teams, highlighting offseason roster changes.
www.fanduel.com www.fanduel.com

Nevada Sports (Murray): NR


These early results are a lot better than last year's preseason, when we landed just outside the rankings. Last year we were mostly just receiving some votes around #24-25... now we're receiving substantial votes in the teens. Again, it doesn't mean much until we start playing, but it does say a lot about how good we should be.
 
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Thanks. Admittedly, it's going to drive me a little crazy whenever midwest/west coast writers don't include us in their top 25 ballots this year. It would be one thing if SJU didn't deserve to be ranked, but it's quite another when it's attributable to those respective writers failing to conduct the requisite due diligence and being sufficiently knowledgeable about an area that they supposedly cover as professionals. At the end of the day, all that really matters is how the team performs over the season, but I still have some PTSD from what I believe was an unacceptable snub last year from the NCAA Tournament of SJU -- and likely SH and Providence.
 
With all due respect, no preseason polls, no “stacked roster” comments, etc. mean anything. I, and I am sure others, could punch holes in the current roster, which would mean the same as calling it “stacked”, absolutely nothing, because until we see them play no one knows. I think all the posts over the last few weeks describing expectations for the Mets should clearly attest to that.
 
logen said:
With all due respect, no preseason polls, no “stacked roster” comments, etc. mean anything. I, and I am sure others, could punch holes in the current roster, which would mean the same as calling it “stacked”, absolutely nothing, because until we see them play no one knows. I think all the posts over the last few weeks describing expectations for the Mets should clearly attest to that.
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Fair enough, as mentioned I didn't have much interest in the preseason polls this year, but regardless of how much stock you put into them us being ranked would be significant news given how rare it's been for our program.

At the very least it's a better preseason topic than what's been discussed the past few days. :)
 
I couldn't care less about them, because the metrics proved to be absolutely useless (to us) when it mattered most.

They could cull all of the metics and dispose below:

art wow GIF
 
ADORAZ said:
Fair enough, as mentioned I didn't have much interest in the preseason polls this year, but regardless of how much stock you put into them us being ranked would be significant news given how rare it's been for our program.

At the very least it's a better preseason topic than what's been discussed the past few days. :)
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I don’t think being ranked preseason means anything, as for the topic, I get it for sure, hence my reply and participation. (y)
 
ADORAZ said:
I know a lot of us, myself included, lost some interest in the rankings with how last season ended. The Committee underrated us relative to nearly every mock bracket out there. Not even making the First Four OUT when Vegas gave us nearly 2:1 odds to make it on Selection Sunday was unacceptable. Our #32 NET ranking wasn't enough and there wasn't a logical reason why certain teams were placed ahead of us.

It sucked, but truth is we were a bubble team with some big flaws on our resume. This year we simply can't be on the bubble. There can't be any doubt that we're a Tournament team, which there shouldn't be given how stacked our roster is. Just play to expectations and the only question on Selection Sunday will be which seed we'll be.

Now, obviously the AP Polls are (mostly) meaningless outside of publicity, but we have a pretty good shot at being ranked in the AP Top 25 tomorrow (something that hasn't happened for us in decades preseason). Four ballots I've found so far (more will release today):

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Thompson): #15
www.post-gazette.com

Our men's basketball top-25 ballot: UConn retains top spot entering 2024-25

College basketball season is just around the corner, and while so much is unknown for the vast majority of men’s Division I teams in the age...
www.post-gazette.com www.post-gazette.com

Connecticut Post (Borges): #17

CBS Sports (Rothstein): #24
www.fanduel.com

ROTHSTEIN 45: PRESEASON EDITION

Jon Rothstein ranks college basketball's top 45 teams, highlighting offseason roster changes.
www.fanduel.com www.fanduel.com

Nevada Sports (Murray): NR


These early results are a lot better than last year's preseason, when we landed just outside the rankings. Last year we were mostly just receiving some votes around #24-25... now we're receiving substantial votes in the teens. Again, it doesn't mean much until we start playing, but it does say a lot about how good we should be.
Click to expand...
Don't forget "Field of 68's TO", Terrence Oglesby, whose main attribute is not being named Dauster. He's got us in the "ELITE 8" and has no dog in the fight. This is our deepest team in forever (2 at every spot) and save trouble from Creighton and probably X, we're on our way to a 25 win season.
 
passitback said:
I couldn't care less about them, because the metrics proved to be absolutely useless (to us) when it mattered most.

They could cull all of the metics and dispose below:

art wow GIF
Click to expand...
Losing to Seton Hall twice, Michigan by a landslide and BC at the Garden sure gives you a piece of shit metric, one that was nowhere near deserving of a bid.
 
Pre Season rankings while fun to talk about are meaningless. Who has even seen these teams? It’s total speculation based on nothing more than someone else’s bullshit opinion of how they “think” everything is going to come together. I am certain there are several kids and teams that in a few months we’ll all be saying “wow, who is that or who are these guys”. Happens every year.

Pre Season rankings should not exist. The first rankings should occur after at least a month of games. NEVER going to happen because this is the “hype” part of the season where they sell the product. It gets everyone talking college hoops I guess.
 
sjc88 said:
Pre Season rankings while fun to talk about are meaningless. Who has even seen these teams? It’s total speculation based on nothing more than someone else’s bullshit opinion of how they “think” everything is going to come together. I am certain there are several kids and teams that in a few months we’ll all be saying “wow, who is that or who are these guys”. Happens every year.

Pre Season rankings should not exist. The first rankings should occur after at least a month of games. NEVER going to happen because this is the “hype” part of the season where they sell the product. It gets everyone talking college hoops I guess.
Click to expand...
Well the final computer rankings do determine the "filed", but I've always enjoyed getting all my preseason rankings correct.
 
Preseason rankings are meaningless, especially for blue bloods and perennial contenders. However we haven’t been associated with said categories since the turn of the 21th century. We complain about not being nationally relevant. Being ranked from jump street is a small start. We have to go back to the 1999-00 campaign for the last time we were ranked preseason. Regardless we have to prove on the court.
 
FWIW in regards to accuracy: last year we were tied for #28 AP preseason. Our NET finished at #32, and 99% of the time that's a good enough NET for the Tournament (we were kept out for other reasons, like the bad Michigan loss). There's countless examples of teams that the AP gets wildly wrong during the preseason, but it still can be a solid predictor for some teams (like us last year).

Fanta doesn't have us ranked, but he's not an AP voter. Last year we got 47 points preseason and there were 63 ballots. I'm pretty surprised we're already up to 22 points after just 4 ballots, but of course the people who post their ballots online are a lot more likely to rank a team like St. John's- as was the case last year.
 
Not to bust your chops but the 32 post season was as meaningless as the pre 28. As for the tournament, I have posted before, the NcAA has multiple nebulous criteria the same reason college admission offices do, so they can select who they damn well please.
 
logen said:
Not to bust your chops but the 32 post season was as meaningless as the pre 28. As for the tournament, I have posted before, the NcAA has multiple nebulous criteria the same reason college admission offices do, so they can select who they damn well please.
Click to expand...

That's why I said FWIW, people see it different ways. It's meaningless since we missed the Tournament but we were still a pretty good team, just like the AP predicted. Clearly there's some correlation between where teams are ranked preseason and where they finish (on average), but how much is debatable. Especially when it comes to a consistent underperformer like St. John's a lot of us will remain skeptical and that's understandable.

If we're ranked preseason I'll just enjoy it the next few weeks and not overthink it. Last year we weren't ranked for a single week and didn't make the Tournament, so I'm not concerned about increased expectations/pressure from a preseason ranking.
 
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