Luke DeCock’s AP Top 25 basketball poll ballot: Preseason
After a (blessed, wonderful) year off, everyone’s least favorite Associated Press Top 25 ballot is back in these hands. It’s always a funny gig — the poll is intrinsically meaningless, but it plays an invaluable role driving the college hoops discourse throughout the season, for better or sometimes worse, and people take it far, far too seriously.
There is, however, one week when no one can argue with any voter and that’s this one. Nobody really does know nothing before a game has been played, and at this time five years ago I was the only voter who had Texas Tech on their preseason ballot, a team that ended up a play or two away from a national title. The preseason poll is the weekly poll on steroids, completely meaningless and yet the only thing anyone talks about until the season actually starts.
When the actual poll is released on Monday, I will inevitably be labeled a homer for having Duke No. 1 ahead of Kansas or Purdue (I would expect Kansas to be the consensus choice) but in this case familiarity does matter. There just haven’t been very many Duke teams with this blend of experience and talent, albeit lacking that surefire top-3 draft pick. Then again, it may have two top-10 picks in an era when some of the top players are coming out of the G-League, so maybe it’s not far off.
At any rate, if you think I’m wrong ... you might be right. We’ll find out!
The usual word on methodology: From here on out, I will rely heavily on analytics (specifically KenPom’s efficiency ratings [predictive, how good we think you are] and Wins Above Bubble [results-based, how good what you’ve done is, I use the version at barttorvik.com but there are others]), one game is just one data point of 30 so I will not overreact to head-to-head results, the NET is irrelevant to this process and, most important: I hate your team and under no circumstances do I know what I’m talking about or should be allowed to vote, or so I’m told.
PRESEASON TOP 25 BASKETBALL BALLOT
1. Duke
2. Kansas
3. Purdue
4. Creighton
5. Michigan State
6. Connecticut
7. Tennessee
8. USC
9. Houston
10. Marquette
11. North Carolina
12. Gonzaga
13. Texas A&M
14. Florida Atlantic
15. Villanova
16. Alabama
17. St. Mary’s
18. Texas
19. San Diego State
20. Arkansas
21. Kentucky
22. Arizona
23. TCU
24. St. John’s
25. Drake
Also under consideration: Auburn, Baylor, Colorado, Miami, Yale
PRESEASON ALL-AMERICA PICKS
- Armando Bacot, North Carolina
Tucker DeVries, Drake
Hunter Dickinson, Kansas
Zach Edey, Purdue (POY)
- Tyler Kolek, Marquette
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This story was originally published October 13, 2023 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Luke DeCock’s AP Top 25 basketball poll ballot: Preseason."
