The EvanMiya College Basketball Show

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:36:14
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What can history teach us about what to expect from several high profile teams this year in college basketball? In today's case study episode, I'm going to tell you whether you should be worried or excited about several teams, including Duke, Vanderbilt, Louisville, Texas, Michigan State, Texas Tech, Michigan, North Carolina, Iowa State, UConn, and a bunch more. So without further ado, let's get to it.

00:00:36:16 - 00:01:10:02
Unknown
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Evan Mia college basketball show. I'm your host, Evan Mikawa, and we have got a bit of a preseason solo pod for you guys today. Today we are doing a case study episode. What I want to do is look at all the preseason data that we have over the last five years, and look at certain types of teams and see this season how their specific unique build or certain attributes that they have have kind of gone for previous teams with sort of similar builds in previous years.

00:01:10:05 - 00:01:32:16
Unknown
So we're going to look at several different buckets of teams this year in the preseason that I find to be really interesting and unique and see what can we learn from history about these teams, according to their preseason analytics that suggest how their season is going to go? I think you guys are going to really like it. Before we go further, please subscribe at FMcG if you want to get access to more of the stuff that we are talking about on today's show, a bunch of stuff is already free.

00:01:32:17 - 00:01:52:12
Unknown
Team ratings, player ratings, roster rankings. A lot of stuff we're going to talk about in today's episode is free on the website for all teams. Right now in the preseason, you can find all of that. Com if you want to sign up for a $5 a month subscription that gives you access to a lot of really interesting stuff team breakdowns, game predictions, and a whole lot more.

00:01:52:14 - 00:02:09:03
Unknown
And if you want to sign up for 30 bucks a month, that is where you get the real nitty gritty player skill profiles, projections for individual skill grades for all sorts of players, and for any of these plans. If you sign up for a year, you get 50% off instead of paying per month, so that's a really good deal.

00:02:09:05 - 00:02:17:04
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There's also a big website upgrade coming soon, so a lot of quality of life upgrades coming for regular users of the site.

00:02:17:09 - 00:02:42:11
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We're going to start today with a case study on teams that are really talented coming into this season, but do not have a lot of roster continuity. Specifically, I'm looking at teams who have a top 30 preseason roster ranking according to the team ratings page, where you can see every team's not just their final preseason team ranking, but their actual roster quality ranking.

00:02:42:16 - 00:03:00:18
Unknown
And what the roster quality ranking means is, it's just regardless of what team that you're on. How would any coach like to have this collection of players on paper? So if you have a really good roster rank, it means regardless of what team or what coach or whatever, your team looks really good on paper, well, from your star players down to your bench, etc..

00:03:00:20 - 00:03:34:13
Unknown
So we have some specific teams this year in Louisville, Texas, LSU, Arkansas and Baylor who have top 30 preseason rosters but only have under 25% of their minutes this year, are predicted to be played by returning players. This is one of the things that I calculate internally on my site that guides some of the preseason team rankings is looking at not just what's the percentage of minutes that you had coming from a previous season into the season, but actually, how are those going to translate into your likely rotation this season?

00:03:34:13 - 00:03:51:08
Unknown
Because if you have a player last year who only played ten minutes per game, but this year they're expected to take a big leap and play 25 minutes per game, I want to actually account for that in terms of the roster continuity that they have. So I mentioned those teams. We're going to get into what this means for them for a second.

00:03:51:08 - 00:04:24:06
Unknown
But basically I have a list of teams here from the last five seasons who all had top 30 preseason rosters coming into the year, but going into the season, only 25% or fewer of their minutes were were expected to be played by returning players. And specifically, what's interesting to look at here is when we look at this list of teams, we have 13 teams in the last five seasons who fall in this category of having a loaded roster, but very little roster continuity.

00:04:24:10 - 00:04:58:17
Unknown
Two of the 11 teams missed the tournament. That would be Kansas State in 2025 and Oklahoma in 2026. The 2025 Duke team, the Cooper flag team that was insanely talented, is the only team in this category from the last five seasons to make a Final Four or get a top two seed. That team was absurdly talented, and I think you could make a lot of cases that they sort of are the outlier in this group here because, yeah, only 24% of their minutes coming into the season were expected to be played by returners.

00:04:58:17 - 00:05:20:22
Unknown
That's because they just had the pick of the litter when it came to talent on the roster with Cooper flag and come on. Watch. And and several others there. And so I think the fact that they did so well was not really a surprise to that many people, but it's the rest of the teams on this list that I think are more representative of what we could see this year.

00:05:20:22 - 00:05:42:17
Unknown
So outside of that Duke squad, no. One on this list of 13 teams from the last five seasons who had a loaded roster, but not very much continuity here under 25% according to my predicted number of percentage of minutes played by returners. None of these teams outside of that talented Duke squad got past the sweet 16 in their season.

00:05:42:18 - 00:06:05:03
Unknown
I mentioned it, two of the 13 missed the, missed the, missed the tournament. Now the for for the most part outside of that Kansas State team, all of the rest of them finished inside the top 40 in the team ratings at Evan McCombe at the end of the season. So most of them either made the tournament or deserved to make the tournament.

00:06:05:03 - 00:06:34:12
Unknown
There is a little bit of a safe floor there, but when we are looking at ceiling finishes or teams that could be good enough to make a Final Four or deeper. Duke is the only team in this in this group here. Out of those 13 who finished inside. Or like a top 8 or 9 in the in the in the country, I think the best seeds that we had represented here are a three seed for Kentucky in 2025, a three seed for Kentucky in 2024 as well.

00:06:34:14 - 00:07:00:09
Unknown
And there's just kind of a mix of winning one game, winning two games, not winning any games in the tournament. So on the whole, when I look at this list. There is in general, we've not had that many teams coming into a season where you've had a really, really good group of players who also haven't played that much and have been absurdly successful outside of that Duke team from 2025.

00:07:00:15 - 00:07:26:07
Unknown
So if we look at this year's teams who fall in this list, we have five. We have Louisville, Texas, LSU, Arkansas and Baylor. So once again, these teams have top 30 rosters in the preseason and under 25% of their minutes this year are predicted to be played by returning players. And so the probably the highest profile team on this list would be Louisville.

00:07:26:09 - 00:07:47:23
Unknown
I have them as a preseason roster ranking of ten, and the percentage of minutes expected to be played by returning players is just a percent. I think most of that, if not all of that, is represented by Adrian Woolley, who is really the only meaningful returner coming back from Louisville this year. He has a R of 5.5, which is pretty solid right now.

00:07:47:23 - 00:08:05:22
Unknown
Louisville is the 15th best team in the preseason overall in my team rankings. That's a little bit of a drop from their roster rank, and I think that does represent a little bit of the challenge that comes with them having a really good roster, but a roster that's mostly new faces. So that could be a little bit of a challenge for them.

00:08:06:02 - 00:08:38:10
Unknown
Texas is the other one that really falls firmly inside my top 20. 16% of their minutes are expected to be played by returning players. They have a roster rank of 14th, a preseason final ranking of 17th. Modest. Titus is the big returning player on the team. I have him as a BPR of 6.3, which, by the way, if you're unfamiliar with it, is the the expected amount of points that you add value to your team above a Division one average player over the course of an 100 possession game.

00:08:38:10 - 00:09:03:22
Unknown
So basically, if you have a of six, that means if you're on the court with nine other average players over 100 possessions, you would be expected to outscore the opponent by six points. So 6.3 is really good, as Titus. But, he is really the only one there for Texas who falls in that category. LSU is kind of an asterisk, because if you've been following my preseason content.

00:09:03:23 - 00:09:27:01
Unknown
You'll see they have predicted 0% of their minutes expected to be played by returners. That's because, of course, they have a new coach and Will Wade and an entirely new roster. And additionally, a lot of eligibility questions. Right now, my model is currently assuming that every single player on their roster that they want to be on their team will be on their team come the early November.

00:09:27:04 - 00:09:46:03
Unknown
The reality is that's probably not going to be the case. And so you can actually go on my team ratings page and see the difference between the teams ranking. If they get all of the guys that they want to be eligible versus their ranking if they get none of them. So LSU drops to 189th in the country. If all of the guys who are facing eligibility questions don't get eligible.

00:09:46:03 - 00:10:09:13
Unknown
So that includes Donovan Dent, Sky Clark and 3 to 4 other international guys coming from Europe who are really good players. So LSU being on this list obviously is kind of in the case of them getting all the players they want. But even if they did, I still think they're going to face a lot of challenges with, you know, all of the sort of lack of rhythm that they would have had this off season and getting all these players to be involved.

00:10:09:13 - 00:10:34:09
Unknown
So the other two teams on this list, Arkansas and Baylor, both have top 30 rosters. Both are around 20 to 25% in terms of their predicted number of minutes for returners. Again, two other teams that fall in this bucket, Arkansas has Billy Richmond coming back 6.5. Baylor has several players who are returners. But some of which who didn't play much or at all last season Caden Powell, Isaac Williams, just limbo.

00:10:34:11 - 00:10:53:02
Unknown
So they're going to have mostly new, fresh faces. I really like a lot of the pieces on their team. But again, one of these teams that falls in this bucket of not having a lot of of roster continuity there. So my general summary for this category would be a lot of these teams, especially if they're in the top 30 range roster wise, end up having fairly safe floors.

00:10:53:02 - 00:11:06:07
Unknown
Most make the tournament, but we've not really seen the like Final Four better finish outside of that absurdly talented Duke team two seasons ago. So worth monitoring kind of that trend for some of these teams that I mentioned here.

00:11:06:09 - 00:11:29:18
Unknown
Okay. Next we are going to talk about teams with the deepest benches heading into the season. And the way that I have decided to measure this is looking at every single team's preseason list of players they have, according to their projected ratings, of how valuable they're going to be this season. I basically sought each team and take their eighth, ninth, and 10th best players coming into the season.

00:11:29:22 - 00:11:52:01
Unknown
These would represent the players who are considered more deep bench, who some teams may not have the luxury of going that deep in the season, but some teams will. So I take those eighth, ninth and 10th best players. I average their preseason by coming into the year, and then I rank every team in the country based on who has the most depth according to essentially the quality of their eighth, ninth and 10th best guys.

00:11:52:01 - 00:12:15:17
Unknown
As we get towards the end of the bench, we've got five teams who fall the top five this year. Coming into the season in this depth rating are Duke, Iowa State, Louisville, UConn and Texas Tech. So what can we expect from these teams? Well, if we look at the top five in the previous five seasons, so the five teams that had the deepest benches coming into the year.

00:12:15:19 - 00:12:36:23
Unknown
One of the things that you'll notice, for starters, is that all of these teams were generally regarded as really good coming into the season. Not a surprise. All were top 25 teams according to my preseason model coming into the year. If we look at some of the outcomes for these teams, out of those 25 over the last five seasons who are really, really loaded from top to bottom in terms of their depth.

00:12:37:01 - 00:12:58:16
Unknown
Two of the 25 missed the tournament, so not too bad. And the rest were all seven seeds or better coming into the tournament. So there's a definitely a really nice floor. That not a lot of these teams really dropped off. And I think that speaks to the, you know, the quality that they had up and down the roster, especially if they run into injuries and things like that.

00:12:58:18 - 00:13:20:06
Unknown
Of the 25 over the last five years, you fall in this bucket. 22 out of the 25 finished as top 20 teams. So again, that's really, really good. As a kind of, you know, low floor, what's the worst that we can expect from these teams outcomes wise in the tournament? The best was the Duke team in 2025, which you've already mentioned in the previous segment.

00:13:20:08 - 00:13:42:10
Unknown
They made the Final Four that year. Again, an absurdly talented team from top to bottom. We had seven teams of this 25 make the Elite Eight or better. So Duke was the only one that made the final Four, but six of them also got to the Elite Eight. That's 28% of this pool. So 28% of the teams who had a top five depth coming into the year made the Elite Eight or better.

00:13:42:11 - 00:14:09:01
Unknown
I would say that's pretty good. And so if we look at this year's teams who fall in that category, we have Duke, Iowa State, Louisville, UConn and Texas Tech. Now, Duke this year would have the their average BPR of their eighth, ninth and 10th best guy this year is 3.6. And that would be the second best depth that we have had in the last.

00:14:09:04 - 00:14:28:19
Unknown
Going back those previous five seasons as well, outside of that Duke team that made the Final 4 in 2025. So this Duke team is absurdly talented. And actually, if I pull this up right now, the, eighth, ninth and 10th best guys for Duke that you will find on my site are, let's see, Bryson Howard, boom boom Boom and Drew Sarnoff ski.

00:14:28:23 - 00:14:51:10
Unknown
Now, if you've paid any attention to the sort of Duke preseason hype and coverage that's going on there, I think everyone expects that boom boom is probably going to be much better than their ninth best player. I have him a little bit lower in my model, mainly because he's a really young guy coming from outside the high school American high school recruiting system.

00:14:51:12 - 00:15:07:04
Unknown
So my model just doesn't have a lot of data on him. So it's a little bit more pessimistic. But some people are talking about him being potentially a All-American caliber player. So if that were to take shape, then this is looking even better. And drew chance for some of the preseason has been talked about being a starter for Duke.

00:15:07:04 - 00:15:27:10
Unknown
So that's the level that we're talking about with some of these guys. And the guys just ahead of them would be Darren Rippy, Caleb Foster, Dame SA so again, this Duke team is absurdly loaded, especially compared to teams over the last five years. Iowa State the rest of the teams on this list aren't quite as good as Duke, but they still have really, really good depth.

00:15:27:10 - 00:15:53:11
Unknown
Iowa State. Louisville and Yukon are really deep. Texas Tech also is in the top five. And one of the things here, of course, is that once again, my model is assuming that they're going to get all of their the guys that they want on the roster eligible. So that's what this is being based on. But we're still have potential question marks on Darion Williams, Donovan Atwell and JaMychal Stillwell, who are three of their top four players according to are coming into the season.

00:15:53:11 - 00:16:14:17
Unknown
So obviously if they were to miss on one or even two of those guys, they would drop out of this ranking. But if they do get them all, this Texas Tech team is really, really loaded from top to bottom. They've got stars, they've got depth. There's a lot to like here. All of the teams on this list are in my preseason top 15 teams and all or are in the top 15 there there abouts according to roster rank.

00:16:14:22 - 00:16:21:03
Unknown
So, I'm pretty optimistic about a lot of the teams that fall in this category of having these really deep benches.

00:16:21:07 - 00:16:37:13
Unknown
All right. Let's look at a little bit of an opposite lens. I want to look at teams coming into the year that have a defined star player. But then there is a massive drop off in quality on the roster outside of that player. According to my preseason model of what I expect from all of these players.

00:16:37:15 - 00:16:43:02
Unknown
the teams that fall in this category this year, there's three notable ones Vanderbilt, Michigan State and Missouri.

00:16:43:04 - 00:17:03:05
Unknown
So specifically, the teams have fallen this bucket are teams that have a top 25 player according to my preseason BPR model. This is a model that projects how valuable a player is going to be on offense and defense coming into a season based on how they performed in previous seasons level of competition. They faced their pedigree coming out of high school or wherever they came into.

00:17:03:06 - 00:17:23:01
Unknown
Division one takes all of that information, along with projected growth and development, to predict their value, kind of agnostic of what team they play for. And so these three teams potentially have a star player who is much better than the rest of the roster. And so specifically, the way that I'm categorizing this is top 25 player according to BP are in the preseason.

00:17:23:06 - 00:17:52:03
Unknown
And then if you look at the next best player on the roster, you go down at least four points in BPR. So for example, Tyler Tanner has a BPR of 9.7 coming into the year. I'm looking at if his next best teammate is 5.7 or worse, which would be the case for Vanderbilt's roster. So how have teams historically who have fallen in this bucket of having one really good player according to the model, and then a massive drop after that, how have they done?

00:17:52:05 - 00:18:12:16
Unknown
We have 11 teams that fall in that category over the last five seasons. So last year, for example, 20 in 2026 season, Ohio State had Bruce Thornton, who was the fifth best player in the preseason, according to my model. And then there was a big drop to his next teammate. To had Pettiford for Auburn was the other one last season.

00:18:12:21 - 00:18:34:17
Unknown
The season before that, Duke with Cooper Flag, Purdue with Braden Smith and South Carolina with Colin Murray Boyles. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the list of the other teams here. How have these teams fared? Well, Duke and Purdue, Duke in 2025 and Purdue in 2024, who had Cooper Flag and Zach Eadie?

00:18:34:22 - 00:18:51:20
Unknown
They had the best roster in the country according to my model. And so they would definitely be the absolute best case of this happening where the gap exists because their best player is just absurdly good and the rest of the roster is still really solid as well. Both of those teams made the Final Four or better. Duke made the Final Four.

00:18:51:20 - 00:19:25:12
Unknown
Purdue made the national title game. None of the teams this year that we have quite match that category. So I kind of throw those out a little bit. The rest of the teams on this list. So the other nine were outside the top 15 coming into the season in terms of their pre-season roster rank. So even after accounting for their top 25 player when they looked at when we look at the whole roster in terms of the amount of quality, they were outside the top 15 and in terms of how these teams fared in the tournament or on the season, four of these 11 teams that had a big star with not a lot

00:19:25:12 - 00:19:47:17
Unknown
of help outside of that, four of the 11 missed the tournament entirely, and only three of the other teams got past the first, or only three out of these 11 teams made it past the first round. So Purdue and Duke, as I mentioned. And then the other one was last year or two years ago, the produced squad that was led by Braden Smith made the sweet 16.

00:19:47:19 - 00:20:12:14
Unknown
And I think everyone else on this list missed the tournament or or didn't win a tournament game. So only three of these 11 teams actually won a tournament game. To speak of a little concerning there, it is interesting to note on this on this graph here or we've had three different Purdue teams, the 20, 23, 24 and 25 teams with Zach twice and then Braden Smith who all kind of had this similar roster build.

00:20:12:16 - 00:20:36:16
Unknown
Very interesting there last year I guess could have qualified, but we also had Trey Coffin, Wren and Fletcher lawyer, who were also regarded as really good according coming into last season. So, how does that what what are the implications for this year? Well, results are, you know, have been pretty mixed. Now, a lot of these teams, some of the teams on this list were just outside of having a really good player, just had horrible rosters to speak of.

00:20:36:17 - 00:20:59:10
Unknown
This year. We have three teams that I think are really, really interesting from this standpoint. We should probably start with Michigan State, who has Jeremy fears and fears is the number one player coming into the year, according to my BPR model, and it's not really particularly close to the second best player. Fears is has an 11.2 BPR, which is stellar coming into the season.

00:20:59:12 - 00:21:24:23
Unknown
If you look at the gap between fears and the next best player on Michigan State, that would be Jordan Scott. He has a beer of 6.1. So that gap is a about a five point gap in BPR. Michigan State I have as the ninth best team in the preseason and the ninth best roster. So after putting all of that together, fears obviously being a huge driving component and the rest of the roster, we're looking around a top ten team.

00:21:25:01 - 00:21:45:11
Unknown
I think that feels about right, based on kind of the concerns that you would have with a lack of depth, while also taking into account how good of a player fears is. Vanderbilt is a really interesting one. There have been a lot of Vanderbilt fans that have been a little miffed as to why my model has Vanderbilt outside the top 30 this year, so they fall in this similar build.

00:21:45:11 - 00:22:05:13
Unknown
Tyler Tanner as a 9.7 BPR. Coming into the season, that's third best in the country. He is a bona fide star and I expect huge things from him. But the gap between Tanner and the next best player on this roster is ginormous. According to again, some of these players could be better than when I'm projecting. Some of them could be worse.

00:22:05:18 - 00:22:28:18
Unknown
But Sebastian Williams Adams for Vanderbilt has the next best be at 3.8. That is a massive drop. And if we talk about how this Vanderbilt roster looks on paper in the preseason compared to how I had them coming into last year, last year's squad, who obviously Vanderbilt was really good last year I was very optimistic, maybe more so than most about how Vanderbilt was going to do.

00:22:28:18 - 00:22:56:06
Unknown
And that turned out to be more or less correct. Last year, if you looked at Vanderbilt squad coming into the season, they had six players above a 3.5 in BPR. All of the the main stars for Vanderbilt were all above a 3.5. And this year it's just these two players Tanner and Williams. Adams. That's it. So that goes into part of why I do not like their roster as much on paper this year as I have in the previous season.

00:22:56:06 - 00:23:18:05
Unknown
Last year I had them as the 19th best roster. And this year there are only 33rd and they are the 32nd best team overall in the preseason. So I think that really is the reason why my model is not more optimistic on Vanderbilt, because it does not anticipate Tanner having as much help as he did last year. Final team on this list is Missouri with Mark Mitchell.

00:23:18:05 - 00:23:37:13
Unknown
Now, Mark Mitchell is a massive eligibility question mark. Depending on when you're listening to this, he may currently be deemed ineligible. I think there's still going to be some back and forth on that. If Mitchell were to be eligible and play basketball for Missouri this year, he would have a bar of 7.9. That's 22nd best in the country.

00:23:37:15 - 00:23:56:13
Unknown
And then the gap to the next best player is 4.4. Jamir Jones has a BPR of 3.5. So the gap from Mitchell to the rest of the roster is pretty significant. And I think this also speaks to how much they need Mitchell on this roster in order to be considered a, you know, a team that's hoping to be in the tournament this year.

00:23:56:18 - 00:24:26:11
Unknown
I have Missouri with Mitchell as the 39th best roster in the preseason, 40th overall as a team in terms of their team ranking, which takes into account not just their roster, but their previous season performance, their coaching pedigree and several other factors there, including roster continuity and things like that. So all of these teams, especially Vanderbilt and Missouri, I think are according to comparing to some of these other historical examples, who many of these teams have not won a game in the tournament.

00:24:26:16 - 00:24:33:01
Unknown
A little bit concerning there. So that is interesting to note with this bucket of teams.

00:24:33:03 - 00:24:51:21
Unknown
Last one I want to look at today. I wish I had more time to get into more of this, but we're going to look at one more category today, and that is teams that have a new coach with a top 50 preseason roster coming into the year. We've got six teams right now that fall in that category, assuming they get all of their players eligible.

00:24:51:21 - 00:25:25:22
Unknown
So some of this could shift around Michigan, LSU, NC state, Creighton, North Carolina and Utah State. So we'll talk about what that means for these teams in a second. If I look at the, historical examples in the last several seasons of teams who have had a top 50 team coming into the year in terms of their roster in a first year head coach, here is kind of what you need to know in terms of what to expect from a, you know, you're really excited about your roster, but you have a new head coach who has not already had one, you know, multiple seasons under his belt at that, at that, school.

00:25:26:00 - 00:25:46:19
Unknown
So in the last five years, there have been 37 teams who have had a new coach with a preseason top 50 roster coming into the year, according to.com. Of those 37 teams, 65% of them have made the tournament, 35% have not. So more of them are making the tournament than not. But it is not a given that they're getting in.

00:25:46:22 - 00:26:04:15
Unknown
Keep in mind, this year the field is expanding from 68 to 76 teams, so the odds of a top 50 team getting in this year are a little bit higher than the past. Worth noting there. If we look at some notable examples of teams who have missed the tournament tournament who have fallen in this category. Last year we had two.

00:26:04:18 - 00:26:43:21
Unknown
Indiana and Auburn both had new coaches with preseason top 50 rosters and missed the tournament the year before that. We also had two in Ohio State and USC with new coaches who had top 50 rosters and missed the tournament. If we want to talk about like, what is the best case scenario, what's sort of the the ceiling outcome for these teams with new coaches who have really good rosters in the last three seasons, if we take the teams with the best team finish at the end of the year, the first of all, the best result in the tournament was last year's Iowa team, who, with Ben McCollum as a new coach, made the Elite Eight,

00:26:43:22 - 00:27:04:06
Unknown
knocking off Florida, the number one seed, to get there. That has been the furthest that a team with a new coach in the last three seasons has advanced in the tournament, and if we look at just last year or the, last year, I think we had four notable teams with new coaches last year who did pretty well based on expectations.

00:27:04:06 - 00:27:26:20
Unknown
Virginia got a three seed and they were top 20 at the end of the year. They were 16th at Evan McCombe. Iowa, as I mentioned, a lead eight and 25th at Macomb, Texas barely got in the tournament as an 11 seed, but then made the sweet 16 and finished 28th. And then we had Miami, who finished 29th with a seven seed.

00:27:26:20 - 00:27:46:16
Unknown
I think all of those teams would have been pretty happy with how their seasons panned out overall. So in general, when you look at the last three years, you can see the graphic here on YouTube. You know, we've had a smattering of teams finishing in the top 25 or top 30, and a lot of them one, at least one game in the tournament.

00:27:46:16 - 00:28:20:10
Unknown
So there definitely is, potential for a team with a good roster and a new coach to not only make the tournament, but do fairly well. None of them have made the Final Four, so far or in the last five seasons. And I think, there's reason to suggest that that some of the coaches with new or new coaches face more challenges in this landscape to, be successful in their first year because of just how little roster continuity most of these teams can have.

00:28:20:12 - 00:28:46:04
Unknown
So if we look at this year's teams who who fall in this category with top 50 preseason rosters Michigan, LSU, NC state, Creighton, North Carolina, Utah State. So, Michigan, defending national champions dusty May leaves. So they have a coaching regime that was a little bit, unexpected. They have a preseason top 15 roster, and I have them 16th overall in the preseason.

00:28:46:06 - 00:29:07:22
Unknown
And so I think they certainly have a group good enough to do. Well, but if we look at the historical examples here, like we had BYU in 2025, Kentucky in 2025 had top 16 rosters. Both of them made the sweet 16. That's probably a reasonable expectation for Michigan. I know coming off a national title, you certainly want more.

00:29:08:00 - 00:29:25:11
Unknown
We've already touched on LSU in this episode. They have a top 20 roster. If they were to lose, say, 2 to 3 of those players that they want, they might fall out of the top 50 entirely. And certainly there is a ton of uncertainty about how things are actually going to click for them. So take that with a grain of salt.

00:29:25:12 - 00:29:53:05
Unknown
NC state 35th best roster in the preseason, 38th overall in their team ranking. We have Creighton 42nd in roster rank, 46th overall, and then we have two teams that just squeaked in the top 50 North Carolina at 49 and Utah State at 50. North Carolina's overall team preseason ranking is 50th and Utah State is 53rd. So especially with those last four teams NC state, Creighton, North Carolina, Utah State.

00:29:53:07 - 00:30:25:11
Unknown
I think because according to the model, they don't have top 30 rosters in the country. And a new head coach, certainly at some of those teams could be really good or surprise people this season. But based on the track record of talking about, you know, teams who fall in this top 50 roster category with new coaches, 35% of them missing the tournament, certainly some of those teams that fall kind of towards the end of that top 50 preseason roster list right now would be in danger of missing the tournament if things don't go well.

00:30:25:12 - 00:30:58:15
Unknown
So kind of some mixed optimism where there's, cases for historical cases of teams with really good head coaches who can put it together in year one and win a game or two or multiple in the tournament. You know, Final Fours have not been attainable for these teams so far. But, you know, I think we're going to continue to have potentially more teams in the future who could have new coaches who, if they raise the right amount of nil, could have even a top ten roster in the preseason?

00:30:58:17 - 00:31:08:11
Unknown
We don't have any this year. So, kind of mixed expectations for this group, at least on my part.

00:31:08:13 - 00:31:27:20
Unknown
Well, that's all I've got for you guys today. A little bit of a shorter episode, but I've got some really, really exciting content coming up the rest of the preseason. It's been a busy, busy preseason for me, working on a lot of different stuff. So just trying to do my best to to get some good stuff out for you guys next week.

00:31:27:21 - 00:31:49:11
Unknown
I'm doing a really, really fun episode that I'm hoping will become kind of a yearly annual preseason tradition where I have a special guest coming and we are going to pick several teams each. That will be my bandwagon teams for this year that I feel like I am absurdly optimistic about, and we'll be kind of riding with them to the wheels fall off, so stay tuned for that next week.

00:31:49:12 - 00:32:15:06
Unknown
Expect a couple more episodes this preseason before the season starts. Just trying to do as much interesting preseason as possible. So next week's episode will be the start of that. Once we get to the season, we will hit our regular weekly schedule where we'll have episodes coming out each Tuesday, going over interesting stuff from the weekend, and everything else that's going on in college basketball.

00:32:15:08 - 00:32:40:03
Unknown
I also recently wrote a blog article that you can find at blog to kind of comparing the sort of performance and accuracy of my computer algorithm, along with several other notable ones. So be sure to check that out. And please subscribe@fma.com. Subscriptions are as low as five bucks a month in order to support the show. This specific show here is ad free.

00:32:40:07 - 00:33:02:03
Unknown
And so because of that, it would be really helpful to you guys to kind of gain more awareness in the show to leave a five star review on Apple or Spotify. If you're watching on YouTube, subscribe on the channel if you haven't already. I think on a future episode, probably the next one. I'll have some time to read some nice reviews or comments on those platforms on the show.

00:33:02:05 - 00:33:28:08
Unknown
So please do that and there's a chance you'll get a shout out here. As always, thank you guys for listening. I'm really, really excited about the season coming up. It's going to be super fun. It truly means a lot to me that you are here. I mentioned this on the last episode, but if you have not checked out our new sort of YouTube video setup, there is some really, really cool stuff from visuals and tables and a new intro that you'll see on YouTube.

00:33:28:09 - 00:33:36:04
Unknown
So even if you're an audio listener, go check out at least one of those on YouTube. You really like it. Thank you guys for being here. I will see all of you next time.