NCAAB Rankings #1

I've decided that it would be a little fun to rank my top 25 teams in NCAA basketball. This early in the season it's almost impossible to predict where teams will be 3 months from now, so I suppose it's more of a challenge to get the right rankings. When I started this I didn't look at any of the AP or ESPN rankings, going purely on my own data and list of NBA Prospects. Based on the number of potential NBA players on each college team, I've put together the following rankings. After I completed my list, I went to Yahoo! Sports to check their actual rankings, which I've posted in parenthesis:

1. Florida (1)
2. UNC (2)
3. Arizona (15)
4. Ohio State (4)
5. Kansas (10)
6. UCLA (5)
7. UConn (18)
8. Duke (9)
9. Georgia Tech (19)
10. Washington (16)
11. Georgetown (14)
12. Texas (26)
13. Marquette (13)
14. Gonzaga (27)
15. Pittsburgh (3)
16. USC (unranked)
17. Texas A&M (11)
18. Alabama (8)
19. California (unranked)
20. East Washington (unranked)
21. Colorado (unranked)
22. Florida State (34)
23. Rice (unranked)
24. Boston College (23)
25. Virginia Tech (40)

I wasn't quite right but it's not a perfect science either. I'm pretty close, at least the top 15 were actually ranked teams whereas beyond that, there are several teams that I picked that no one else even knows about. To be honest I didn't even know there was a team called "Rice" until today, but they have a player who's projected to be taken in the late first round in next year's NBA Entry draft.

I'm surprised at how low Arizona is ranked, way down at #15 by Associated Press. They have 4 players who could be drafted into the NBA this year. Though I agree that perhaps Kansas deserves to be higher than 'Zona because Kansas has almost an entire roster of future NBA players, though many are not ready this year. I guess it all depends, for all I know they could all declare this year, throwing my rankings in for a loop. So I suspect as we get closer to March, my rankings will change due to players stepping up and showing scouts they are better than most people thought.

But all in all, not bad for a 'first-crack' at it. And.. I realize this goes over the heads of most reading this, but I had to get it down as many of you know, I am pretty obsessed with this kind of stuff. I think my dream job is to be sitting at a desk analyzing sports statistics all day long.