Luke DeCock’s AP Top 25 basketball poll ballot: Preseason
A year ago, I was the only AP top 25 voter to have Texas Tech on his or her preseason ballot. While appropriate credit for that bit of moxie was never forthcoming, even at the Final Four, I also never received the corresponding disdain for including, say, Xavier.
The point: Nobody really knows nothing in the preseason. We’re all making educated guesses here. I respected Chris Beard enough as a coach to rebuild his roster on the fly last year, but I also thought Chris Mack’s departure wouldn’t hurt the Musketeers as they rebuilt theirs.
This year, I’ve voted against a few teams with heavy personnel losses that will be on most ballots -- I’ll probably be the only voter without Texas Tech this year, and you won’t find Auburn or Tennessee either -- to get in a few hunch plays, including one that I doubt anyone else will have.
ACC teams appear in the order they appeared on my preseason ballot in that conference, so Louisville first, followed by Duke, North Carolina, Notre Dame and Virginia.
My surprise team: Illinois, which returns four starters and six of its top seven players and has two sophomores -- Ayo Dosunmu and Giorgi Bezhanishvili -- who are poised to take a huge leap forward, to the dismay of writers everywhere who will have to look up the spelling of their names every single time. Brad Underwood, who coached his pants off at Stephen F. Austin (the other Screamin’ A) and (briefly) Oklahoma State, gets the Chris Beard Vote of Confidence here. If he’s going to make it work at Illinois, this is the year.
Utah State, with Sam Merrill and Neemius Queta, also gets a vote. The Aggies are winning a game in the tournament this March, maybe two or three. Merrill may be the most underrated player in the country. For now.
Some reminders on methodology when we get into the season: I rely heavily on analytics (specifically KenPom’s efficiency ratings [predictive] and Wins Above Bubble [resume]), one game is just one data point of 30 so I do not overreact to head-to-head results 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, so I’m told.
Luke DeCock’s top 25
1. Michigan State
2. Kansas
3. Florida
4. Louisville
5. Duke
6. Purdue
7. North Carolina
8. Maryland
9. Kentucky
10. Gonzaga
11. Baylor
12. VCU
13. Missouri
14. Villanova
15. St. Mary’s
16. Memphis
17. Seton Hall
18. Oregon
19. Notre Dame
20. Harvard
21. Ohio State
22. Virginia
23. Arizona
24. Utah State
25. Illinois
My All-America Team
Cassius Winston, Michigan State (POY)
Markus Howard, Marquette
Sam Merrill, Utah State
Myles Powell, Seton Hall
James Wiseman, Memphis
This story was originally published October 17, 2019 at 12:19 PM.
