re: Preseason ESPN BPI College Basketball Rankings - SEC

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Based on what?

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Preseason BPI methodology

When discussing which college basketball teams will be best next season, you are likely to hear about Duke’s coach, Kentucky’s recruiting and Villanova’s returning talent. Not coincidentally, these are all important factors when projecting a team’s performance for the coming season.

Preseason BPI has four main inputs: percentage of roster returning (including transfers), past performance of those returning players, composite recruiting rankings (from 247 Sports) and coaches’ past performance. All of these inputs are adjusted for competition faced and, when applicable, pace. For a complete description read our explainer here or scroll to the bottom.

These four factors interact to produce a team’s predicted offensive and defensive rating for the coming season. Those ratings are then combined to form preseason BPI, which represents a team’s projected point differential (per 70 possessions) against an average Division I team on a neutral court (all else equal).

Although these ratings are not perfect, they have been accurate when predicting team strength. Seven of the last nine NCAA champions have ranked in the top six in preseason BPI, with the 2011 and 2014 Connecticut championships representing the outliers.

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