After months of transfer portal machinations, coaching changes and recruiting wins, the actual basketball portion of the men’s college basketball season is just days away. All of those offseason maneuvers make preseason predictions a more arduous task than ever before: Tracking roster moves and keeping up with projected rotations is a full-time job of its own, and anecdotally, there’s more uncertainty from coaches about how good their own teams will be.
Even with all those challenges, Sports Illustrated is pushing forward with its ranking of every team in men’s Division I. This year, that number is 364 teams after the additions of Mercyhurst and West Georgia. Last season’s rankings had some winners, like seven top-10 preseason teams reaching the Sweet 16 and high marks for mid-major darlings like Yale, and losers, like the five top-20 preseason teams that flopped and missed the Big Dance altogether.
