If you haven’t heard of an analytics tool called KenPom and you’re a college basketball fan, you might be living under the rock.
In a world of analytics taking over basketball there is one website that reigns supreme and that’s statistician Ken Pomeroy’s brain child he calls KenPom that is considered the best way of ranking college basketball teams. You will hear coaches talk about KenPom rankings (especially Todd Golden), you will hear commentators talking about where teams sit in KenPom, and if you saw during the SEC Tournament there was even a digital banner that touted how many top-50 KenPom teams the league sported. In fact, when the NCAA decided to come up with the NET Rankings as their official sorting tool they had Pomeroy as a consultant helping them make the best possible algorithm. Ultimately, the NET rankings and KenPom rankings have looked very similar after the last two seasons showing just how much the NET has taken from KenPom. KenPom is also one of the analytic systems that the NCAA Tournament committee will look at when evaluating teams and their prospective seeding, so it’s an important number that teams need to be aware of.
Given KenPom’s massive relevance in college basketball it’s always a huge story when they announce their preseason rankings. Adding to the drama–Pomeroy will never announce exactly when his preseason rankings will drop. In this year’s case, without warning, he dropped them at 10:30 ET on Saturday night, a time when there aren’t too many people sitting on their computers looking for college basketball analytics.
Before we talk about where Florida ranked it’s important to note that Pomeroy himself doesn’t think these preseason rankings are gospel or that he is a nostradamus predicting exactly how the season will shake out, though he does express pride in the relative accuracy. It should also be noted that this particular Florida team will be very difficult for an algorithm to predict given the coaching change. While many analytic tools have found effective ways of predicting the impact of transfers, a coaching change–particularly one from a mid-major to high major program–can’t totally be calculated and really, it probably shouldn’t.
With all that aside, when you start to scroll the KenPom rankings you will see the Gators land at…
35th.
This number surprised me as it’s lower than some of the other preseason rankings from different analytic tools that are out and it’s also a bit lower than the general consensus of college basketball media who have been doing their preseason rankings. However, it’s certainly a fair ranking for a team that finished last season ranked 59th in the country. Yes, it’s a lot of new pieces, but that’s the case for just about every team in the country nowadays and KenPom’s algorithm knows how to account for that.
Certainly some people reading this will be happy about the number after recent seasons have seen the Gators have high expectations–many of which were left unreached. There are still prominent national figures that have high expectations for the Gators but at least when it comes to this prominent tool Florida isn’t held on any kind of pedestal.
Here is how the SEC ranks in the predictions:
Kentucky (1st)
Tennessee (4th)
Auburn (11th)
Arkansas (14th)
Alabama (18th)
Florida (35th)
LSU (40th)
Missouri (41st)
Texas A&M (45th)
Ole Miss (49th)
Mississippi State (53rd)
Vanderbilt (66th)
South Carolina (78th)
Georgia (93rd)
The SEC clearly looks like a monster this year, though KenPom actually has them as the second best league behind the Big 12 with Texas (2nd), Baylor (6th), and Kansas (8th) leading the way.
Not only does KenPom give overall rankings for the preseason but they also break down the offensive and defensive side of the ball, as well as tempo. Again, this should be taken with *several* grains of salt given the coaching change, but for whatever it’s worth KenPom has the Gators as 37th in offensive efficiency and 33rd in defensive efficiency. With the Gators’ length and athleticism and Golden’s reputation as more of a defensive coach than an offensive coach it might be a safe bet that the Gators will be better on that side of the ball and KenPom actually might have the two rankings closer together than expected. In terms of tempo he has the Gators 131st, a sharp increase from last season where they were 267th.
Because KenPom ranks every team, it also gives predictions for each game generating a projected record. Florida has a projected record of 17-12 entering SEC Tournament play with a 9-9 record in the SEC. One of the big variables to this is the PK85 Tournament where there could be a big swing between high quality and low quality games depending on if they win or lose to Xavier (KenPom currently projects a 73-72 win for the Gators).
If you are ever interested in looking at KenPom for yourself the main rankings are available for free, and if you want to get an in-depth look at the Gators or any other team in college basketball a one-year subscription is available for $19.95.