This site ranks KU preseason No. 10 in projecting a dominant year for Big 12 basketball
Yes, Bart Torvik’s college basketball system likes the Kansas Jayhawks’ prospects in a potential 2020-21 season.
The bigger story line, though, is how much it loves some of KU’s peers in the Big 12.
Torvik, whose preseason rankings are available on his site BartTorvik.com, has KU a preseason 10th ... while also ranking four other Big 12 teams in the top seven. That includes West Virginia, Texas, Baylor and Texas Tech.
At this moment, Torvik admits, his model is projecting a “historically dominant” year for the top of the Big 12; with his ratings — they go back to 2008 — no league has ever had more than four teams in the season-ending top 10.
“One funny thing about this is that it will likely generate a lot of reactions like, ‘Torvik projects Kansas to finish fifth in the Big 12!” Torvik said. “Which is true but lacks some context.”
He’s here to provide some of that.
A quick primer on his rankings: They are based on underlying player projections, recent program performance and coach history, in that order. One way Torvik’s model is different from others is that his offensive projections are influenced heavily by the estimations for each individual player.
Torvik says he believes that makes his system “fun” but “also dangerous, because the more granular projections also have a tendency to be less accurate.”
He cites this example: Most models will says KU is going to be good next season, but it’s much more complicated to come to that conclusion by projecting how good each player will be while also estimating a team’s playing-time breakdown.
Defensive projections for Torvik are much more team- and coach-based. They still rely some on individual defenders’ stats, which could potentially move a team off its recent baseline.
KU, according to Torvik’s numbers, is expected to take the biggest step back offensively. After finishing seventh in adjusted offensive efficiency last season, Torvik’s system has KU’s offense at 21st this season with the departure of key contributors Devon Dotson and Udoka Azubuike.
The Jayhawks are still slated for an excellent defensive rating, in third behind only Virginia and Texas Tech.
“It’s usually tough for my lineup algorithm to make good sense of Kansas’ presumed lineups, but no matter how you shuffle them up they’re usually expected to be pretty good,” Torvik said. “This year is no exception.”
Torvik’s No. 1 and 2 are somewhat unexpected, with both buoyed by returning production.
West Virginia is Torvik’s No. 1, bringing back 74% of its minutes from last season while also projecting to have the nation’s best offense and seventh-best defense. Torvik says the Mountaineers’ numbers are getting a bump both from a high projection for junior-college recruit Kedrian Johnson and loftier expectations for sophomore Oscar Tshiebwe.
Texas, meanwhile, is second, as all its rotation players return from a year ago to go with the addition of Rivals’ eighth-ranked prospect 6-foot-9 forward Greg Brown III.
“The high projection for Texas has drawn a fair amount of interest, given that they were not very good last year and return mostly the same cast,” Torvik said. “But the model sees a team returning all its contributors, many of whom were young and highly rated recruits, and adding a five-star recruit. The result is an unusual mixture of talent and experience.”
Baylor, which led the Big 12 standings for most of last season before KU’s late charge, is fourth. That’s assuming the return of guard Jared Butler, who is still considering going pro but is a conference-player-of-the-year candidate if he comes back for his junior season.
Texas Tech, meanwhile, is just ahead of KU at seventh. Though the Red Raiders will turn over more than half of their minutes after losing contributors like Davide Moretti and Jahmi’us Ramsey, they’re still projected second defensively after ranking fourth, first and 13th in that measure each of the last three seasons.
In case you were wondering ... Torvik’s preseason top 10 before last year was Florida, Michigan State, Kansas, Louisville, North Carolina, Gonzaga, Purdue, Maryland, VCU and Duke. Six of those teams — KU (first), Gonzaga (second), Michigan State (ninth), Duke (11th), Maryland (12th) and Louisville (14th) — were ranked among the top 15 in the final AP poll of the shortened season.
Torvik’s Big 12 forecast also isn’t too far off some other national perception regarding the top end of conference. CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish, for instance, had each of the five Big 12 schools above listed in the top 18 of his preseason rankings that were updated Monday.
“I do track way-too-early top 25s and the like, and based on that I think it’s likely that all five of these teams will be the preseason AP top 25, with everyone but Texas likely in the top 15,” Torvik said. “So this (five Big 12 teams in top 10) doesn’t strike me as crazy, especially if you put some margin of error bubbles around the projections.”
This story was originally published July 24, 2020 at 9:48 AM.
