Analytic tools and predictive metrics have become a huge part of college basketball, both with helping to contextualise how good teams are relative to the rest of the country and more importantly–as the main tools the NCAA uses to order teams when it comes to Selection Sunday. Whatever your views on analytic tools are, it looks like they’re here to stay, and it has become a huge part of covering the sport in 2024.
Before we look at each of these preseason rankings, it’s important to note what these systems do well, and what they don’t do well.