A question that’s befuddled us for a long time now has been just how accurate are all these preseason polls that every media entity puts out each year are.  Remember last season – all four NCAA #1 seeds made it to the Final Four, but what was equally interesting to us was that those same four teams – Kansas, Memphis, UCLA and UNC – were also the top four ranked teams (in a different order) in both the Preseason AP and ESPN Coaches polls.  With an n=1, we know that the 2007-08 polls were extremely accurate in predicting last year’s F4 teams, but that only tells us part of the story – what we really want to know is how accurate are preseason polls in general?

To try to answer this question, we had to make some concessions.  We believe that, generally speaking, most preseason polls are largely the same, whether AP, ESPN/Coaches, CNNSI, etc.  Take for example, the blogpoll that came out this week.  The top twenty teams that the bloggers chose were mostly consensus picks – no team was left off of more than one ballot, and a total of only thirty-six teams received at least one vote.  That shows a relatively high consistency of thought – groupthink, if you will – about who the best teams in the country will be this season.  So we feel that we can derive some strong basic principles (and save a boatload of time) by examining only one of the major preseason polls – the ESPN/Coaches Poll – because it is the sole major poll that does a postseason version (after the NCAAs) to enable a fair comparison. 

We looked at the last five years where we could find the available pre- and postseason polls (the 2005 postseason poll is incorrect on both the ESPN and USA Today websites), and made some simple comparisons.  Our findings are below the table. 

Findings.

• In a given year, there are between 50-60 teams receiving votes from the preseason pollsters.  This tightens up to approximately 40 teams receiving votes in the postseason poll. 
• So how does a team receiving preseason votes equate to the postseason?  Ehhh, not terrible, but not great either.  Over the last six seasons (excl. 2005), if a team received votes in the preseason poll, there was a slightly better than half (54%) chance that it would also get votes in the postseason poll.  That alone doesn’t tell us a whole lot, though.  What if your team was in the preseason Top 25?  Those teams receive votes in the final poll approximately three-quarters (76%) of the time, which at minimum, means that the takeaway is that a preseason team receiving votes will usually make the NCAA Tournament. 
• Looking at the distribution of the final postseason polls can tell us a little bit about how accurate preseason pollsters are at predicting how good a team will be.  There appears to be a much stronger tendency to overlook teams that turn out later to be good rather than to overrate teams that turn out to not as good as pollsters thought.  Over half of the teams in a given year (~23) in the final postseason poll will have moved up >5 spots in the rankings from their initial selection; but only a handful of teams (~7) will have moved down by >5 spots from the preseason.  Another ~12 teams won’t move much from its initial standing.  This is strong evidence that pollsters generally have an accurate sense of the abilities of about 30% of teams in a given year, but they’re far more likely to underrate teams (usually by not ranking them at all) than to overrate teams (by a 3:1 ratio). 
• Some of the more notable examples of the pollsters being right on the money were in 2004, when they rated UConn/Duke as #1/#2, which is exactly where they ended the season.  Florida rated as preseason #1 in 2007 and Kansas as preseason #2 in 2003 were some other clear winners. 
• The swing-and-a-misses where the pollsters vastly overrated a team were Indiana in 2008 (#9 to #33), Duke in 2007 (#11 to #38), and Michigan St. in both 2006 (#5 to #34) and 2005 (#3 to #41).   
• The biggest misses where pollsters underrated a team was most obvious in 2003 and 2007, when preseason #31 Syracuse and #39 Florida, respectively, vaulted all the way to #1 by season’s end, and in 2004 when preseason unranked Georgia Tech made it to the F4 and #3 at the end of the year.  The only other preseason unranked team to have made the F4 in the last six years was George Mason in 2006. 

What does this mean for the 2008-09 season?  Well, if your team was ranked in the Top 25, you’re more than likely going to make the NCAA Tournament.  And if you’re already highly ranked, you should feel relatively secure in your position at or near the top – most teams simply don’t have huge drops in rankings from beginning to end of the season.  The good news is that if your team was lower ranked or not ranked at all, but you feel like they’re extremely underrated, history shows that an awful lot of teams move significantly up the rankings as the season goes along.  We’ll leave the guesswork as to who those teams might be to the rest of you guys. 

For those of your who haven’t been spending as much time on Rush the Court the past few months as you should (looking at myself in the mirror), we thought we would offer you a quick guide to what we have been working on over the past few months.

General Overview: Some top quality writing/prognosticating to get you in the spirit for the run from today until the early morning hours of April 7th, 2009.
– Finally, It’s Here: New RTC feature columnist John Stevens offers his thoughts about the upcoming season.
– A Little Preseason Bracketology: RTC co-editor (Do we even have titles?) rtmsf does his best Joe Lunardi impression and makes a surprising pick for his national champion. I’m smelling an attempt to make the RTC preseason bracketology championship the new Madden cover.
– Vegas Odds – Preseason Check-In: For the degenerate gamblers out there, RTC co-founder rtmsf offers an analysis of the Las Vegas odds for the 2009 NCAA champions for pure academic purposes. . .
– Preseason Polls Released: The surprisingly employed (I’m running out of titles here) rtmsf analyzes the AP and Coaches polls going into the season with a deeper look at unanimous #1 UNC’s early schedule.
– ESPN Full Court: 562 Games of Gooey, Delicious Goodness*: Once again, rtmsf comes through with the entire ESPN Full Court schedule with a Steve Nash-style assist from Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball.

Big Early Season News: While there are several big stories going into this season, there were 2 major stories that have come out recently that you should know about before you start watching games.
– Tyler Hansbrough Out Indefinitely: Who? Oh yeah, that guy. Everybody’s favorite for national POY and NBA Draft Day snub (get ready for the annual Dick Vitale rant) Psycho T will be out for a while, but we think the Tar Heels will be ok by March.
– Jai Lucas Leaving Florida: In a story that isn’t getting nearly the attention that the Psycho T story has (for good reason), Billy Donovan has lost last season’s starting point guard on the eve of the new season. While it appears that Lucas was probably heading towards a role as a backup point guard on the Gators, the timing of this announcement is surprising. It will be interesting to see what the Gators will do if freshman guard Erving Walker struggles in adjusting to SEC basketball.

Conference Primers: As part of our attempt to make a new-and-improved RTC, we hired the finest journalists in America to make our site more all-inclusive of the little people in the college basketball landscape. To that end we put together 31 conference previews (31 automatic bids to the Big Dance means 31 previews from RTC) with the help of the aforementioned correspondents.
– ACC
– America East
– Atlantic 10
– Atlantic Sun
– Big 12
– Big East
– Big Sky
– Big South
– Big Ten
– Big West
– Colonial
– Conference USA
– Horizon
– Ivy League
– MAAC
– MAC
– MEAC
– Missouri Valley
– Mountain West
– Northeast
– Ohio Valley Conference
– Pac-10
– Patriot League
– SEC
– Southern
– Southland
– Summit
– Sun Belt
– SWAC
– WAC
– West Coast Conference

As the season progresses, we will have more features and content including updates from all 31 conferences. We hope all of you are looking forward to the new season as much as we are and even if your team looks like it will struggle to make it to the NIT, remember the words of Kevin Garnett, who incidentally didn’t play a minute of college basketball (that’s another post), “Anything is possible!”

As part of our attempt to improve Rush the Court and make it the premier college basketball blog, we’re introducing a series of new features. Some will be daily (we’re bringing back our recaps on nightly action called After the Buzzer), weekly, and others will be a little more random (the Brandon Jennings Watch or the long-awaited RTC Prestige rankings). One of these features will be the RTC “Set Your Tivos” feature previewing the week ahead and giving our loyal readers a heads-up as they plan their lives around college basketball (all times EST). Without further ado, your Week 1 Set Your Tivos. . .

Normally, I would be going through a more extensive analysis of the day’s offerings, but this week the pickings are pretty slim so you’re essentially getting every game that I know is on TV.

Monday, November 10, 2008 – Presbyterian at #5 Duke, 7 PM (ESPNU): College basketball officially gets underway with a cupcake. While it will be interesting to see if Coach K has brought any new wrinkles into the Duke offense from Beijing, I don’t think he’ll be revealing it against Presbyterian. If you want to see if Duke has regrouped from its poor performance last March (barely beating Belmont and getting thumped by Joe Alexander and West Virginia), you’ll have to wait until Friday because this is going to be a beatdown.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008 – Michigan Tech at Michigan, 7 PM (ESPNU): The Wolverines are looking to bounce back from a disappointing 2007-08 campaign under former Mountaineer coach John Beilein. What is it with Michigan’s athletic department poaching all the coaching talent in Morgantown? If they have any shot of returning to respectability they should crush Michigan Tech. They should be able to do the latter, but I doubt they will be respectable this season unless you consider battling for a NIT bid respectable.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008 – Prairie View A&M at #4 UCLA, 10 PM (ESPNU): The big question for Ben Howland will be if he can guide the Bruins to Detroit for their 4th consecutive Final 4 (the last 3 ended with losses). This game will not answer any of the questions the Bruins have. Are you sensing a pattern here? So Bruins fans, enjoy the exhibition against a school that is most well-known for its incompetence on the football field.

Thursday, November 13, 2008 – Nothing. Catch up on the rest of your life since you’ll be busy until early in the morning on April 7, 2009.

Friday, November 14, 2008 – Toledo at #19 Florida, 6 PM (ESPNU): After a rebuilding campaign following their back-to-back national titles, Billy Donovan’s Gators look to rebound and make a run in March. Tonight will be a big first step in showing the nation they can do that even with the recent departure of last season’s starting PG Jai Lucas.

– Fairleigh Dickinson at #6 Pittsburgh, 7 PM (CBS College Sports All-Access): Our first look at one of the Big East powers, this won’t necessarily give us a good indication of how strong the Panthers will be this year, but it could be a potential 1 vs. 16 or 2 vs. 15 match-up in March.

– North Carolina Central at #24 Wake Forest, 7 PM (None): This may be the most interesting of the games tonight as Wake is a team with “tremendous upside potential” (see Brown, Hubie). Dino Gaudio managed to bring in the best recruiting class in the ACC (h/t to the late Skip Prosser) and will be poised to put a scare into some of the top teams in the country later in the year. This game may just give us a glimpse of how scary the Demon Deacons could be.

– Western Carolina at #2 UConn, 7:30 PM (ESPN360): The Big East favorites open up with a cupcake. Not much to see here. The Huskies won’t be at full-strength yet, but it shouldn’t matter. We’ll be interested to see if Hasheem Thabeet has progressed any since last season.

– Stetson at #8 Texas, 8 PM (ESPN Full Court & ESPN360): The Longhorns return 4 of 5 starters from last season’s Elite 8 team, but will have a big hole at the 1 with D.J. Augustin’s early entry into the draft. Rick Barnes will have to find a way to replace Augustin (last seen getting punked by Derrick Rose) in much the same way as he built last year’s team after the early entry of Kevin Durant (last seen leaving the city of Seattle in tears). If Barnes is able to pull that off, the Longhorns should have a good shot at a #1 or #2 seed. By the way, this game won’t give us any indication if that is the case.

– American University at #14 Oklahoma, 8 PM (ESPN Full Court & ESPN360): The Sooners are loaded this year and some are even picking them to win the Big 12. Blake Griffin will be leading the way, but will need solid support from diaper dandy Willie Warren and UCLA transfer Ryan Wright if they are going to challenge Texas. While Jeff Capel still has some work to do to match his predecessor’s level of success, we’re pretty sure he will be slightly less controversial. I’d watch this game more to see how good Capel’s new recruit and transfer are rather than using it as a gauge of how good his team is.

– Albany at #25 Villanova, 8 PM (Nova Nation All-Access):  A first look at Jay Wright’s team against a solid program from the Am East.  Will Wright go with the four-guard set that’s been rumored?  A lineup of 6’2 Scottie Reynolds, 6’1 Corey Fisher, 6’0 Malcolm Grant and 6’5 Corey Stokes wouldn’t get many rebouds, but would cause quickness mismatches all over the court.  Should be fun to watch. 

– Houston Baptist at #17 Marquette, 8:30 PM (Time Warner Cable Sports 32 locally in Wisconsin):  The seventh-year trio of Wesley Matthews, Dominic James and Jerel McNeal all return for the Warriors Golden Eagles, but Tom Crean doesn’t.  New coach and former assistant Buzz Williams has a talented, experienced team returning that probably should have made the Sweet Sixteen last year (but for the Lopez Roll).  In other words, he’s in a much better position than his predecessor will be this season several hours south down in Bloomington. 

– Detroit at #10 Purdue, 9 PM (ESPN360):  Purdue shouldn’t have much trouble with the team picked by RTC to finish dead last in the Horizon.  E’Twaun Moore and Robbie Hummell are worth sitting at home watching your computer on a Friday night, trust us. 

– Mississippi Valley State at #15 Arizona State, 10 PM (Fox Sports Arizona & Fox College Sports Pacific):  MVSU should be one of the better teams in the SWAC this year, but that doesn’t mean this will be a good game.  The more we think about ASU, the more we believe that they’re in for a big season.  James Harden is just that good, and Sendek has had enough time to get buy-in from his players for his system (which generally works). 

*h/t to Patrick Marshall (see below)

• Louisville 84, N. Kentucky 69.  Louisville is looking shaky in the preseason, but Samardo Samuels isn’t (29 pts).
• UNC 102, UNC-Pembroke 62.  Tyler Hansbrough wasn’t on the floor, but it didn’t matter much.
• Purdue 81, Northern St. 61.  JaJuan Johnson went nuts for 22/14/7 blks. 
• Oklahoma 94, Cameron 39.  Blake Griffin with 17/11 as OU rolled. 
• Marquette 94, Colorado St.-Pueblo 73.  Lazar Hayward with 23 and Jerel McNeal with 22.
• UCLA 76, Biola 42.  Darren Collison with 14 pts; Jrue Holiday with 11. 
• Wake Forest 97, Mt. Olive 62.  AFA had 15/12, but LD Williams led all scorers with 22 pts. 
• Florida 82, Rollins 53.  Nick Calathes with 16/6 assts. 
• Indiana 103, Anderson 71.  Will this be Tom Crean’s best win of the year?
• Kentucky 94, Ouachita Baptist 72.  Perry Stevenson with a near trip-dub (16/20/7 blks).

Kurt of SEC Hoops: The Good, The Bad, The Dirty is the RTC correspondent for the Southeastern Conference.

Predicted Order of Finish:

EAST

1. Tennessee (25-5, 13-3)
2. Florida (25-5, 12-4)
3. Kentucky (22-8, 11-5)
4. Vanderbilt (24-6, 9-7)
5. South Carolina (19-10, 8-8)
6. Georgia (15-13, 5-11)

WEST

1. Alabama (18-11, 8-8)
2. LSU (21-10, 8-8)
3. Mississippi State (21-10, 8-8)
4. Ole Miss (17-13, 7-9)
5. Arkansas (14-15, 5-11)
6. Auburn (14-17, 3-13)

What You Need to Know.  The name of the game for the SEC this year is youth. The Western Division in particular, as nearly every team loses some nucleus from squads that formed a comparatively weak conference half as it was. Tennessee once again looks to lead a strong Eastern Division despite the loss of All-American Chris Lofton. The nation will be looking towards this typically loaded conference with several questions heading into 2008-09. Can Florida’s sophomores have a breakout season similar to those of 2006-07? Can Kentucky put enough guards around all-SEC forward Patrick Patterson to compete for the East? And can the West avoid being stomped once again in head-to-head competitions with the East? My answers: yes, yes, and no.

Predicted Champion.   Tennessee (#2 seed NCAA). It’s pretty easy to brag on Bruce Pearl. He’s one of the nation’s premier coaches, owning a ridiculous 394-108 (.785) record as a head coach, standing third amongst current head coaches. Despite losing popular 2007-08 preseason pick for National Player of the Year Chris Lofton and do-everything guard/forward JuJuan Smith, the Vols will benefit from huge losses across the board for the SEC. All-American forward Tyler Smith (13.6 ppg, 6.7 rpg) returns to provide the squad with a heavy-duty anchor inside (although the 6’7, 215 lb. junior hits 37.8% from behind the arc), while talented center Wayne Chism will be mopping up inside defensively. Hopping aboard the orange train are a pair of insanely talented newcomers. Everything-All-American out of high school Scotty Hopson will be challenging for the starting spot at shooting guard while junior-college All-American Bobby Maze looks to start at point guard. All in all, the talent, experience, and coaching level is the highest in Knoxville, and that’s why the Vols are picked to win the SEC regular season for the second consecutive season.   Here’s some clips from the classic #1 v. #2 matchup Tennessee had with Memphis last season.

NCAA Teams.

• Florida (NCAA #3) – The Gators have once again put together a formula for a set of super sophomores. The league’s top freshman, as well as one of the conference’s best point guards in years, returns in Nick Calathes while a pair of star freshmen in Kenny Kadji and Eloy Vargas will attempt to fill the rather large shoes of NBA-bound Marreese Speights. Don’t be surprised if the Gators reclaim the SEC regular-season title for the third time in the past four years and show up knocking on the door of the NCAA’s Elite Eight.
• Kentucky (NCAA #6) – The Wildcats have a lot of outside shooting to replace, after losing over 33 points per game in Joe Crawford and Ramel Bradley. SEC Co-Freshman of the Year Patrick Patterson returns and looks to touch the ball on nearly every possession, and incoming freshman DeAndre Liggins should serve as this year’s heavily-relied upon freshman for the Wildcats at the point guard spot. UK could challenge for the Eastern Division (and thus, the overall SEC crown) and sneak into the NCAA Sweet Sixteen if the pieces fall correctly.
• Vanderbilt (NCAA #9) – Replacing SEC Player of the Year Shan Foster won’t be easy for Kevin Stallings, but the Commodores have another potential POY candidate in A.J. Ogilvy to step into that leadership role. Ogilvy returns as the conference’s most efficient player and scorer, and Jermaine Beal will be the guy to pass inside to the talented post-man while remaining a scoring threat this season. Although the Commodores lose an immense talent in Foster, Ogilvy should be enough to push the squad into the first couple of rounds in the NCAA Tournament.
• LSU (NCAA #11) – The Tigers return nearly every major contributor from last year’s 13-18 squad except for star freshman Anthony Randolph and head coach John Brady, who was replaced during the offseason with accomplished former Stanford coach Trent Johnson. Johnson inherits possibly the league’s most talented overall player in senior Marcus Thornton, the league’s leading returning scorer, along with a chance to get LSU back to the NCAA Tournament (if just so) for the first time since 2006’s Final Four run.
• Mississippi State (NCAA #12) – The Bulldogs lose the most talented duo in the conference in multi-dimensional Jamont Gordon and dominating post-presence Charles Rhodes. In addition, State will need to find a replacement at shooting guard with sophomore Ben Hansbrough transferring to Notre Dame. The positive, however, is that MSU is loaded with talented and will anchor around National Defensive Player of the Year Jarvis Varnado, who led the nation in blocks per game and helped the team rank second nationally in field-goal percentage defense. Adding two big new pieces to the puzzle in freshmen Dee Bost and Romero Osby, the Bulldogs could win their share of the West for the third time in the past four season and make an appearance in the NCAA Tournament for the sixth time in the past eight seasons.

NIT Teams.

• Alabama (NIT) – I’ve predicted several SEC squads with similar in-conference records, and thus those with the weaker RPIs have been restricted to the NIT. Alabama is one of them. The Tide return former All-American Ronald Steele, but major questions still surround his ability to return to his former self after several complications with knee injuries. McDonald’s All-American freshman JaMychal Green will step into the spot of the league’s most dominant offensive post-man in departed Richard Hendrix. If Green can handle the post himself, or if little-known sophomore Justin Knox can step in to assist, the Tide could find themselves away from a top NIT seed and into the NCAAs.
• South Carolina (NIT) – New head coach David Horn from Western Kentucky infamy will step into a very favorable position at the helm of the Gamecocks. USC brings back more firepower, at least percentage-wise, than any other SEC team and could post the biggest turnaround season the league has seen in quite some time. Junior Devan Downey returns as one of the league’s top point guards and toughest men to keep out of the lane along with ranking as the SEC’s second-leading returning scorer. With almost every piece seeming to come into place for a special season for USC, keep your eyes pealed for a potential Gamecock bubble squad.

Others.

• Arkansas – Just as USC returns nearly everyone, Arkansas loses nearly everyone from a team that underachieved a season ago. Namely, the Razorbacks lose former SEC Freshman of the Year Patrick Beverly, who decided to try his luck overseas. Despite a solid recruiting class, this should be a rebuilding year for John Pelphrey.
• Auburn – The Tigers simply have had a bare cupboard in both talent and depth constantly under Jeff Lebo, and this year is little different. The return of Korvotney Barber should help matters some, assuming he stays healthy, but Auburn won’t improve to any real degree until Lebo is let go.
• Georgia – The Bulldogs under Dennis Felton have been comparable to Auburn under Lebo for quite some time, except that Felton recruits a bit better and has had some nominal success such as last year’s confusing SEC Tournament run. With mass suspensions and off-the-court issues, UGA should remain near or at the bottom of the conference this season – and Felton should receive his pink slip much like Lebo.
• Ole Miss – The Rebels lost a lot last season, but were still anchored inside by solid and experienced forwards, especially Dwayne Curtis.  With those losses, this team is almost entirely underclassmen and could sneak into the NIT if they catch some breaks.

RPI Boosters.

• Kentucky @ North Carolina (11.18.08) – If the Wildcats can pull a massive upset of the consensus #1 team in the nation in Chapel Hill, they will be well on their way to returning to national recognition.
• Tennessee vs. Marquette (12.16.08) – The Volunteers get little or no breaks throughout the non-conference schedule, and this SEC vs. Big East matchup will be for conference bragging rights.
• LSU @ Texas A&M (12.20.08) – If the Tigers want to prove they are rebounding, this will be one of few opportunities for them to so in the non-conference slate.
• South Carolina @ Baylor (01.02.08) – The Gamecocks’ schedule is ridiculously light, and their schedule will be inflated by this point in the season. This game is a must-win if USC wants to take the step up into the NCAAs.
• Tennessee @ Kansas (01.03.08) – Another heavyweight matchup for the Vols, who have a chance to take down a reigning national champ on their home court.
• Kentucky @ Louisville (01.04.08) – The Cats could seriously bolster their NCAA seed and chances to advance in the NCAAs by taking down Louisville on the road.
• Memphis @ Tennessee (01.24.08) – A quickly-heating rivalry as the amount of NBA potential on this floor could drown the common man.

Important Games.

• LSU @ Mississippi State (01.11.09) – If the Tigers want to break through the cap and take the West, a win in this early conference game would be a huge advantage.
• Kentucky @ Alabama (01.24.09) – The Tide must be able to win games at home against the top tier of the East if they have any serious hope of challenging for the overall SEC crown.
• Mississippi State @ Alabama (02.21.09) – If the Bulldogs take care of the Tide at home, they have a shot to make it six in a row over their rivals and take a major step towards another West title.
• Tennessee @ Florida (03.01.09) – The Gators must hold serve at home to compete in the East, while the Vols could wrap up the conference title with a win here.
• Kentucky @ Florida (03.07.09) – We know the Wildcats can win at home, but can they win in Gainesville? This one could be for the East.

Neat-O Stat.  The Southeastern Conference is one of the nation’s deepest and most competitive leagues. The SEC ranks second only behind the ACC in average conference RPI since 1999, and has put every single member into the NCAA tournament since 2002.

65 Team Era.  The SEC has had a tremendous amount of success in this era, going 178-117 (.603) which is good enough for third behind the ACC and Big East.  This includes thirteen F4s and five national titles.  What’s particularly impressive is that only four of those F4s and two titles belong to Kentucky, the traditional standard-bearer of this league, which shows that the rest of the conference has taken basketball to heart and stepped it up. 

Final Thoughts.  The SEC was a huge disappointment on the national scene a season ago. Without major flag-bearers such as Kentucky or Florida dominating, expectations fell on Tennessee to take their #2 seed to the Final Four. Instead, the Vols served as the only team from the conference to make the Sweet Sixteen before falling on their faces to Louisville.  While this year likely won’t be much of an improvement, consider it a gigantic top-to-bottom reloading of one of the nation’s premier men’s basketball conferences, with the league’s talent being tremendously youth-oriented.  Three SEC teams look to have serious aspirations for getting past the second round of the NCAA Tournament, and all are from the East: Tennessee, Florida, and Kentucky. If a Western Division team can step up and compete better than expected and at least two of these teams make the Sweet Sixteen this season, it should serve as a useful springboard to a very potent year for the SEC on the national scene in 2009-2010.

Our first big transfer news of the impending season occurred today, as the word from Gator Country is that PG Jai Lucas informed Billy Donovan of his intention to transfer from the program at the end of this semester.  From the Orlando Sentinel:

Lucas informed Donovan of his decision at around 12:30 p.m. After starting all 36 games and averaging 8.5 points and 30.1 minutes per game as a freshman, Lucas described Florida as “not being the best fit for him,” Donovan said. Being far away from his home of Bellaire, Texas, also contributed. Lucas, who plans to stay on campus until the fall semester ends, has yet to choose a new school, Donovan said.   “There was a point where Jai wasn’t totally happy,” Donovan said. “He wanted to try to make it work…I hate to see him go, but my biggest thought for him is I want to see him happy wherever he goes. We haven’t even talked about schools.”

(Photo Credit:  Casey Brooke Lawson / Alligator)

It seems peculiar that Lucas has suddenly become unhappy two weeks into practice of a new season.  In our experience, that usually belies an issue of ‘the writing on the wall’ in terms of another player kicking his butt up and down and all over the court in practice.  Despite Donovan’s admonitions about Lucas’ exit not having to do with playing time, we’re not buying it – so who could be causing Lucas to feel expendable? 

Our best guess – freshman guard Erving Walker.  Donovan has already publicly called the 5’8 freshman Walker a “formidable backcourt player,” and his 13/6 assts in Monday’s debut was the newsworthy takeaway from that exhibition.  It’s no secret that Lucas, who had a solid overall freshman year in 2008, struggled with distributing the ball.  Despite playing over 30 minutes per game, he only averaged 2.3 assists (4th on the team) and accounted for merely 12% of his team’s assists – not great numbers for a point guard. 

There’s also the issue of class of 2009 stud Kenny Boynton, who will arrive in Gainesville next season as the Next Big Thing.  While Boynton is expected to play shooting guard, his presence will put additional talented bodies into an already-crowded backcourt.  We don’t find it coincidental that Boynton’s commitment to UF came last week, Walker’s hype began earlier this week, and Lucas’ decision came today.  Solid logical pathway there.  

What say ye, Gator fans?  Where will Lucas end up?  Oklahoma State, Texas, Kentucky?

We don’t put any much stock in Exhibition Games, because, well, they’re exhibitions.  But maybe we should – last year, Findlay defeated Ohio St. and Grand Valley St. beat Michigan St., and both of those teams had worse seasons than expected (OSU in particular – NIT).  Someone should do a correlation on this.  Anyway, here are some exhibition tidbits for the discerning fan…

• Syracuse 76, Cal St. LA 55.  Jonny Flynn led with 13/6 assts, as Cuse celebrated the returns of Andy Rautins and Eric Devendorf from injuries.  Red Flag – SU was 10-26 from the foul line.
• Florida 108, Warner 49.  Alex Tyus led the way with 16/14, in a game that was a clear mismatch from start to finish. 
• Kentucky 111, Missouri St – St. Louis 53.  Jodie Meeks is healthy, netting seven threes en route to 27 pts.  Someone named Josh Harrelson led the Cats with 21/12. 
• UCLA 86, Cal Baptist 58.   Jrue Holiday’s debut – 12/7/7/6 stls.  Nice. 
• Southern Illinois 82, Missouri Southern 59.  Carlton Fay led SIU with 17 pts, all in the first half.  Red flag – 34 turnovers. 
• Minnesota 88, St. Cloud 80.   Tubby gave his team a C or C- for their efforts. 
• USC 85, Azusa Pacific 64.  Taj Gibson with 19/14 but Demar DeRozan debuted with 21/7 himself. 

You may recall that during the summer – after the NBA Draft was completed and team rosters were essentially set – we did a quick check-in with Vegas futures odds on the winner of the 2009 National Championship.  There were no surprises – Carolina was a clear #1, but now that we’re in the preseason and season start is just over a week away, we thought it would make sense to do another check-in to determine if the futures market has seen fit to make any changes.  Comments after the table…

Source:  TheGreek.com

Thoughts.

• As you can see, the AP Poll and the futures market don’t seem to correlate much outside of the #1 Tar Heels.  If you believe the pollsters know what they’re doing (a fair argument given last year’s top four teams making the F4), then there is tremendous value in grabbing UConn, Louisville, UCLA, Pitt, and a few other top teams.  In fact, if you leave UNC off your card, and instead you take the AP #2 through #15 teams plus the field, you would have a great shot at winning something back if the Heels should falter along the way. 
• Only 14 of the 59 teams listed sustained a change since July 29, which may represent a market inefficiency or a general lack of interest during the offseason, we’re not sure which.  Of the 14, only four (UNC, Tennessee, Pittsburgh and Marquette) showed an uptick.  The other ten, which includes UConn, Florida, Kentucky, Kansas, Ohio St., Notre Dame, Arizona St., BC, Kansas St. and Stanford, all fell in value. 
• Are SEC East brethren Florida and Tennessee really getting that much action to justify their odds at +1200?  Unranked Ohio St. at +1500?  Team Turmoil Arizona at +3000?  Can we short these numbers?  On the other end, Gonzaga at +4000, Baylor and Washington at +6000, Wake Forest at +8000?  With the talent on those teams, why not take a bender on any or all of them?
• One bet we sure wouldn’t take – Indiana, even if you gave us a million to one odds.  Isiah Thomas and Quinn Buckner aren’t walking through that door for Tom Crean and Kyle Taber.
• If we were filling out a card, we might be intrigued by UConn, Notre Dame, Michigan St., Gonzaga and Wake Forest at those numbers.  Just sayin…

We’ll continue tracking this table throughout the season.

Prediction:  by the end of the first week of December, UNC will no longer be #1 in the major media polls.

No way, there’s too much pressure and they have too many good teams to handle before we even get our advent calendars.  Oh, and did you hear, a small piece of their offense will be out for a while with a stress reaction?  Even if this substantial piece never misses a game, which is extremely unlikely, he’s going to miss practice and be out of ‘game shape’ for a while.  And no, we’re not talking about Marcus Ginyard, but his loss hurts too.

Here’s Carolina’s early schedule – you tell us how they’re going to come out of this unscathed…

• v. Penn  (11.15.08) – easy enough at home, right?
• v. Kentucky (11.18.08) – this home game suddenly becomes extremely interesting if TH is out or still ailing – Patrick Patterson will wipe up the inside.
• @ UCSB  (11.21.08) – UNC fans will remember the west coast stopover game before Maui in 2004-05 well.  Trap game.
• @ Chaminade  (11.24.08) – Maui Invitational first round – easy W.
• v.  Alabama (probably) (11.25.08) – UNC should be careful to not sleep on an athletic Bama team, but will probably win regardless.
• v. Notre Dame/Texas (probably) (11.26.08) – either of these teams could defeat a less-than-full-strength UNC in Maui.
• v. UNC-Asheville  (11.30.08) – easy home win.
• @ Michigan St. (Detroit) (12.03.08) – 40,000 people could watch this game at Ford Field, and UNC will absolutely need to be at full strength to win this game vs. MSU.

There are at least three opportunities for the major upset here, and if Hansbrough and/or Ginyard are out for any of those games, go ahead and mark it down.  UNC will not enter the second week of December #1 and unbeaten.

Now, on to the polls, where UNC was a unanimous #1 in the AP Poll for the first time EVER (nope, not even 1991 UNLV, 1992 Duke or 2007 Florida), and also unanimous in the Coach’s Poll.  No pressure or anything…  FYI – UNC has been preseason #1 six times in its history (incl. this year) – the results of those seasons are: 1982 (Natl. Champs), 1984 (S16), 1987 (E8), 1994 (R32), 2008 (F4) – all that’s missing is a first-round loss or a title game loss.

Here are the polls.

We plan on doing some broader-based analytics of preseason polls in a general sense next week, but for now, here are a few things that we noticed right away.

• Biggest jumps from AP to Coaches – Georgetown (+4) and Duke (+3)
• Biggest drops from AP to Coaches – USC (-3) and Wake Forest (-3)
• Coaches tend to vote by available talent + belief in other coaches’ abilities – what does this say about Tim Floyd and Dino Gaudio in relation to JT3 and Coach K?
• Overrated – UConn, Duke, Oklahoma, USC
• Underrated – Wisconsin, Florida, Georgetown, Gonzaga
• All 25 teams in both polls are duplicates, but it’s interesting that Xavier was #26 in the AP vs. #30 in the Coaches.
• We’re a little surprised to not see St. Mary’s and Baylor ranked over teams like Villanova and Kansas, but whatever, that’s their poll, not ours.
• Alabama gets 16 AP votes but a donut in the Coaches – Mark Gottfried, much?  And LSU is getting too much love for simply getting a new coach.
• Conference Breakdown – Big East (7 + 2 others receiving votes); ACC (4), Big 10 (3), Big 12 (3), Pac-10 (3), SEC (2), CUSA (1), SoCon (1), WCC (1).

What are you going as for Halloween this year?  We hear the Kelvin Sampson costumes are boss in Bloomington…

• You heard about Hansbrough… Tennessee’s JP Prince will also miss the next 3-5 weeks with a shoulder injury. 
• Nevada’s leading returning player Brandon Fields was cleared of any wrongdoing in his shoplifting case – still no word on his suspension, though.
• And the Billy Gillispie Rule is instituted…
• Billy Donovan got a huge pickup with Kenny Boynton’s commitment today.
• Andy Katz gives a fantastic analysis of the Arizona mess on his blog – looks like Mike Dunlap made a stupid mistake in not accepting the head coaching job.  Oh, and former recruit Abdul Gaddy is going to Washington.
• Goodman’s Top 20 freshmen.  Here are CHN’s all-american frosh teams and their mid-major all-americans.  Parrish gives his Top 20 Games to watch before Jan. 8th.
• “The most egregious lack of institutional control ever seen.” 
• In the wake of Lute Olson’s retirement, Arizona loses another player, Jeff Withey, from the freshman class.
• Creighton is the preseason pick by the media and SIDs in the Valley.
• With Demar DeRozan in tow and a weaker Pac-10, we might not want to write off USC just yet.