ESPN's WAY Too Early Top-25

[KansasCityCats]

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/36058691/uconn-huskies-no-1-2023-24-way-too-early-top-25-men-college-basketball-rankings

It's just ridiculous click-bait because the reasonable "too early poll" would come out on May 1st (after transfers and incoming freshmen have signed with their respective programs).

Regardless, they have Arizona at #8 next season with Tubelis slotted to tentatively return.  I'm assuming that almost every roster will look drastically different than these projections...

[Wildcat Dad]

Lol, do any of us see Arizona as #8 with the current roster?

[Cactus🌵Cat]

Dad, yes #8 seems reasonable... For now.
Arizona finished the season ranked #10 in NET and despite the loss of Krissa and Bal, other teams lost more than Arizona.

Don't let the fact that Arizona was bounced in the first round trick you into thinking the team isn't very good.

End of the season NCAA NET rankings. https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d1/ncaa-mens-basketball-net-rankings

[Cactus🌵Cat]

LOL at #25 in the article...

"The (UCLA) roster isn't great right now. The Bruins have to be in the top 25, though, so here they are for now."

[KansasCityCats]

I know...loving the pity ranking for UCLA.

Arizona definitely has Top-10 talent...and it showed when we consistently beat the upper-tier teams throughout the season.  Boswell takes better shots than Kriisa and his improvement throughout the season should provide optimism at the PG position.

Losing Ramey could be tough but I expect Pelle to be better from the perimeter...and I assume that Lloyd will find a transfer on the wing to share minutes with Lewis.

The key is retaining both of our bigs.  If the leave, we'll be fine...yet it'll be hard to justify a preseason #8 ranking (although Lloyd has pleasantly surprised us throughout the first 30+ games of each season).

[arxpert]

We are painfully over-ranked in this write up, but if Zoo Tube does happen to stay for some strange reason then I would expect the same exact results. A strong regular season and an early-out. It all hinges on Tommy learning how to coach in-game. The teams that went the furthest this year largely utilized 8-10 players with real minutes (8-12 for the low end) and were mixing and matching on demand.

[mvpreed2]

Arizona went from being ranked too low coming in to 2022 around 16th.
Now, they are ranked WAY too high at 8th after losing your starting PG and two 5th year starters?
I too believe that Boswell is going to be able to plug the gap vacated by Kriisa.
Larsson SHOULD be able to plug the hole left by Henderson assuming he takes a SMALL step up in production.

Right now, there is no one on this roster that will be able to plug the holes left by Ramey.
I thought that was going to be Bal, but he is out, and right now, there is no transfer prospect walking in the door.
Three bodies are walking out, and one is walking in.
I hope Lloyd is able to bring in two pieces and can rearrange this puzzle to get a better (and maybe different?) type of roster than it was in 2022-23.
#BearDown

[KansasCityCats]

Lloyd  needs to learn how to be an in-game coach?  He just broke the ncaa record for most wins in his first two seasons.

8th is reasonable, considering the fact that the bluebloods are always overrated with top-50 prospects and a few mid majors are always under-valued.

[arxpert]

Arizona went from being ranked too low coming in to 2022 around 16th.
Now, they are ranked WAY too high at 8th after losing your starting PG and two 5th year starters?
I too believe that Boswell is going to be able to plug the gap vacated by Kriisa.
Larsson SHOULD be able to plug the hole left by Henderson assuming he takes a SMALL step up in production.

Right now, there is no one on this roster that will be able to plug the holes left by Ramey.
I thought that was going to be Bal, but he is out, and right now, there is no transfer prospect walking in the door.
Three bodies are walking out, and one is walking in.
I hope Lloyd is able to bring in two pieces and can rearrange this puzzle to get a better (and maybe different?) type of roster than it was in 2022-23.
#BearDown

We do have "KJ Lewis" or what not. We don't really know what he will bring to this team yet. So it's worth keeping an eye on that.

#8 is completely fine if Tubelis stays because Tommy is not going to change his coaching. It will be moon ball lob after moonball lob to the post. It is hard to defend. 80ppg is hard to beat consistently. But that doesn't make Tommy a good coach. He has been lucky to have the talent in place. This will be the first year he will have to make something happen.

I refuse to put Pelle in the starting lineup. He is a career 6th man. Nothing wrong with that. Jet Terry, Gilbert Arenas were 6th men type players. The role doesn't define the player. Pelle played even more minutes once he came off the bench. It was working too. It's all about identifying how to deploy talent off the bench, who to focus marking on Defense. What type of plays to try to run after seeing what an opponent comes out with vs us.

Tommy needs to go at least 8 to 9 players. He cannot be stubborn and go 6.5 deep on "January 10th" and expect the team to have anything left in the tank by March. Ballo could barely run the floor by March. I felt sorry for him. He needs to work on his conditioning this offseason and if Henri AND Dylan stick around, they both need to be getting on the floor. There is no reason they should be sitting out unless Tommy is not developing them properly. They are too talented.

[Deb]

#13 for Colorado?!!?!?

Hahahahaha