The Top 25 for NCAA College Basketball 2021-22
By TERRY LYONS
BOSTON – It’s Halloween, the eve of All-Saints Day a.k.a All Hallows’ Day, the Feast of All Saints, the Feast of All Hallows. Others think of it differently, with all due respect to the Roman Catholic Holy day of obligation, says this disciple of the great Hall-of-Fame St. John’s head coach, Louie Carnessecca.
For college basketball fans, it’s officially MIDNIGHT M🏀DNESS!
Lately, college basketball is a lot like Halloween as prominent coaches and their recruiting assistants and runners repping bigtime schools go house-to-house “trick-or-treating” for players – once committed to another school – but now in the transfer portals.
In 2018, the NCAA put in place a new rule that college student athletes can transfer one time without having to sit-out a season. The system is in place and popular for college soccer players and for men’s and women’s basketball, in particular. There are favorable transfer portal rules for graduate transfers and for the players left behind by a coach who was either fired or moved on to a better position or more money. Also, because of the pandemic, the NCAA has allowed student-athletes an extra year of eligibility and that has been reason for some players to look to transfer.
Depending on the coach and the program (sans the IVY League which doesn’t fool around with such nonsense), the recruitment of a transfer can fill a hole in a program, replace an injured player, replace a player who might’ve dropped-out or other circumstances that require relocation. Note: Here is an interesting compilation of the transfer portals researched and provided by Athletic Director U.
Although the rules provide for an immediate return for programs that seem “one player away,” many college coaches don’t actively shop the transfer portal., including the likes of Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, a Hall-of-Famer.
According to AD U, Arkansas head coach Eric Musselman has nearly perfected a system to project how a low-major player will perform at a high major, an “Up-Transfer” to a tough competition conference, such as the SEC. He did the same when he was successfully coaching Nevada in the Mountain West.
What is quite interesting is a good look at the annual preseason college basketball rankings. A tough task, yes, but the Associated Press, the College Basketball Coaches and the bible of college basketball, the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook all do their very own Top 25 predictions.
On first look, all three are very similar in their rankings. Additionally, the listings include the “usual suspects,” those college basketball juggernauts that we all find in the 68-team NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament every March.
To save time and space, our parent publication, Digital Sports Desk, crunched some numbers and created a “Consensus Top 25,” utilizing the three polls cited above while adding insights and observations from college basketball media days, player updates and trends.
Here is the 2021-22 Consensus Preseason College Basketball Top 25:
- Gonzaga
- UCLA
- Kansas
- Villanova
- Texas
- Michigan
- Purdue
- Baylor
- Kentucky
- Duke
- Illinois
- Memphis
- Oregon
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- Houston
- Tennessee
- Ohio State
- Florida State
- North Carolina
- Maryland
- Auburn
- St. Bonaventure
- UConnecticut
- Virginia
Keep an Eye On: Mississippi State, Indiana, USC, Texas Tech, and Virginia Tech.
HERE NOW, THE NOTES: The bible of college basketball noted above, Chris Dortch’s Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook, is a must-purchase for every hoops fans. Media members contribute and benefit from the enormous amount of work and research provided by the editorial staff headed by editor/publisher Chris Dortch. This columnist can’t remember the last time a college basketball season began without the yearbook in the home office. One reporter refers to the day Blue Ribbon arrives as “the best day of the year.” with respects to Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, The Breeders’ Cup, BIG EAST Thursday & Friday, March Madness Thursday, and Final Four Saturday, no one disagrees.
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This year Dortch wrote, “For the second consecutive year, the COVID-19 pandemic has made the production of this book challenging. But, in 41 years of publishing, we’ve faced down many potential roadblocks. Some we’ve faced head-on and overcome, others we’ve had to devise a work-around.” … Dortch also wrote about Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski who announced this would be his last year coaching college basketball and Blue Ribbon dedicated its cover to Coach K. … You can get your very own (we recommend the spiral bound and digital download combo) Blue Ribbon by visiting their online site HERE. You can also read about the college basketball news all season long by subscribing to Blue Ribbon on this Substack platform.
COLLEGE COACHES AND OTHER ITEMS FOR NEXT WEEK: This week, in a salute to the great career of Duke’s Coach Krzyzewski, we’ll provide a list of the Top 10 coaches in college basketball. Next week, we’ll delve into the BIG EAST conference.
While We’re Young (Ideas) Top 10 College Basketball Coaches 2021-22: There’s no other place to start than with Coach K, who not only guided Duke University to great heights but also helped restore the pride and winning ways of the USA Basketball Men’s Senior National Team.
- Mike Krzyzewski (Duke)
- Mark Few (Gonzaga)
- Jay Wright (Villanova)
- Tom Izzo (Michigan State)
- Bob McKillop (Davidson)
- Eric Musselman (Arkansas)
- Chris Beard (Texas Tech)
- Jim Boeheim (Syracuse)
- Ed Cooley (Providence)
- Tony Bennett (Virginia)
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Happy Halloween.🎃