Is it March yet? We’re still a good four and a half months from the tipoff of one of the greatest spectacles in sports, but it’s never too early to start thinking about the 2015 tournament and debating which four teams will make the trek out to Indianapolis and Lucas Oil Stadium for the Final Four.
The headline, right off the bat, is the overwhelming support thrown behind the Kentucky Wildcats, who continue their trend of losing their top talent to the NBA after only year, only to then replace said top talent with a host of five-star recruits. This year, they landed four such recruits. This year, though, head coach John Calipari was able to hang onto a few of those standout freshman, including the Harrison twins, the 7-foot 255-lb. center, Dakari Johnson, and junior guard Willie Cauley-Stein who led the team in steals and blocks per game last year. All of that combined equals a strong team that’ll look to make it back to the national championship game, but this time get to cut down the nets. For Kentucky, this is the second year in a row that they find themselves atop the preseason AP poll.
As for your defending national champions, the UConn Huskies find themselves all the way down at 17 in the AP poll and 19 in the Coaches poll. According to ESPN Stats & Info, the 17-spot is the lowest for a defending national champion since the 2008-09 Kansas Jayhawks checked in at 24 the year following their March Madness win.
No. 17 @UConnHuskies: lowest preseason ranking for defending champ since 2008-09 Kansas (No. 24)
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) October 31, 2014
For your by-conference breakdown of the top 25 26, this isn’t college football, so there are far more than two conferences represented here. Five different conferences are represented in the top five; twelve conferences overall make an appearance in the rankings (by virtue of that tie—not sure how the Harvard/Utah thing shakes down, so it could’ve been 11 if the Ivy League school got bumped). The most well-represented conferences should be no surprise to anyone who knows a thing about college basketball: The ACC and Big 10 lead the way with five teams apiece, followed by the Big 12 with four teams. The Pac 12 and American Athletic Conference each boast two teams. Other conferences represented include the Missouri Valley Conference, Atlantic 10, Big East, West Coast Conference, Mountain West Conference, and the aforementioned Ivy League, all with one team each.