Interestingly, he projects us to have better defensive numbers than offense (32nd and 47th in adjusted efficiency, respectively). We're 19th in projected production from transfers, which is important given we're only returning 12.3% of our minutes from last season.



Full rankings available here.

SEC teams:
5. Arkansas
6. Florida
12. Texas
18. Alabama
22. Tennessee
23. Vanderbilt
29. Georgia
37. Missouri
39. Auburn
40. Oklahoma
41. A&M
45. Kentucky
68. Mississippi State
85. South Carolina
87. Ole Miss
141. LSU

FWIW, Buzz/Maryland are #33.

Note that if you dig into our projected contributors, this doesn't include Clemence (or Hill). Adding Hill doesn't move the needle on the numbers, but adding Clemence jumps us to #34. Torvik also projects Josh Irving to be more productive than Vinson. This also doesn't include Bryson Warren. So I think as Torvik continues to build out his model, A&M will end up closer to the 20-30 range.

Is that a fancy way of saying we have the 19th best transfer class (which would be downright insane to say)?

TexasAGGIEinAR said:

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Every bit of it is a guess until we tip off in several months.

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We will not know much until Jan 27

Why would projections exclude Clemence? As long as he's healthy he's a go.

If A&M's transfer class isn't raising eyebrows ..just goes to show mid major basketball is dead from a competitive standpoint.

I always find it funny how much anybody reacts to these stupid rankings put together by dumbasses. I think I agree with Luke and believe this team should make S16. I know he said second weekend, but I believe S16 should be expected and E8 is very possible (not saying expected, saying very possible).

To quote Luke's take when we had the following exchange on the transfer portal thread................

Quote:

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Hey Luke, curious about your thoughts on where you think SEC media days will predict us to finish. I think last year, IIRC they had us finishing at the bottom, maybe in the last 2 or something very low like that, maybe you remember? But, what do you guess after they have seen yr 1 under Bucky and a better/more talented roster and going into yr 2 with some returners familiar with his system? Where do you guess they are voted to finish?

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They had A&M picked to finish 13th last year.

I still think it takes a few years for the SEC Media to fully buy in to a new head coach, so if I had to guess, I think they'll be picked somewhere between 6th and 9th next year.

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I could be wrong but I think we will finish better than we did last year (meaning 6th seeding in the SEC tourney). It was absolutely unbelievable to go 11-7 in such a tough conference and finish essentially tied for 3rd (record wise) and 6th in seeding for the SEC tourney with only 1 returning player (McDermott who had only seen 1 yr of college ball and appeared in only 7 games of that 1 yr, not to mention, in a system/style completely 180 degrees from what Bucky Ball is) and a thrown together roster (with scraps from a completely worked over portal). We have upgraded across the board and will probably run a similar type of depth (11 man rotation as a regular) as to keep guys fresh and continue to be able to wear down opponents. The difference is the quality of those 11 or 12 guys we will play are higher quality talent

I started looking at the SEC schools in this ranking and I wonder how they have Arky as the top team from the SEC when they are losing all of their top 8 scorers which also seems to be their regular rotation as they all played over 35 games this past season. They have all either exhausted their eligibility, have declared for the draft or have hit the transfer portal.

It would be interesting to look at those other schools listed/ranked better than us. BTW, sooners, really?????? WTF ever!!!!!!

I had us at 39

Papa Joe said:

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Let's prove them wrong again!

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Final 8 or 4 next year

MLC88 said:

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I always find it funny how much anybody reacts to these stupid rankings put together by dumbasses.

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I think it's funnier that people say stuff like this without any kind of knowledge about the particular rankings in question.

I imagine when all the models shake out we're going to be in the 20-30-ish range, which is still probably a couple ticks low because there's no good way to project Warren.

Without overthinking it, based on the externals Torvik consumes to attempt ranking (while waiting for true validation in actual game outcomes), I don't see a reason to disagree strongly with the methodology though Bucky demonstrated he can, *ahem* best the odds. But he hasn't taken a team deep in the dance so it's safe to modestly underrate ours this year.

When I used Torvik last preseason his projections were totally wrong for the Aggies, but more accurate for some other teams. It was really meh. His contributors were wrong. KenPom was far more accurate and consistent throughout the season. I use them all.

bobinator said:

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MLC88 said:

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I always find it funny how much anybody reacts to these stupid rankings put together by dumbasses.

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I think it's funnier that people say stuff like this without any kind of knowledge about the particular rankings in question.

I imagine when all the models shake out we're going to be in the 20-30-ish range, which is still probably a couple ticks low because there's no good way to project Warren.

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Yeah, I just posted this for discussion now that the portal activity is winding down. But calling torvik just another internet dumbass is a pretty hot take. He even cautions that it's too early to really use the projections at this stage - it's just discussion fodder while we're this far out from the season. If you look into the data, he clearly still has work to do (I mentioned Clemence/Hill aren't included in our data as they are classified as "Senior/Departed", and as you note Warren is hard to project/model and also isn't included in the data).

I think the standout thing to me is just how deep the SEC is (again). 6 teams in the top 25, only 4 teams below 45.

Is the auction for the top portal guys pretty much over?

I think they're going to more or less crush everyone next season like Michigan did this year.

halfastros81 said:

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Why would projections exclude Clemence? As long as he's healthy he's a go.

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Probably just because he listed as a senior last year.

According to ChatGPT which I admit may not be the best source (dated) , 11 of the top 100 portal entries have not yet committed. They also estimate 30 of the top 200 have not yet committed to a team.