The preseason basketball rankings rollout has begun with the first AP Poll and All-SEC teams set to come out on Monday ahead of SEC Media Day in Birmingham on Tuesday. Until then, all of the national outlets are starting to release their own takes on the upcoming season, starting with KenPom right at midnight to get the week started.
What do the analytics say about Mark Pope and the Kentucky Wildcats? Well, it’s about what you’d expect when you factor in data for a group featuring 12 new scholarship pieces with none previously suiting up in Lexington and just one playing for Pope at BYU.
They don’t favor the Cats, I’ll tell you that much.
While most other publications include Kentucky in their respective top 25 lists, KenPom lists Pope’s group at No. 42 overall with the No. 28 offense and No. 68 defense nationally. That’s good for tenth in the SEC, somehow.
Taking a deeper dive into KenPom’s …