Six days away from tipoff of the 2024-25 men’s college basketball season, we’re rolling out our final Top 25 of the offseason. We’ve interviewed coaches, talked to scouts and used any preseason intel we could find to set a baseline for the season ahead, ranking teams through more of a long-term lens rather than a snapshot of where everyone stands right now. Advertisement It’s easy to overanalyze charity exhibition and secret scrimmage results.
Although they are data points worth considering, those games are not always treated like a regular season game. They can make us better informed than we were two weeks ago when the Associated Press preseason poll dropped. Next week, everything gets real.
GO DEEPER Men’s college basketball preseason All-Americans: Sears, Flagg, Davis lead the way Click on each team below for the latest lineup projections and analysis from head coaches and scouts. Nate Oats has depth reminiscent of John Calipari’s best Kentucky teams. Oats has a recruiting pitch that sounds familiar, too: “Everybody could have played a lot more minutes and got a lot more shots had they gone elsewhere.
A lot of guys chose to come here to win and develop for the next level. And honestly, the NBA is not looking for minutes per game, points per game. They’re more looking for, do you know how to play the game and are you efficient in your minutes?” Unlike most of Calipari’s teams, Oats’ will play an NBA-like system that prioritizes space and shooting a to.