First computer Top 25

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Good morning! Hope you had a great (long?) weekend. If you’re like me, you spent yesterday prepping for Hurricane/Tropical Storm Beryl. And writing this newsletter.

So maybe not identifiable?

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1. Re-thinking the preseason Top 25

The biggest fireworks from the long weekend weren’t in the sky, on the court, or on the pitch.

They came from Bart Torvik.

This Saturday tweet announced updated T-Rank projections for the 2024-25 college hoops season caused me to stare at barttorvik.com for about 3-4 hours over the weekend (when I wasn’t staring at Beryl updates). He noted that changes to his model (they focus on using BPM as the method for player projections) accounted for the update.

Most of the casual fan convos will likely center around the Top 25.

Duke jumped to No. 2 overall, while Illinois made the biggest overall leap. The Illini were 44th and are now 17.

Also notable:

• Creighton (13) sunk 8 places.

• UConn (12) and Gonzaga (9) both dropped spots.

• Rutgers is now a Top 25 team, (up from 30).

• Xavier (37) dropped out of the Top 25.

• UNC (No. 6) and Baylor (14) both jumped seven spots.

• St. John’s (15) remained a Top 20 team.

• Houston (1) and Iowa (3) didn’t change, while Kansas (4) dropped two spots.

(Related: I’ll still have Houston as my No. 1 team for next season)

Beyond the Top 25, I’m fascinated by

• Drew Pember-less UNC Asheville is projected to finish better next season (150) than it did this season (171).

• New coaches? No problem. Indiana State (186) jumped 49 spots, while Youngstown State (193) and Western Carolina (292) went up 48 places, and UTRGV (235) soared 70 places.

• Colgate (216) is now the top team in the Patriot League again after going up 42 places — and without Braeden Smith.

• Georgia is at 39, up from 75. Seems notable that the Dawgs are three spots behind Arkansas and ahead of Ole Miss.

• VCU (53) dropped 13 places, but is still the top A10 team.

• Penn State (73) went up 9 spots, while Vanderbilt (67) dropped 13 spots. Both are expected to finish at their bottom of their respective leagues.

• Colorado (113) jumped 18 spots. It’s still the projected worst Big 12 team — by 26 places.

• The lowest Big East team is DePaul (125), while Boston College (147) is the lowest-rated Power 5 team.

You can see all the changes via this link.

2. Hurley’s first pitch and Karaban’s boot

UConn’s title tour continued over the weekend, though not all the news was good news.

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