The case for Houston at No. 1

Good morning! We had quite the last few days of news and actual basketball (even if it was only exhibitions and scrimmages).

Let’s dive in.

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Editor’s note: This section was written Sunday afternoon, then tweaked this morning after kenpom rankings dropped.

1. Houston should be the top regular-season team

Peruse the various advanced analytics sites. You’ll notice a trend among the Top 5 teams.

The Top 5 at Torvik:

At Kenpom:

Here’s EvanMiya:

And here’s the Top 5 at Haslametrics:

All four tab Houston as the best team entering the 2024-25 season. And there’s a sizable gap between the Coogs and everyone else.

That’s not the case with human rankings. ESPN has Houston at No. 4. Same with Fox Sports. CBS Sports has it at No. 3 (And second in the Big 12.) Heat Check has Houston at 8. And when the AP poll drops today, my money’s on Kansas or Duke being atop the poll.

Houston returns four starters from a 32-5 team that won the Big 12 by two games, plus essential bench players in Terrance Arceneaux and Joseph Tugler — both of whom missed all of March due to injuries. This is a team that was a Jamal Shead ankle sprain away from beating Duke and in all likelihood a trip to the Final Four.

So why not the Coogs at No. 1? Is Jamal Shead’s absence that significant?

There’s a more-than-capable replacement in former Oklahoma guard Milos Uzan. He’s got size (6-4) to step in on defense and enough savvy to run the offense. As Rob Dauster and John Martin discuss in our Offseason Grades, Houston earned an A with its moves in the portal and recruiting.

As impactful as Shead was — there was no better defender in college hoops last season — he’s not irreplaceable. That’s the whole point of Houston’s system. It lost its two top bench players and still ran away with the Big 12. It made the transition to the Big 12 without an All-American in Marcus Sasser and a lottery pick in Jarace Walker and still ran away with the Big 12.

Was Shead a special player? Absolutely. But between the scary frontcourt (getting a rebound from J’Wan Roberts or getting a shot off in front of Ja’Vier Francis is nearly impossible) and a backcourt with underrated shooters (Emanuel Sharp hit 37% of his 3s last season while LJ Cryer made 39% of his attempts, his lowest since he was a freshman) who love to play defense and it’s a team that’s built to destroy teams. Especially during the regular season.

Over the last three seasons, Houston is 97-15, better than any other program. It’s overall efficiency (.9668) also tops all other D-I programs, including UConn. This is a program that’s produced wins and done so at such an efficient rate that only 2018-2022 Gonzaga and 2015-19 Villanova can match.

The best team during the 2024-25 regular season should be Houston. I don’t know if it’ll cut down the nets in San Antonio (which is what Kelvin Sampson wants most anyway), but in the regular season, Houston’s the team to beat.

2. UNC gets an RJ Davis scare + more scrimmage news

North Carolina fans won’t see anything more frightening than this during October.

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