As y'all no doubt know by now (and if you didn't, now you do), the pre-season coaches poll for basketball is out today. There were really no huge surprises and it's hard to take issue with too much of what came out of it, but most of us will probably have nit-picks with it.
There don't appear to be any major slights, though. All in all, it mostly makes sense, even though I think a couple of teams that are traditionally good got overrated somewhat significantly. Kentucky wound up second, as you would expect, but by a rather wider margin than I would have expected.
Analysis and commentary follows the jump.
Here are my analysis of the rankings. A blank comment suggests that the ranking seems reasonable to me. The others, if I commented negatively, were adjusted under "my rank."
| Rank | My Rank | Team (first-place votes) | 2010 Record | Points | 2010-11 Final Ranking | Comments |
| 1 | 1 | North Carolina (30) | 29-8 | 774 | 8 | They deserve to be here for now. |
| 2 | 2 | Kentucky (1) | 29-9 | 721 | 3 | Only one vote? Really? That's a bit of a shock to me. |
| 3 | 3 | Ohio State | 34-3 | 702 | 5 | |
| 4 | 4 | Connecticut | 32-9 | 655 | 1 | |
| 5 | 5 | Syracuse | 27-8 | 649 | 18 | |
| 6 | 10 | Duke | 32-5 | 635 | 7 | I find this dubious. Duke lost their three leading scorers last year, two seniors and Kyrie Iving. They have one obvious impact player coming in in Rivers. They may be top ten, but barely. |
| 7 | 6 | Vanderbilt | 23-11 | 567 | NR | Well deserved. Have they ever been this high before pre-season? |
| 8 | 12 | Louisville | 25-10 | 514 | 22 | Overrated. This team has no business in the top ten based on their personnel. |
| 9 | 8 | Memphis | 25-10 | 482 | NR | |
| 10 | 14 | Florida | 29-8 | 474 | 10 | I think they are too high as well. Zero quality depth in the front court. |
| 11 | 9 | Pittsburgh | 28-6 | 471 | 12 | With Khem Birch joining Gibbs and Robinson along with solid depth, this team should be top ten. |
| 12 | 7 | Baylor | 18-13 | 358 | NR | I think Baylor should be top ten. Dunn's loss is addition by subtraction, and Perry Jones is all that. |
| 13 | 15 | Kansas | 35-3 | 331 | 4 | Artificially high, like Duke. They lost too much and bring in too little to be here. |
| 14 | 17 | Wisconsin | 25-9 | 313 | 15 | Too high for me, lost too much. |
| 15 | 13 | Xavier | 24-8 | 277 | NR | With the addition of Vandy transfer Andre Walker, I would have them higher. |
| 16 | 11 | Arizona | 30-8 | 269 | 9 | Their only major loss was Williams and they bring in two impact freshman. This is too low. They should be bumping up against the top ten. |
| 17 | 16 | Alabama | 24-11 | 194 | NR | |
| 18 | 18 | Michigan | 21-14 | 187 | NR | |
| 19 | 19 | Texas A&M | 24-9 | 161 | NR | |
| 20 | 20 | UCLA | 23-11 | 147 | NR | |
| 21 | 21 | Marquette | 22-15 | 145 | 20 | |
| 22 | 22 | Cincinnati | 26-9 | 141 | NR | |
| 23 | 23 | Gonzaga | 25-10 | 125 | NR | |
| 24 | NR | California | 18-15 | 111 | NR | Not buying. |
| 25 | 25 | Missouri | 23-11 | 110 | NR | |
| NR | 24 | Michigan State | 19-15 | N/A | NR | This team will be far better than people think. |
So what do you think? Do you agree with the coaches, or do you have issues as well?