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Kentucky Wildcats Basketball: 2011 Pre-Season Coaches Poll Dissected

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?