For months, basketball has slowly been edging closer, and now, Kansas fans are well under one month away from Jayhawk basketball being back. Tomorrow marks the release of the AP preseason top 25, which truly signs that basketball is back. With the countdown to November 3rd against Green Bay, along comes the nation’s top pundits previewing their predictions for the season, with the latest being Ken Pomeroy’s Ken Pom.
A very dimmed-down explanation of Ken Pom’s most notable stat, the Net Rating, is this. If Kansas scores 1,500 points on 1,230 possessions, then you divide the two, multiply it by 100, and you get the offensive rating. The same thing goes for the defense. To get the overall Net Rating, you just subtract the two and voila, (we hope this translates well). Now there are numbers which skew things significantly, for example, strength of schedule for both opposing offenses and defenses, and even one stat called luck. As the season goes on and these stats gain data, a more accurate foundation will be built, but for now, we have the baseline.
Kansas’ KenPom sits at a +21.46, with the offensive rating sitting at 114.0, which ranks 42nd, and the defensive rating of 92.6 ranking 10th in the nation.
The overall KenPom places the Jayhawks at No. 21 in the nation and seventh in the Big 12. Topping every other team in the nation comes Houston (+31.14), and the other Big 12 teams ahead of Kansas rank No. 12 Texas Tech (+24.23), No. 13 Iowa State (24.16), No. 15 Arizona (+23.88), No. 17 Baylor (+23.44), and lastly, No. 18 BYU (+23.10).
A scary Big 12 slate could be incoming for the Jayhawks.
How accurate is KenPom? Last season, the Washington Post reported that out of 22 national champions since 2002, 19 have been ranked in the top 25 of KenPom's adjusted efficiency margin.
Obviously, the game isn’t played on paper, but with the historical accuracy the Ken Pom has, it can give a non-biased look at how Kansas may look amongst the rest of the pack.
This is a Jayhawk team that has reeled in a number of the nation’s best prospects. Most notably taking the floor will be 247Sports’ No. 1 recruit G Darryn Peterson, along with Peterson comes freshman G Kohl Rosario, F Samis Calderon, G Corbin Allen, and C Paul Mbiya.
Joining the freshmen are transfers, graduate student G Nginyu Ngala (Intl), senior G Melvin Council Jr. (St. Bonaventure), senior G Tre White (Illinois), and senior G Jayden Dawson (Loyola-Chicago).
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