The Preseason AP Poll was released today. Does it matter?
The AP Preseason College Basketball Poll, which has been listing its top 25 teams since 1989-90, was released for the 2023-24 season today.
Should we care?
Other than giving us something to argue (or complain) about for the next few weeks before the season begins, what purpose does the preseason poll serve? Most importantly, does it actually list the best teams in the country?
To answer this question, I went back and looked at the top 5 teams from each preseason poll since the inaugural top 25 poll in 1989-90 (it only listed the top 20 prior to that season). This is what I looked for:
How often did the poll rank the eventual champion number 1?
How often did the poll rank the eventual champion in the top 5?
How many Final Four teams were present in the poll’s top 5?
Here is what I found.
Q: How often did the poll rank the eventual champion number 1?
A: 6 times. That means, out of 33 tournaments, the AP poll has nailed the champ 18% of the time. A couple other notes about the number 1 ranking:
The last team to be ranked preseason #1 and win: UNC in 2008-09.
The preseason #1 team has been the runner-up 7 times.
3 of those 6 preseason #1 teams to win the title were before the new millennium: 1990 UNLV, 1992 Duke, and 1996 UK.
Q: How often did the poll rank the eventual champion in the top 5?
A: 20 times. That gives the AP Preseason Top 5 a record of 20-13. If you want to know how may times the AP poll has ranked the eventual national champ period, that would be 29 out of 33. The only unranked national champions were 2003 Syracuse, 2006 Florida, and UConn twice (2011 and 2023).
A couple other notes:
26 national champions were ranked in the Preseason AP top 10.
The AP top 5 missed 4 times in the 90s, twice in the 2000s, and 7 times since the 2009-10 season.
The Preseason #6 team has won the title 3 times.
Q: How many Final Four teams were present in the poll’s top 5?
A: Out of 132 possible Final Four teams, 56 were ranked in the AP Preseason top 5. That’s good for a 42% success rate, or an average of 1.68 final four teams correct per season.
Some other tidbits relating to this question:
The entire Final Four has only been present in the preseason top 5 twice: 2001 and 2008.
In 2008, the Final Four teams were identical to the preseason top 4 teams.
2006 was the first time the preseason top 5 went 0-fer. It also happened in 2011 and 2023 (both UConn championship seasons)
So, does the Preseason AP Poll matter? What do you think?