All 351 Division I teams ranked

[Da Coach]

Matt Norlander of CBS Sports ranks all 351 Division I teams. He obviously put a lot of work into this, but there is a lot I'd disagree with. He has Bradley ranked 231st. The highest MVC team is MSU at 58th.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/ranking-all-351-college-basketball-teams-from-duke-to-alabama-a-m/amp/

[pfcmsh]

Matt Norlander of CBS Sports ranks all 351 Division I teams. He obviously put a lot of work into this, but there is a lot I'd disagree with. He has Bradley ranked 231st. The highest MVC team is MSU at 58th.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-ba...abama-a-m/amp/

Obviously another partially informed journalist, with respect to Bradley, who is ranking 351 schools. With that number, how can one accurately determine a rating with any close up knowledge of all 351. I can see it on the top 50. Maybe the top 100. Numbers are one thing, but intangibles like growth, emerging leadership, chemistry and experience play huge roles. To say that Bradley will be 10-12 positions lower than the RPI index, where I saw them at 219, is silly. Just plain silly.

[Da Coach]

Yes, we just posted the preseason Ken Pomeroy rankings, and his are historically pretty accurate. He has Bradley at #133 out of 351, while Norlander/CBSSports have them at #231, almost 100 slots lower!

https://kenpom.com/

That Matt Norlander/CBSSports ranking has Bradley (#231) below Evansville (#226), Eastern Illinois (#207), Indiana State (#172), and a slew of really bad low-major teams. A lot of his rankings just make no sense and look like he pulled them out of a hat.

Ranking Bradley 9th in the MVC when they have everyone returning from a team that tied for 6th last year is mystifying. In fact, with Wichita State departing, only 4 of the current MVC teams finished ahead of Bradley last year (ILSU, UNI, Loyola, and SIU), yet Norlander now ranks 8 teams ahead of Bradley.

It makes no sense that he ranks Evansville ahead of Bradley, when some experts see UE as possibly the worst team in the MVC this season, and the MVC preseason poll ranks them a distant 9th. His comment about Evansville is actually quite unflattering- "Three senior starters gone from a 16-17 team. Probably will decelerate to 13 or 14 wins".

And Indiana State, which tied for last place in the MVC last year and doesn't appear to be improved significantly this year, Norlander now jumps them 60 slots ahead of Bradley for no explainable reason other than "Luck will be on their side in 2017-18". Some of his reasoning and comments sound like they would fit better in an article for The Onion, rather than a serious network sports blog.