The Boise State men’s basketball team has made it a habit to outperform preseason rankings and predictions. They’ll get another shot to do it again.
Ken Pomeroy released his famed rankings on Sunday and Boise State comes in at No. 63.
Sure it’s a sign of respect – 63rd is Boise State’s highest preseason ranking at KenPom since the 2013-2014 season. But it feels a bit low for a program picked to finish second in the Mountain West and with arguably the best returning trio in the league in Tyson Degenhart, Max Rice and Chibuzo Agbo.
First, the good news. Boise State typically ranks low in KenPom’s rankings for whatever reason (hard to gauge the impact of transfers like Cam Martin and O’Mar Stanley who will have bigger roles at Boise State), but routinely finishes with way better numbers by the of the season.
Boise State has improved at least 40 spots at KenPom from the beginning of the season to the end in each of the past three seasons. The Broncos finished 37th at KenPom last season after starting the year at No. 85 – an improvement of 48 spots.
Two years the Broncos started at No. 80 and finished 39th, and three seasons ago they were 106th in the initial rankings before finishing 61st.
So while 63rd may seem low, history would say this is actually a pretty good spot for the Broncos to be in out of the gate.
As for what else sticks out about the preseason KenPom rankings? First, the Mountain West rankings:
San Diego State – 29
New Mexico – 46
Boise State – 63
Nevada – 67
Colorado State – 74
UNLV – 77
Fresno State – 100
Utah State – 101
Air Force – 157
San Jose State – 171
Wyoming – 214
And here’s Boise State’s nonconference opponents:
Saint Mary’s – 38
Clemson 51
Virginia Tech – 65
Washington State – 84
North Texas – 87
San Francisco – 93
Utah Valley – 166
Cal St. Fullerton – 174
Northwestern State – 334
Vanguard (unranked, non-D1)
Western Oregon (unranked, non-D1)
Boise State is guaranteed to play either Iowa State (No. 31) or VCU (No. 86) in the second round of the ESPN Invitational in Orlando in November, and then would play one of Texas A&M (No. 24), FAU (No 37), Penn State (No. 85) or Butler (No. 96) in the third game.
The quad system uses the NET rankings, which don’t come out until around Jan. 1, But using the current KenPom numbers, Boise State’s schedule has:
-Seven Q1 games: (Clemson, Saint Marys, two vs. San Diego State, at Nevada, at CSU and at New Mexico)
-Eleven Q2 games: (San Francisco, Virginia Tech, North Texas and Washington State in the non-conference), plus two more in the Orlando Tournament and five within conference.
-Eight Q3 games
-3 Q4 games
The Broncos went 12-9 in the first two quadrants last season and finished No. 34 in the NET.
Boise State opens the regular season on Nov. 7 against Vanguard.
