College Basketball Preseason Coaches Poll: Teams Ranked too Low

The college basketball preseason coaches’ poll is out, which means so too are the droves of vindictive fans feeling their school was cheated and disrespected by what amounts to a meaningless survey.

(You can view the entire poll here).

In the grand scheme, the poll does not have a particularly strong track record predicting Final Four participants or national championship winners. Only three of the last ten preseason No. 1 teams as determined by the coaches’ poll have gone on to cut down the nets in early April. The odds of a team unranked in the preseason poll winning the national title are almost as strong, with two of the last ten national championship winners having begun the year unranked.

During the 2010-11 season, three of the four Final Four participants began the year ranked outside the preseason Top 15. The 2006 Final Four featured zero teams ranked in the preseason Top 15, and eventual champion Florida started the year unranked.

RELATED: College Basketball Preseason Coaches Poll: Teams Ranked too High

This season, in all likelihood, will prove no different, with parity flooding most of the Top 25. It would be unfair to carp at the rankings and split hairs between No. 13 and No. 15; after all, the games have yet to be played, so who are we to say definitively whether the poll is fair or foul, right or wrong? We’ve learned our lesson from past history.

But Busting Brackets is rushing to judgment anyway. In this short series, we pick apart five teams overhyped by the preseason coaches’ poll and five schools equally underappreciated by the coaches.

Yesterday we dissected five teams ranked noticeably high. Today, we take a stab at five teams disrespected or otherwise overlooked by the first coaches’ poll.