Big 5 Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2019-20 season

1. Villanova

Nova opens the year as the ninth-ranked team in the Associated Press poll, maybe in an outside position to compete for the Final Four or a national championship. The scariest thing about this team is also its biggest weakness; its inexperience. They lost 36 points a game with the graduations Eric Booth and Phil Paschall, and there isn’t one senior on scholarship on the roster. But what might be a hole in Jay Wright’s roster this season means next year’s group could be as deep, experienced and talented as any in the country.

The 2019-20 Wildcats are going to be led by Collin Gillespie, Jermaine Samuels, and Dhamir-Cosby Roundtree. A strong sophomore class highlighted by Saddiq Bey, a 2019 Big East all-freshman selection, figures to contribute to a group narrowly selected to finish second in the Big East for the first time in six years. Five-star freshman Bryan Antoine leads a first-year group that could land another couple of names on the 2020 all-rookie team. Bottom line, Jay Wright’s team is stacked as usual, and even if they send a player or two to the NBA this off-season, next year’s group is going to be even more lethal.

For this year, Wright is going to have to do something that he’s won two national titles doing by leaning on underclassmen. While they might be an outsider in a national title conversation dominated this year by power conference programs like Michigan State, Kansas, and Louisville, this team has second-weekend expectations at minimum. And count me as someone not sold on the hype around Seton Hall; I think Nova is the best team in the Big East, again.