NCAA Basketball: Power ranking of all 357 teams for 2020-21 season

160. Wright State Raiders

The top of the Horizon League has a chance to be the best it has ever been with three teams that have a legitimate chance to win the league and make the NCAA tournament. The uptick in competition is only going to help the conference especially when it comes to seeding in the NCAA tournament.

The Raiders lost Billy Wampler a season ago and his production is going to be hard to replace. Loudon Love is still back, and he is still likely going to dominate this league, but the other teams have now caught up to Wright State in terms of talent. The Raiders finished third in the Horizon League but the top three will be a battle.

159. UAB Blazers

The Blazers are always that team that never does anything flashy and they silently win 20 games per year. Raise your hand if you knew UAB had seven winning seasons in a row. Other than Blazer fans not many know that. UAB returns a lot of their team from a year ago and it was a team who finished in the top 70 on the defensive end of the floor. Grad transfer Michael Ertel can really score the ball. UAB should finish around .500 in the Conference USA and finish in the middle of the pack.

158. Ball State Cardinals

Over the last five seasons, the Cardinals have been one of the best teams in the MAC Western division and they finished tied with Northern Illinois for first place last year. This year’s team appears poised to repeat at the top of the MAC West. Ball State has the pieces to put a nice run together both in and out of conference. Ishmael El-Amin is one of the best shooters in the MAC and the leader for Ball State.

157. Drake Bulldogs

It was already a well-known fact that Darian DeVries was a great coach when he got the job at Drake, but the job he has done as the leader of the Bulldogs has been unbelievable. The Bulldogs had their heyday in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Since that point, they had one 20-win season and some very bad ones mixed in. DeVries has had two consecutive 20-win seasons and is on the verge of turning the Bulldogs into the next power in the Missouri Valley.

Drake enters the year as a team that has tremendous sleeper potential in the league. They get senior stars Roman Penn and Tremell Murphy back this year. The only problem is the top half of the Valley is all good, and the top five teams are going to be super competitive. Drake is a top-five team in the Valley.

156. Long Island Sharks

The Sharks under Derek Kellogg have been right around .500 in both the Northeast Conference and overall. It has been that way the three seasons that Kellogg has been the coach. This appears to finally be the year that Long Island gets back to the top of the conference. The rest of the league lost so much talent to graduation and transfers.

The Sharks, however, were able to keep their roster on campus and that includes the overwhelming favorite for the Northeast player of the year Tyrn Flowers. Long Island behind Flowers finishes at the top of the league.

155. Indiana State Sycamores

The Sycamores ended up finishing third in the Missouri Valley a season ago and they ended up finally getting back on the winning side with head coach Greg Lansing. The Valley is loaded at the top this year with four teams who have a chance to get to the NCAA tournament and the Sycamores should be considered in that list.

Tyreke Key returns for his senior year ready to take a run at the top of this league. Indiana State is a sleeper and can make a deep run in the league and into March.

154. Robert Morris Colonials

Welcome to the Horizon league Robert Morris, after many years dominating the Northeast conference, the Colonials head to the Horizon League. The Colonials didn’t lose much from last year’s Northeast Conference championship team and Robert Morris is expected to compete and finish near the top of the Horizon League. AJ Bramah will likely average a double-double this year as Robert Morris tries to get back to the NCAA tournament.

153. Siena Saints

Siena enters the season having won 10 games in a row, and they were the one team I was hoping would have made the NCAA tournament a season ago. They have the best player in the MAAC and the Saints have been able to surround their star with a great roster.

The Saints are the favorite to win the MAAC and their star, Jalen Pickett is a future NBA player and will likely score around 20 points per game this season. Pickett along with double-double machine Manny Camper make the Saints a force in the MAAC. No power-five team is going to want to see the MAAC champion on their side of the bracket.

152. Florida International Panthers

Florida International had been on the upswing the last two years under new head coach Jeremy Ballard. They much like their conference mates UAB have silently won 20 games and 19 games the last two year and have done so without much fanfare. The Panthers are a middle of the pack Conference USA team as they are well-coached and don’t need to have a star to succeed. Antonio Daye Jr. is the best player.

151. Towson Tigers

Since Pat Skerry has been the coach of the Tigers, they have consistently won about 19 games per year. The team won that many games last year and finished third in the Colonial. This season Towson is able to utilize the services of some high-quality transfers and grad transfers to make a run at the NCAA tournament.

The Tigers have a team that can win that league and if everything goes right could run away with it. New Mexico transfer Zane Martin is one of the favorites for the conference player of the year.

150. Lipscomb Bisons

The Bisons failed to win 20 games last season for the first time in the last four years, but they were able to still finish in the top three of the Atlantic Sun Conference standings. Lipscomb has a good portion of their roster back from a season ago and the Atlantic Sun is not going to be as strong at the top as it has been in years past.

Lipscomb is the favorite to win the league and they have one of the best big men in the entire country in Ahsan Asadullah. The big man is one of the favorites for the Atlantic Sun player of the year.

149. St. Bonaventure Bonnies

The Bonnies have been one of those teams who you pretty much know where they are going to finish in the Atlantic 10 every season and every opponent knows exactly what they are going to get when they play St. Bonaventure. Head coach Mark Schmidt has built his team into a very consistent team within the conference and every year they get underrated and every year they outperform that ranking.

That is likely going to happen this year as St. Bonaventure has all their production back from a season ago including their two star guards in Kyle Lofton and Dominick Welch. The Bonnies are middle of the pack Atlantic 10 team and that is not due to lack of talent but massively improved depth in the Atlantic 10.

148. Eastern Washington Eagles

The Eagles had a nice bounce-back season last year and were able to win the Big Sky regular-season title. Offense was the name of the game for head coach Shantay Legans and his Eastern Washington program. Eastern Washington averaged over 80 points per game last year and finished in the top six in the country.

The Eagles likely won’t take much of a step back on offense as they have star Jacob Davison returning along with the best rebounder in the conference in Kim Aiken Jr. Should be another conference title for Eastern Washington this year.

147. UCSB Gauchos

Joe Pasternack is now entering his fourth year as the coach of the Gauchos and in the first three UCSB has yet to win less than 20 games in a season. The Gauchos have built their roster using high-quality transfers from big conferences. Those players have played a huge part in the success of UCSB under Pasternack. This year the Gauchos will likely win 20 games again and be an extremely tough team to play.

They have enough talent to give many power schools a game, but they still don’t have quite enough to climb to the top of the Big West. Coach Pasternack is still trying to teach consistency and no nights off. Amadou Sow enters his junior year as an all-conference type player and a name to watch for the Big West player of the year.

146. Kent State Golden Flashes

Golden Flashes head coach Rob Senderoff has had six 20-win seasons in his nine completed seasons at Kent State. He has made one NCAA Tournament and coach Senderoff has known for a while that the MAC East is a really tough division.

This year Kent State should be about the same 20 wins and finishing around fourth in the MAC East but will be the fourth or fifth-best team in the MAC overall. Danny Pippen is the leading rebounder on this team and contributed 14 points per game to the top 50 offense from a year ago.

145. Eastern Kentucky Colonels

Eastern Kentucky had a great season last year and was able to finish in the top half of the Ohio Valley last year which was a tall task considering the overall talent in that conference. Head Coach AW Hamilton did a great job of getting the most out of his team and the 16 wins was the most the Colonels have had since the 2014-2015 season. Jomaru Brown is the real deal and one of the best unknown players in the country.

144. Colgate Raiders

The Raiders had their best season ever last year and were upset in the Patriot League finals. Colgate has one of the best offensive teams in the country and most of those players from that team are back this year. Colgate is slowly turning into one of the best teams in the Patriot League and look poised to dominate the league for the foreseeable future.

Jordan Burns is one of the best guards in the league and he should be getting more publicity nationally. He makes the Colgate offense what it is and makes every player around him so much better. Colgate is a top-two team in the Patriot League.

143. Chattanooga Mocs

The Southern Conference is loaded every single year and this year is no exception. Don’t feel bad Mocs fans that this list shows you finishing in the bottom 4 of the league. The top seven teams in this league which Chattanooga is a part of can all qualify for some sort of postseason tournament and all of them are going to be good and likely have more wins than losses. The Mocs are led by David Jean-Baptiste.

142. Georgia Southern Eagles

The Eagles are breaking in a new coach so how they adapt to the new coach will be something to watch for. Georgia Southern still has a good enough roster to be competitive in the Sun Belt. The Eagles scoured the transfer market and were able to get some high-quality transfers to fill the holes in their roster.

It should be noted that most of the players on this roster were recruited and signed to play under the old coach. The overall strength of the top of the conference is good and Georgia Southern filled their holes well. Zach Bryant gets a full year for the Eagles and he has all-conference player potential.

141. Pepperdine Waves

Please allow me to correct a mistake a made doing my preliminary conference rankings. I undervalued Pepperdine and its roster. The reason I undervalued them was due to their coach. Lorenzo Romar has never been an overly impressive in-game coach, he can recruit and get talent, but he has never been able to get that talent to live up to the hype.

Pepperdine is a middle of the back team in the West Coast Conference, but their star will determine how far they go. Colbey Ross is going to be the best player to ever put on a Waves uniform and he is going to have a say as to where Pepperdine fits into the West Coast Conference picture so they can outplay the middle of the standings ranking slightly.