NCAA Basketball: Preseason top 25 mid-major power rankings for 2022-23 season

24. UC-Santa Barbara Gauchos

2021-22 record: 17-11 (9-6 in Big West)

The Gauchos will be without star forward and leading scorer Amadou Sow, a four-year starter and career 13.0 ppg performer for the program. His loss certainly stings but the team was able to get arguably the best Big West transfer his offseason in Andre Kelly from Cal. The 6’8 forward started 73 games in four years at the Pac-12 level, coming off a career year of 13.4 ppg and 8.4 rpg on 61% shooting from the field.

Assuming that Kelly can come in and slide into Sow’s spot in the frontcourt, UC Santa Barbara will effectively have all of its key pieces back for another year. 6’4 guard Ajay Mitchell was a standout freshman last season (11.6 ppg and 3.7 apg) and will run the offense again, joined by Ajare Sanni, Josh Pierre-Louis, and Calvin Wishart in the backcourt. And they should have former Cincy guard and former top-50 prospect, Zach Harvey, back after missing all of last season with an injury.

The frontcourt duo of Kelly and returning forward Miles Norris is easily the most talented pair in the Big West, as both are former Pac-12 players. They were a solid offensive team but don’t shoot a lot of three-pointers, so the production of the bigs, as well as the continued development of Mitchell, will be important for them to compete for a top spot in the league.