NCAA Basketball: Power rankings of all teams (363-1) for 2022-23 season

60. Oklahoma Sooners- Last Season Ranking: 48

Conference: Big 12

The Porter Moser era got off to a good start in Norman, even though the Sooners didn’t make the tournament Oklahoma still won more games than they lost, and they looked good in the non-conference. The Big 12 is the deepest league in the country so it is understandable that a team breaking in a new coach with a new roster would struggle when they got to the league.

Coach Moser did implement his system quickly as Oklahoma played at one of the slowest paces in the country and had a good defense. The defense is guaranteed to be better under coach Moser 65 points per game is too much and coach Moser isn’t going to like that. Once they start allowing 60 and under consistently the coach will be satisfied with the defensive effort.

Oklahoma will be better as they have added some much-needed scoring in the transfer portal and the rest of the roster remains relatively intact. Even if Oklahoma finishes in the bottom tier of the Big 12, they will still likely be a bubble team. The entire league will be in line for a tournament bid at one point in the season.

Joe Bamisile is a transfer from George Washington who will provide the spark this team needs on offense. The guard was one of the best scorers in the Atlantic 10 a season ago and finished in the top five in most of the offensive categories. Bamisile did take a lot of threes but is athletic enough to be able to put the ball on the floor and get easy baskets. Oklahoma needed offense and the transfer guard hopes to provide that.

59. Colorado Buffaloes- Last Season Ranking: 55

Conference: Pac-12

Head coach Tad Boyle truly believes that this could be one of his best teams his Buffaloes are a tournament team this year. The roster does have a lot of intrigue and Colorado has a handful of players who could be the breakout player in the Pac 12. Coach Boyle is also shooting for his 5th straight 20-win season and top tier finish in the Pac 12. That is likely going to happen this year. Colorado has a talented roster and has something that many teams in the country do not have.

They have one of the best home-court advantages in the game because of the altitude they play at. The elevation of 5,381 feet is the highest elevation of any of the power five schools, highest in the Pac 12, and only 4 other schools have a higher elevation than the Coors Event Center.

Colorado lost their top three scorers and top two rebounders from last year’s team. The Buffaloes remind me a lot of their days with McKinley Wright. Colorado is better equipped to run the floor this year and are far more athletic than they have been in past years.

Nique Clifford is the player on the roster that I think is going to be a star in the Pac 12. Coach Boyle loves him and has said he is going to be a breakout player this year. The guard is finally going to get an opportunity to put up a lot of shots in the offense. The ones he does take he shoots at a high percentage from everywhere on the floor. Clifford is a good defender who is adept at blocking shots. I always take what coaches say about their teams because they are around the team all day long and know what they have. Clifford is a breakout star this year.

58. Wisconsin Badgers- Last Season Ranking: 72

Conference: Big Ten

The 2021-2022 season was supposed to be different for Wisconsin. They went from being the oldest team in the country by average age to one of the youngest. That didn’t stop Greg Gard from developing that young talent and turning into a team that won the Big Ten regular season, had the Big Ten Player of the Year, and a true freshman point guard who started every game and found himself on the conference all-freshman team. The Badgers played one of the true classic games in the NCAA tournament a season ago in the first round against Colgate. It was back and forth and eventually the Badgers won the game but not without a scare.

Diving deeper into the numbers its hard to figure out how the Badgers were as good as they were. They did not shoot at an overly high percentage from inside the arc or outside. The individual talent and the clutch shot-making by the Badgers is the answer. They never quit and are never out of a game because they rarely beat themselves. If you are not a Badger fan they are frustrating to watch when they play your team as they keep teams just close enough to pull away at the end of the game. Wherever Wisconsin is ranked it is likely going to be wrong.

Chucky Hepburn was a true freshman point guard who started every game for coach Gard a season ago. Hepburn started to get it going at the end of the season and is one player who looks like he can a huge leap to one of the best overall players in the Big Ten.  The sophomore from Omaha, Ne is a good shooter and is very skilled at driving to the rim. He is a good passer and has the best offensive game on the team. Hepburn is a player that coach Gard trusts and let him truly run the offense and that is good news for Wisconsin.

57. Syracuse Orange- Last Season Ranking: 38

Conference: ACC

It is never time to overreact to exhibition results, but the Orange kept Indiana University Pa way too close and were losing at halftime. Still, with 11 minutes left in the game the Orange were still losing before waking up and winning the game. Exhibitions usually don’t tell you anything about the team because most coaches keep it extremely vanilla and don’t play the starters a ton of minutes so as not to get them hurt or give away too much. Syracuse went through the motions until the end of the game and over the last handful of seasons that has seemed to be a theme for some games for the Orange. There are far too many times that Syracuse looks like they are sleepwalking through a game. It has cost them a few times.

Head coach Jim Boeheim is a legend and I hope the game is not evolving too much and passing him by. Syracuse is not what they once were, but would anyone be surprised if they made a run to the tournament and a subsequent run to the second weekend? We have all seen them do that more than once. Syracuse is still a popular destination for top recruits as they reload every year, and this year is another year where Syracuse could finish anywhere from 9th in the league to 3rd in the league.

The Orange should be improved this year. Judah Mintz was a highly touted recruit who was at one time committed to another ACC school in Pitt, before decommitting and then committing to Syracuse. The Oak Hill Academy product is going to be the starting point guard for coach Boeheim. Mintz was listed as a four-star by every recruiting service and the guard believes he is a five-star and is going to show everyone that he is. Coach Boeheim believes that Mintz can lead this team in scoring and run the offense.

Remember that the Orange also run a zone defense exclusively and he would be the anchor in the 2-3 zone that has become a signature of any Boeheim-coached team. Coach Boeheim has compared Mintz to another Syracuse great, Johnny Flynn. He is half as good as Flynn was in college it would be big for the Orange.

56. BYU Cougars- Last Season Ranking: 39

Conference: West Coast

The Cougars were a hard team to figure out last year. They were extremely talented and should have finished in the top half of the WCC easily. BYU seemed to play down to their competition and had a hard time closing out games against teams that seemed to linger around. The four-game stretch at the end of January and beginning of February with losses at Santa Clara, at Pacific, San Francisco, and ended it with a loss to Gonzaga was not something we had seen from BYU over the last few years. The Cougars had always taken care of the teams they were supposed to beat and then would struggle with the top teams in the West Coast Conference.

Last year though BYU never looked right as they were extremely reliant on one player and lost the balance that they normally have. The Cougars always seemed to have so much balance because the entire backcourt and the depth were knock-down shooters. The Cougars shot 35% from three but that is struggling by their standards. The West Coast Conference is loaded again this year and BYU will have a bounce-back year and be in the mix for their final year as a mid-major before they make the jump to the Big 12.  The Cougars will play in the postseason either in the NIT or the NCAA tournament.

Rudi Williams is going to help fix the three-point shooting problem for the Cougars and BYU should be back to being one of the best shooting teams in the country in no time. Williams makes his way to Provo from Coastal Carolina where he averaged 15 points per game on 51% shooting from the field and 45% shooting from deep. Williams is a perfect guard in this system because he can score from all over the floor and plays good defense. It won’t be long before BYU is back.

55. Stanford Cardinal- Last Season Ranking: 68

Conference: Pac 12

Coach Jerod Haase has been a force on the recruiting trail as he has consistently been able to get top recruits to come to Stanford. The problem is not with the talent it is with the results. The Cardinal have yet to do anything with the amount of talent they have in Palo Alto and there also seems to be a bit of a development problem. There was once a time when Stanford was the premier program in the Pac 12, and it was not all that long ago. The Cardinal have tradition and coach Haase hopes he can get back there; the name obviously carries weight on the recruiting trail.

The one thing about this Stanford team that is different from past teams is Stanford hardly ever takes transfers. This season the Cardinal took a transfer for the first time in 12 years, and it was the first graduate transfer the program has ever had. The Cardinal have a positive outlook for this season. They loaded up on top recruits again and have a good portion of their roster returning including some former top recruits who are ready to take off. Coach Haase should finish in the middle of the pack in the Pac 12 and is this finally the year he makes the tournament?

Harrison Ingram was a five-star recruit when he came to Stanford last season. He turned that into a Pac 12 Freshman of the Year award and was one of the best freshmen in the country. Ingram would have been a lottery pick if he decided to come out for the NBA draft. Ingram decided to come back and this year the Cardinal have surrounded him with more talent than they have had in a while.

In what will likely be the last season in Palo Alto for the forward he is going to be one of the best forwards in the country and has an outside chance to win the Pac 12 player of the year. If he is even in the conversation at the end of the year Stanford will make the tournament.

54. UAB Blazers- Last Season Ranking: 74

Conference: Conference USA

If you love to watch teams get up and down the floor with one of the shortest players in the college game running the point. Not only does he run the point, he also is one of the nation’s leaders in scoring. If you like all those things, then UAB is the team for you. They are a joy to watch play basketball.  They can score, they defend, rebound, and bury a bunch of threes. Last season in the NCAA tournament the Blazers gave Houston everything they could handle before eventually running out of gas.

Head Coach Andy Kennedy enters his third year as the head man for the Blazers and they have won 20 games both seasons and made the NCAA tournament. UAB is turning into one of the premier programs in the Conference USA and hopefully becomes an annual participant in the NCAA tournament. UAB has always been a popular destination for transfers as their top 4 scorers were all transfers into the program and 4 out of 5 starters were transfers. There is a good portion of the Blazers roster returning from last year and the rest of it has been supplemented with transfers and most of them are guys who shoot the ball from downtown well.

Jelly Walker was once a transfer to UAB from Tulane. Walker stands at 5’11” but is one of the premier scorers in the game. He averaged over 20 points per game last season to go with 5 assists. It doesn’t stop there for Walker. He is a 40% three-point shooter and shoots 88% from the line. The point guard gets fouled a lot and can rack up points at the free throw line. Jelly is the reigning Conference USA player of the year, and I would be surprised if he didn’t win it again. He has a chance to be one of the best to ever wear a Blazers uniform even if there for only two seasons.

53. Penn State Nittany Lions- Last Season Ranking: 76

Conference: Big Ten

Penn State was going to make the tournament in 2019-2020 and then the season got canceled because of Covid 19. Then head coach Pat Chambers resigned after an investigation and allegations of some inappropriate conduct. The loss of coach Chambers who had some momentum going at Penn State forced the Nittany Lions to enter a rebuild. After one year of an interim head coach in Jim Ferry, the administration hired Micah Shrewsberry to be the permanent head coach, and the team last year had some highs and lows.

The Nittany Lions had one of the worst offenses in the country, but they were able to keep themselves in games with a good defense. The effective defense led Penn State to some victories they otherwise would not have gotten. In the first year under coach Shrewsberry, Penn State did get wins over Indiana, Iowa, Ohio State, and Michigan State, but they also got blown out at home against Nebraska and got blown out against UMass.

So, as I mentioned there were highs and lows. Penn State played at a slow pace, took about half of their shots from three, and rarely got to the foul line. It is hard to know if that is going to be the philosophy of their new coach or if it was just a result of the way the roster was assembled last year. This season with a full offseason under his belt coach Shrewsberry improved the team in the transfer portal. He was able to go out and get two players in the backcourt who have had stellar careers at their previous schools, and both know how to score. Pair them with what the Nittany Lions have back, and you get a vastly improved offense. The Big Ten is a deep league and it is hard to move up. Penn State plays on the first day of the Big Ten tournament but barely.

Andrew Funk spent the first four years of his career at Bucknell. While at Bucknell he scored over 1,000 points, had over 300 rebounds and over 150 assists. The guard is one of the most prolific three-point shooters in Bison history. He will be a welcome addition to a team desperately needing some offense.

52. Mississippi State Bulldogs- Last Season Ranking: 27

Conference: SEC

Last season was supposed to be the year for the Bulldogs. Mississippi State had the best roster they had ever had under coach Ben Howland. The roster had height, skill, and former five-star players galore. The roster didn’t pan out and Mississippi State was a .500 basketball team. They were very frustrating to watch, especially knowing what kind of talent they had on the roster.

The root of the Bulldogs’ problems a season ago start and end with their inability to hit any shots from deep. Mississippi State shot under 30% from deep a year ago. They were good at getting to the rim and they got fouled a lot. I had the Bulldogs just missing the preseason top 25 a season ago, thought they were a lock to make the NCAA tournament and would have one of the best offenses in the country. I was wrong as a lot of the talent did not develop as many Bulldogs fans would have hoped.

This season the Bulldogs enter a new era as Chris Jans is the new coach for the Bulldogs. Jans had a good run at New Mexico State and capped it off with a win in the NCAA tournament. Coach Jans getting a power job was a long time coming, he has been deserving of a power five job for a while. It may take a few seasons for Jans to get his team ready to play in the NCAA tournament, but I would imagine that he has the same success with Mississippi State that he did with the Aggies.

DaShawn Davis is a transfer from Oregon State, and he led the Pac 12 in assists last season. Even though the Beavers were the worst power five team in the country a year ago they did have some talent. Davis was one of those players, he averaged 6 assists per game last year and rarely turned the ball over. The 2.2 assist-to-turnover ratio and total assists were the most by an Oregon State player not named Gary Payton. The Bulldogs need a pass first point guard to get the ball to the shooters to hopefully kickstart the offense.

51. Cincinnati Bearcats- Last Season Ranking: 88

Conference: American Athletic

Defense is what we all know the Bearcats basketball program to be about. Cincinnati is one of the best teams and makes a game a mess slowing the pace way down, getting physical, and turning the game into a rock fight. The Bearcats are not usually known for their offense. That is why last season when the Bearcats hired Wes Miller, he fit in so well with that program he was not going to have to change the identity of the program at all.

There were not many people who were very high on Cincinnati as they were breaking in a new coach and had some question marks with the new roster. The Bearcats ended up winning 18 games and one thing they did a little bit differently was they played at a faster pace than most Bearcat teams are used to.

The Bearcats were still bad on offense, they shot at a terrible percentage and couldn’t shoot much from the three. Coach Miller tried to change that in the transfer portal by finding guys who are efficient scorers especially from deep. The Bearcats’ roster has improved but I’m not convinced they did anything to fix the offensive efficiency.

David DeJulius returns for his final year in the program and this season he is hoping for a change in his ability to shoot from deep. The senior guard is a better shooter than he has shown. He started his career at Michigan, which recruits shooters and then last year he averaged 5 attempts from deep a game and shot under 30%. He was great inside the arc and if he can shoot anything over 30% from deep the Bearcats will have a good season.