Preseason College Basketball Rankings 2015: Takeaways from 1st Coaches Poll

After waiting for months on end for the first official Top 25 ranking of the 2015-16 men's college basketball season, the USA Today Sports Coaches Poll spit out a tie for No. 1 between Kentucky and North Carolina.

It's a little hard to believe that Maryland wasn't a bit closer to making it a three-way tie, but it's even harder to argue against either the Wildcats or Tar Heels entering the season as the top team in the land.

Of course, it won't be until the Associated Press Top 25 is released that we actually learn whether there will be two teams officially recognized as No. 1 for the first weekend of the season, but the coaches poll is a nice appetizer for that main dish. It should give us all plenty of argument fodder to survive these last few weeks until the season begins.

There are more than just those three teams in the top 25, though, and we've come up with a handful of takeaways from how the coaches' consensus rankings panned out. Be sure to add your own in the comments.

Takeaway No. 1: Coaches Don't Play Favorites

Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

Given the love bestowed upon Kentucky, North Carolina, Maryland, Duke and Kansas this offseason, we certainly weren't expecting an overwhelming favorite at No. 1.

A tie between Kentucky and UNC for the top spot, though? And five different teams receiving at least one first-place vote? Come on, coaches! This is the one time your collective opinion actually matters to the general population, and you can't even agree on a top dog?

Maryland is pretty firmly entrenched at No. 3, but teams ranked No. 4 through No. 6 weren't exactly separated by a mile, either. Duke (686), Kansas (675) and Virginia (667) all fell within a range of 19 votes.

Though they had plenty of difficulty agreeing on the actual order of the top six teams, the coaches are in near-unanimous agreement that those are the top six teams. The gap between Virginia at No. 6 and Iowa State at No. 7 was 126 votes.

With just 32 coaches contributing to the coaches poll, that's a very significant difference. The average coach awarded Virginia 20.8 points, which roughly boils down to 27 fifth-place votes and five sixth-place votes. Iowa State's average score was just 16.9 points, which could be made up of 29 ninth-place votes and three 10th-place votes.

Assuming we can agree that this information means there are six favorites to win the 2016 national championship, buckle up for a wild year in the ACC, which is responsible for 50 percent of those contenders.

Takeaway No. 2: Coaches Hate Scandals

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One month ago, SMU was all but guaranteed a spot in the preseason Top 25 rankings. In late May, Gary Parrish of CBS Sports had the Mustangs at No. 15 in his poll. Blue Ribbon's Chris Dortch had them at No. 21 in mid-September.

But then the NCAA dropped its hammer on Larry Brown and company, ultimately resulting in a postseason ban that the school didn't even bother to appeal—the whole thing hasn't been sitting too well with the players on this year's roster.

Were we expecting SMU to appear in the consensus coaches' Top 25? No, not really. But we definitely weren't expecting the Mustangs to be completely absent from the "Others Receiving Votes" category.

Postseason ban or not, this is still a very strong roster. Seniors Nic Moore, Markus Kennedy and Jordan Tolbert are understandably peeved that they have already been denied their last shot at competing in the NCAA tournament, but the amount of talent on this team hasn't changed.

Maybe the coaches simply don't care for the American Athletic Conference?

Connecticut just barely made it into the poll, tied with Purdue for 24th place. Cincinnati finished outside the Top 30, even though the Bearcats return everyone of importance from last year's roster and are practically a lock for the NCAA tournament. Tulsa has a primary seven-man rotation consisting of seven seniors, but the Golden Hurricane received just one measly vote. It seems that conference has a lot to prove this year.

Takeaway No. 3: Coaches Love Legendary Coaches

Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

It's hardly a surprise to see Bo Ryan's Badgers in the top 25, but all the way up at No. 17? That's an awful lot of respect for a coach who doesn't have an awful lot to work with this year.

Yes, Wisconsin still has Nigel Hayes and Bronson Koenig, but if you had to put preseason money on this team's third-best player, who would it be? Is it redshirt freshman Ethan Happ or minimally used-reserves-turned-projected-starters Zak Showalter and Vitto Brown?

Look, the Badgers could absolutely end up being a Top 20 team, and I fully appreciate the desire to show some respect for the back-to-back Final Four appearances. But why not throw a bone in the direction of Texas A&M, Oregon or Florida State and take a wait-and-see approach with a Wisconsin team that lost five of its top seven scorers without adding any top-90 recruits to fill the voids?

Plain and simple, coaches trust coaches who have done it time and again. It's not just Bo Ryan, either. Rick Pitino and Louisville just missed the Top 25, checking in at No. 27 despite losing all four of their leading scorers and presently trudging through potentially the biggest scandal of the past decade.

Of course, Jim Boeheim and John Beilein both sneaked into last year's top 25 while undergoing similar wholesale roster changes, and that didn't work out so well, so we'll see if Ryan and Pitino can flip that script this year.

Takeaway No. 4: Coaches Love Freshmen

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By no small margin, the biggest surprise among the top 25 teams is LSU at No. 19.

We're all excited to watch Ben Simmons and Antonio Blakeney this season. We feel pretty great about the Tigers' chances of making the NCAA tournament. But ranking this team in the preseason Top 25 seems a bit too optimistic.

Simmons is a bona fide star who will probably be taken with the No. 1 overall pick in June, but we're talking about a team that lost 11 games last season before losing leading scorers Jarell Martin and Jordan Mickey. The Tigers have a couple of solid returning guards in Keith Hornsby and Tim Quarterman, but they have no proven talent in the frontcourt and very little depth at any position.

It doesn't matter.

Coaches (as well as scouts, fans and analysts) are head-over-heels in love with Simmons and what he's going to bring to the game this year. ESPN's Fran Fraschilla went so far as to say that Simmons might break the NCAA record for career triple-doubles in one season, and we can't even really disagree with that bold prediction.

Still, with Vanderbilt, Texas A&M and Florida all as very strong options, it's hard to believe LSU was the SEC team to receive the second-most votes behind Kentucky.

Elsewhere, California debuts at No. 14 thanks to freshmen Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb, and Marquette even received one 25th-place vote of confidence in frosh Henry Ellenson.

Takeaway No. 5: Coaches Aren't Worried About Uncleared Players

Gregory Payan/Associated Press

With less than a month remaining until the 2015-16 season begins, there are two projected lottery picks who still have not been cleared to play by the NCAA: Kentucky's Skal Labissiere and Kansas' Cheick Diallo.

For the Jayhawks, whether Diallo gets to play is probably not a huge deal-breaker. He is an extremely talented big man who would almost certainly make the team better, but Bill Self still has plenty of perfectly viable frontcourt options between Perry Ellis, Carlton Bragg, Jamari Traylor, Landen Lucas and Hunter Mickelson.

For the Wildcats, though, it's kind of a life-or-death situation. Head coach John Calipari only has four other forwards on his entire roster, none of whom are guaranteed to succeed. Alex Poythress is recovering from a torn ACL, Marcus Lee was very clearly the least effective member of last year's platoon system, Derek Willis has played 114 minutes in his collegiate career and Isaac Humphries just reclassified and committed to Kentucky less than two months ago.

It would not have been much of a surprise at all to see the coaches shy away from Kansas and Kentucky as a result of those unknowns, but more than a third of the coaches still put Kentucky at No. 1, and Kansas still debuts at No. 5.

If those studs are still in limbo when the preseason AP Top 25 comes out, expect a slightly more cautious ranking of the blue-blood programs.

Takeaway No. 6: Coaches Don't Like Mid-Majors

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Here's a conference-by-conference breakdown of the 37 teams that received more than 10 votes:

ACC (eight teams): North Carolina, Duke, Virginia, Notre Dame, Louisville, NC State, Florida State, Miami
Big Ten (six teams): Maryland, Michigan State, Indiana, Wisconsin, Purdue, Michigan
Big 12 (six teams): Kansas, Iowa State, Oklahoma, Baylor, West Virginia, Texas
Pac-12 (five teams): Arizona, California, Utah, UCLA, Oregon
Big East (four teams): Villanova, Butler, Georgetown, Xavier
SEC (four teams): Kentucky, LSU, Vanderbilt, Texas A&M
American (two teams): Connecticut, Cincinnati
Other (two teams): Gonzaga, Wichita State

We can argue another day over whether the AAC is actually a major conference, but of the teams that the coaches would fairly unanimously put in a consensus projected bracket, Gonzaga and Wichita State are the only mid-majors—and if you really consider either of those programs to be mid-majors at this point in time, you're a bit delusional.

Where are the votes for Valparaiso, Rhode Island and San Diego State? Why no love for Boise State, BYU, Davidson or Stephen F. Austin?

Several of those teams did receive a couple of points to round out the bottom of the "Others Receiving Votes" category, but it's hard to believe that Gonzaga and Wichita State are the only non-majors on the radar of most coaches.

Takeaway No. 7: Coaches Don't Rank Nos. 21-25 Very Well

Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press

This is a modification on last year's final takeaway from the first coaches poll.

In both 2012-13 and 2013-14, there was one team ranked in the final five spots in the preseason coaches poll that ended up having a phenomenal season and at least two teams that ended up struggling mightily.

Last year, though, no one in that preseason ranking range really impressed, and three of the five teams were just downright awful. No. 22 SMU and No. 25 Iowa made the 2015 NCAA tournament as No. 6 and No. 7 seeds, respectively, meaning they ended the season in pretty much the exact same place that they started it. No. 21 Nebraska, No. 23 Michigan and No. 24 Syracuse all missed the tournament by a mile.

What will become of this year's bottom fifth of the preseason coaches poll?

Baylor, Butler, West Virginia, Purdue and Connecticut are the five teams in question, and it seems crazy to think that at least two of those five teams might miss the dance.

If we're treated with a flashback to two and three years ago, though, and looking for one of those teams to really blossom into a title contender, it's probably going to be one of the teams that tied for 24th. Purdue has an outstanding frontcourt and could legitimately contend for the Big Ten title if Johnny Hill pans out at point guard, and Connecticut reloaded in a huge way this offseason with the additions of graduate-transfers Sterling Gibbs and Shonn Miller as well as top-notch freshman Jalen Adams.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.