Kentucky head coach Mark Pope yells to his team as they face Alabama during the first half of a Southeastern Conference tournament quarterfinal game at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., Friday, March 14, 2025. Andrew Nelles / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

College basketball analytics continue to fall in love with the Kentucky Wildcats

Originally posted on Kentucky Wildcats on SI
By Andrew Stefaniak | Last updated Sep 11, 2025 8:00 PM ET

Many college basketball experts are believers in this 2025-26 Kentucky basketball team, so fans have been curious to see what the analytics have to say about this team. Evan Miya released his rankings ahead of the upcoming season, and the Wildcats were just able to crack the top ten at tenth overall.

The Wildcats have an offensive rating of 11.3 and a defensive rating of 10.1, earning them the tenth overall spot. All offseason Evan Miya's rankings have been very high on Kentucky's transfer portal class but now seeing the entire rankings ahead of the season it is clear these metrics are very high on the Wildcats ahead of the season.

The big offseason topic for the Kentucky Wildcats has been the defense. Last season, the defense really held back this basketball team, which led to the ugly loss to Tennessee in the Sweet 16. Mark Pope brought in players who are going to help this basketball team on the defensive end of the floor. Guys like Mo Dioubate, Jayden Quaintance, and Kam Williams will be stoppers for the Wildcats.

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Some analytic websites even have the defense ranked ahead of the offense for this Kentucky team, but that is not the case for Evan Miya. Pope is always going to have an elite offense, and that won't be any different this season.

Losing Koby Brea's sharpshooting hurts, but there is a shot the offense is a lot better this season with Otega Oweh back and adding some elite scorers like Jaland Lowe, Kam Williams, and Jasper Johnson.

The other important part of this Kentucky team is the depth. The Wildcats have one of the deepest rosters in all of college basketball and this will play a role for Pope's team once the season rolls around.

Robert Goddin-Imagn Images

Depth is a big part of having an elite college basketball team as it keeps legs fresh and this is obvious in the NCAA Tournament. Coach Pope's team has plenty of it, which is good, knowing the injury bug has killed the Wildcats of late.

All of the different college basketball analytic pages really do seem to like the Kentucky Wildcats, which is great to hear, knowing many believe this is going to be the best Kentucky team fans have seen in a long time.

Coach Pope has put together a roster that is more than capable of a deep postseason run, which has a shot to return Kentucky to glory.

This article first appeared on Kentucky Wildcats on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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