Kentucky Ranked 18th In Initial KenPom Rankings

With Big Blue Madness now past us and exhibition games on the horizon, college basketball season is nearly here. In fact, the Wildcats’ season opener against New Mexico State is just three weeks away from today.

That said, it’s the time when preseason rankings and projections are released. On Sunday, one of the most respected analytic ratings in college basketball, KenPom, released its initial rankings and Kentucky appeared at No. 18, behind four other SEC schools. Based on these rankings Kentucky will play ten games against the KenPom Top 25.

Take these rankings with a grain of salt as KenPom is a rating system that uses in-game performance, based on the differential, or net rating, between a team’s offensive and defensive ratings. For reference, Kentucky was ranked No. 1 in the preseason KenPom rankings last season.

Here are some other notable rankings

1. Purdue
2. Kansas*
5. Gonzaga*
8. Tennessee**
9. Duke
10. Alabama*
14. Arkansas**
15. Auburn*
17. North Carolina*
24. Texas A&M*
109. Louisville*

Note: *Kentucky plays once, **Kentucky plays twice

The full KenPom rankings can be viewed here.