The 2026-27 KenPom.com Preseason Rankings Are Live!

It’s that time of year, just right around the corner of the start of the men’s college basketball season. Outta nowhere, as usual, with no fanfare, Ken Pomeroy has hit the PUBLISH button on the preseason rankings for the 2026-27 season over at KenPom.com!

Let’s just get right into what you want to know: Where does Marquette stack up in the rankings?

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Shaka Smart’s team is going to start off the 2026-27 season at #34 in the KenPom rankings. That’s after the Golden Eagles went from #47 to as low as #121 last season before ending the campaign at #83. Needless to say, I will sign for #34 right now without asking any follow up questions. The underlying numbers to MU at #34 to start the year are the #48 ranked offense and the #20 ranked defense. Both of those would be massive improvements on last year’s season that ended with a 12-20 overall record. The Golden Eagles had the #118 offense in terms of efficiency last year, and they ended up with the 54th most efficient defense. Again, finishing with both preseason projections would be A-OK with me, so let me know how and when and where I need to sign a contract for that.

For whatever it’s worth, KenPom’s computer algorithm also thinks that Marquette will play about four possessions faster per game this season than they did a year ago. That’s probably leaning on the Golden Eagles being a bit more adept at forcing turnovers in the three campaigns previous to last year than they were a year ago. If Shaka Smart’s defense is going to crank up the pressure again, then that’s going to trim down the defensive possession lengths (because they end in turnovers faster than with shots) as well as the offensive possession lengths (because some percentage of turnovers turns into runout layups/dunks which are very quick possessions).

By the way, rough math says that #34 should be good enough to earn an NCAA tournament bid in a 76 team tournament environment like we’re getting next March. With that many at-large bids available, it should…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/2026-27-kenpom-com-preseason-211728154.html

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Publish date : 2026-10-11 21:17:00

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