Personally
1. Villanova -reliant on freshmen, but some of the best freshmen in the conference in years. Whitmore is a lottery pick. Mark Armstrong has a similar statue in team USA as Markus Howard did even though they play differently. Caleb Daniels and a health Brandon Slater should ball out on the wings until Moore comes back in January. Eric Dixon is a solid 5 in this league.
2. Creighton - just a deep team of sophomores, Kalkbrenner is good. Alexander is good. Kaluma is good. Nembhard is good. Schierman can at the very least shoot the roof off of the building. McDermott is now easily the best coach in the league for me. Not a perfect team, but at the very least top 25-30 if healthy.
3. Xavier - guard play questions, but Sean Miller is decent and Travis Steele was incompetent. Frontcourt is good and deep.
4. Uconn- worst matchup for Marquette, will probably lose a bunch of close games because Hurley is about 7th best coach in the league.
5. St. Johns - very talented, very very very inconsistent. David Jones will have a good year this year.
6. Marquette- building something but a little young and will rely on some unproven guys. "A lack of scoring" is the biggest insult of this team and that's just lazy analysis. Kam and Jop can score fine, if either can defend Marquette is set. We will struggle with plotting bigs, but Oso will cause teams nightmares on the short role. Well Lewis is better than Writsil in nearly every way, Writsil and his below average shooting numbers will actually get to the foul line. Writesil passes, defends, and rebounds well. He quietly has decent guard skills. Omax could be the best non 5 defender in the league. Stevie will improve, and he and Sean jones will give guards nightmares on the ball. Chase Ross will have a role. Ben Gold will be fine, too much is said about him being good or bad, and i think he'll be pretty fine.
7. Providence- Well coached, I like Bynum, Hopkins, Carter, and Crosswell. Probably gonna lack shooting. Don't trust Noah Locke. If they are good Bynum will have to be awesome.
8. Seton Hall- Shaheen Hollaway is a good coach, but Kevin Willard wasn't a bad coach. They didn't really replace Rhodan. I just see them being okay despite doing above average in the transfer portal. This isn't and upgrade like X or MU had from a Steele or a Wojo.
9. Butler- Deep lineup. Depth via the transfer market. Lukosius, Harris, and Manny Bates are a could set of building blocks. Could be a decent team at the end of the year or early next year. Second unit frontcourt has as many questions as Marquette if not more.
10. DePaul- Caleb murphy is an athletic freak, if ja morant couldn't shoot or pass. I actually like the guards on this team alot more than i thought i would. Gibson. Terry. Zion Cruz. I don't love the front court as much of Ongenda, Penn, and Anei.
11. Georgetown- THEY MIGHT WIN SOME GAMES. If this team doesn't play defense, Ewing shouldn't be allow to coach an eigth grade team. Wahab and Mutumbo frontcourt. Akok akok and Brandon Murray on the wings. Just need they guards to mildly slow down some drives.
