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Message: [QUOTE="champs99and04, post: 2727143, member: 488"] It's not that uncommon. Boston College jumped nearly 100 spots last year with basically the same players. Auburn went from 82 to 23. Penn State went from 87 to 19. UCF was at 185 in 2016 and finished 68th in 2017. Starting from scratch is the expectation in this sport. Coaches are in constant crisis management mode because that's what the job requires. And it's not just Kentucky replacing five lottery picks with five McDonald's all-Americans. Players transfer, graduate, and declare early all the time. If you're searching for any sort of meaningful correlation between one season and another, it's probably not going to exist barring obvious cases where a good team stays good or an obviously overmatched team stays overmatched. Things like talent and experience are far more indicative of how the betting market will value a particular team. On that front, any known quantities give you an advantage. Jalen Adams is indisputably a great player unless something goes wrong. Gilbert is a player we know is going to be good. Same with Vital, same with Smith. Carlton, Wilson, Diarra, and Polley have the tools to be good. This isn't the NBA. A player does not have a static value that may fluctuate every now and again. Their development is measured against historical prototypes and not their past selves. There is a reason Loyola Chicago is fetching longer odds than us to win the title despite the fact that they finished 150 spots ahead of us on KenPom and return four of their best six players. I'm not trying to impose a hard line by any means. There are serious limitations, especially in the front court. But it's not a roster that's remarkably different from the one that would have been tournament bound in Ollie's first year at the helm. In fact, I'd argue it's better. People underestimate how profoundly a couple of players can impact a team. [/QUOTE]

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