This One Seems Off

 As expected, the Western Athletic Conference released the coaches poll for the upcoming men's basketball season on Monday. Again, like I did yesterday with the commentary for the UT Arlington women's basketball team, I want to emphasize that I don't believe any singular poll is worth anything other than commentary. And I definitely have something to say with this one.

But first, the poll, with first place votes in parenthesis:

1. Grand Canyon         (9)    99

2. Stephen F. Austin    (2)    87

3. Seattle                              86

4. Utah Valley                      61

5. Abilene Christian            60

6. Tarleton St                      49

7. California Baptist           47

8. UT Arlington                  43

t9. Southern Utah               26

t9. UT Rio Grande Valley  26

11. Utah Tech                     21

With Grand Canyon at the top, there's no surprise. Preseason Player of the Year is Ray Harrison, who tested the NBA waters this year before electing to come back. He was a big part of them winning the WAC tourney and getting to the NCAA's. Seattle has been consistently tough and Cam Tyson is a tough guard for any defense. SFA, I'm a little less sold on, but we'll see. I certainly think UTA closed the gap with them.

The rest of the preseason All-WAC:

Harrison, G, GCU
GabeMcGlothan, F, GCU
Tyson, G, SU

Sadaidriene Hall, F, SFA

Drake Allen, G, UVU

Fourth on down seems to be nothing but a guess. Throw a dart on the board and see who is next in the list. There were several teams who lost contributors. But do we know who they picked up? More importantly, do we know who is playing well as a team? A team full of good players playing as a team will always beat a team of stars playing as one.

Maybe there's some hype I bought into, but I feel eighth is a bit low for the Mavericks. But in the transfer portal era, who officially knows. This poll seems heavy on who the coaches know, see returning players. UTA brought in a lot of players who have skins on the Division I wall. They have few returners.

The KenPom computer rankings show something a bit different:

1. Grand Canyon, 83rd overall

2. Stephen F. Austin, 103

3. Seattle, 124

4. Utah Valley, 166

5. ACU, 169

6. Cal Baptist, 181

7. UTA, 209

8. Tarleton, 220

9. Utah Tech, 239

10. UTRGV, 246

11. Southern Utah, 257

At the end of the day, nothing is given. It has to be earned. There's an excitement surrounding the program I haven't seen in a while. Getting an eighth finish is better than where they finished last year, so there will be progress. I'm hopeful they'll be better than that, but I don't know which University would be worse. 

If Shemar stays healthy and if UTA finds a bonafide point guard, I'm confident there's enough scoring for this team to be competitive night in and out. Maybe even be in the championship picture.

First game is November 6 inside College Park Center against Oral Roberts.