Where Kentucky stands in Bart Torvik's 2024-25 Projections

Kentucky coach Mark Pope leads a cheer at his introductory press conference - Aaron Perkins, Kentucky Sports Radio

There are still five months until the 2024-25 college basketball season tips off, but that’s not stopping Bart Torvik from crunching the numbers on how each team will fare. This week, the analytics guru released his preseason projections, which include overall rankings, offensive and defensive ratings, projected win and loss totals, and more fancy numbers that I won’t pretend to understand.

Let’s start with the rankings, which even this simpleton can digest. Torvik ranks Mark Pope’s first Kentucky squad (which may not be complete) No. 29 out of the 364 teams in Division I. While that is only the seventh-highest in the SEC, the Cats rank ahead of John Calipari’s first Arkansas team, which comes in at No. 48. Pat Kelsey’s first Louisville team is No. 89 and Rick Pitino’s St. John’s is No. 17. Houston is No. 1 in the rankings, followed by Iowa State, Kansas, Duke, and Gonzaga.

With an arsenal of shooters and Mark Pope’s up-tempo offense, Kentucky’s adjusted offensive efficiency is 115.0, which ranks No. 25. The Cats’ adjusted defensive efficiency is 97.0, which is No. 57. Nine of the 12 players on Kentucky’s roster are transfers, so the Cats rank No. 7 in projected production from transfers behind Vanderbilt, Louisville, DePaul, USC, Memphis, and West Virginia. Torvik projects Andrew Carr to be the Cats’ biggest contributor in terms of minutes this season, followed by Jaxson Robinson, Kerr Kriisa, Koby Brea, and Lamont Butler.

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Now for the really fun stuff. Even though we don’t have a complete schedule yet, Torvik has the Cats finishing the regular season 19-12, with a 9-9 record in the SEC. In the SEC, that’s behind Tennessee (12-6), Alabama (11-7), Auburn (11-7), Texas (10-8), and Mississippi State (10-8) and tied with Texas A&M, Ole Miss, and Florida. Arkansas is behind that pack with an 8-10 projected SEC record.

Again, we’ll see how that changes once the full schedule is out (for the SEC, we only have opponents, no dates). But, it’s fun fodder on a Wednesday in June.