{"id":77607,"date":"2025-06-05T02:11:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T02:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/77607\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T02:11:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T02:11:09","slug":"kentucky-among-dickie-vs-dazzling-dozen-the-best-12-teams-in-college-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/77607\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky among Dickie V’s Dazzling Dozen – the best 12 teams in college basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"

We know Kentucky is going to be good in Mark Pope<\/a>\u2018s second season as head coach, but how good? Good enough to be included in Dickie V\u2019s Dazzling Dozen \u2014 Dick Vitale\u2019s ranking of the best 12 teams in college basketball going into 2025-26. <\/p>\n

The hoops legend wanted to celebrate 150 days from the start of the season by dropping his summer rankings, breaking down the teams \u201cthat look ready to rock the hardwood,\u201d as he puts it. The Wildcats belong in that bunch, thanks to the returns of Otega Oweh and Brandon Garrison, among others.<\/p>\n

\u201cMark Pope reloads again, folks,\u201d Vitale said of Kentucky.<\/a> \u201cOtega Oweh\u00a0and\u00a0Brandon Garrison\u00a0will be looking to lead an incredible group of transfers including\u00a0Jayden Quaintance,\u00a0Jaland Lowe\u00a0and\u00a0Mouhamed Dioubate. The Wildcats are roaring loud in Lexington.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just how loud are they roaring? Not the loudest in the country \u2014 or even the SEC, for that matter \u2014 but still pretty darn loud. Kentucky sits at No. 11 in Dickie V\u2019s rankings, good for No. 3 in the conference behind only Florida (No. 3) and Arkansas (No. 8).<\/p>\n

Take a look at the complete top 12:<\/p>\n

Purdue Boilermakers<\/p>\n

Houston Cougars<\/p>\n

Florida Gators<\/p>\n

UConn Huskies<\/p>\n

St. John\u2019s Red Storm<\/p>\n

Texas Tech Red Raiders<\/p>\n

BYU Cougars<\/p>\n

Arkansas Razorbacks<\/p>\n

Duke Blue Devils<\/p>\n

UCLA Bruins<\/p>\n

Kentucky Wildcats<\/p>\n

Michigan Wolverines<\/p>\n

Not as high as we\u2019d like, Dick, but we\u2019ll take it at this stage. <\/p>\n

Where Kentucky sits in other preseason rankings<\/p>\n

ESPN \u2013 No. 9<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cKentucky is absolutely loaded on the perimeter next season,\u201d Jeff Borzello wrote. \u201c\u2026 Mark Pope also revamped the frontcourt with defense in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Athletic \u2013 No. 9<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis roster does not have the shooting of Mark Pope\u2019s first Kentucky team, but it should be better defensively and have more playmaking on the perimeter,\u201d said CJ Moore.<\/p>\n

Sports Illustrated \u2013 No. 7<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMark Pope has his sights set on more after taking the Wildcats to the Sweet 16 in his first year on the job in Lexington, Ky,\u201d Kevin Sweeney added. \u201cThe Wildcats spent big on their roster this spring, adding 10 new players, including high-profile transfers Jaland Lowe and Jayden Quaintance while bringing back star wing Otega Oweh.\u201d<\/p>\n

ROTHSTEIN 45 \u2013 No. 12<\/a><\/p>\n

CBS Sports \u2013 No. 12<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis ranking is based on the Wildcats returning two of the top seven scorers \u2014 specifically Otega Oweh and Brandon Garrison \u2014 from a team that finished 24-12 and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the 2025 NCAA Tournament,\u201d Gary Parrish said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We know Kentucky is going to be good in Mark Pope\u2018s second season as head coach, but how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,4000,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-77607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-kentucky-basketball","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114628335127526728","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}