CBB With Danny Z: Kansas, Tennessee and USC lead another human polls vs. analytics argument

College basketball is back, and so is "CBB With Danny Z." Try to contain your excitement (I'm genuinely psyched that college hoops is back, but I understand that many people don't even realize college basketball exists until February or March).

Last season, we kicked off a series comparing the preseason AP Top 25 with KenPom's rankings, then checked back in December, January and March to see how those disagreements developed.

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KenPom deserves some credit for Vanderbilt last season. It ranked the Commodores 19th in the preseason, while the AP voters had them effectively 36th. Vanderbilt finished 27-9, earned a No. 5 seed and won an NCAA Tournament game. But KenPom also had Baylor 17th in the preseason. The Bears finished 17-17 and missed the tournament.

St. Johns was a reminder to be careful about declaring a winner in December. The APs preseason No. 5 team started 4-3, which initially made KenPoms more cautious ranking of 16th look pretty smart. Then the Red Storm finished 30-7, reached the Sweet 16 as a No. 5 seed and pushed Duke in an 80-75 loss. The voters optimism looked considerably more reasonable by the end of the season.

The AP voters had their own problems with Creighton. They put the Bluejays 23rd in the preseason, while KenPom had them all the way down at 41st. Creighton finished 16–18 and missed the NCAA Tournament, settling for a trip to the College Basketball Crown. Im guessing that wasnt the postseason tournament those voters had in mind.

So, theres a reason to keep track of these disagreements. This year, were giving ourselves a few more to follow. Alongside KenPom, Im adding TeamRankings predictive ratings to the comparison, plus the Coaches Poll. Before we get too carried away arguing about humans versus computers, we should probably find out whether the humans agree with each other. Or the computers, for that matter.

The comparisons below use the preseason AP and Coaches polls and both analytics models' ratings from the morning of November 1, before the season began.

The top of the board offers relatively little controversy. Both human polls put Florida first and Duke second. Both analytics models reverse that order. Illinois is third in both polls and fourth in both models. Everybody likes those three teams.

After that, things get more interesting. The blue-blood Kansas Jayhawks represent one of the biggest disagreements entering this season, and the surprising part is who likes them more.

Its the computers.

Kansas is No. 17 in the AP Poll and tied for 18th in the Coaches Poll. KenPom has the Jayhawks fifth and TeamRankings puts the