Over the past 12 weeks, I have released a number of conference previews for the upcoming 14-15 college basketball season. Today, I want to provide a few updates on some of the things I wrote.

Pac-12 Preview: Since I wrote my Pac-12 preview, Jonathan Octeus and Jonah Bolden were declared ineligible at UCLA. That knocked the Bruins out of my Top 25 and it puts the Bruins in danger of missing the NCAA tournament. The problem for the Bruins is that they really only have six quality players on the roster. In the backcourt the team has Normal Powell, Bryce Alford, and Isaac Hamilton (who sat out last year due to a letter of intent issue.) In the frontcourt the team has RSCI #11 recruit Kevin Looney, Tony Parker, and RSCI #33 Thomas Welsh. But the other three scholarship players really should not be playing major minutes for a team as good as the Bruins. When Noah Allen, Wanaah Bail, and Gyorgy Goloman enter the game, the quality of play is going to decrease substantially. That likely means the Bruins are going to have to play at a much slower pace than last season. (Bill Walton will not be pleased.) And an injury to one of the top six players could cause the season to completely fall apart.

In my opinion, the biggest thing the Bruins will miss without Octeus is not his passing, but his outside shooting. Powell has shot under 30% from three the last two years and the lack of outside shooters could really hurt UCLA’s spacing this year and cause their offense to be stagnant.

Since I wrote the Pac-12 preview it also became official that JaQuan Lyle will not be competing for Oregon this year. You can’t count the Ducks out completely. Any team with a player as good as Joseph Young and a coach as good as Dana Altman is always a threat to reach the tournament. But the Ducks NCAA tournament odds are getting much longer.

Big Ten Preview: Unable to enroll at UCLA, Jonathan Octeus has enrolled at Purdue. When a scorer like Octeus enrolls at the last minute, it feels like it should substantially change a team’s outlook. But while Purdue moves up a little in my rankings, I still don’t see them as a likely tournament team. Purdue’s biggest weakness was a lack of a natural PG on the roster, and Octeus certainly helps. But remember that Octeus was not a prolific passer at Colorado St. His assist rate the last two years was 11.8% and 13.5%. (I have similar feelings about Tennessee’s transfer PG Ian Chiles. Both have shown a nice scoring touch, but it isn’t clear to me that either player has the passing skills to lead a team to the NCAA tournament.)

Unfortunately, Purdue’s Bryson Scott isn’t a natural PG either. Because I’m not sure about Octeus and Scott’s ability to lead a team, I still think freshman PG PJ Thompson is going to get a good share of minutes. In other words, I fear that Purdue may still look a bit like the team did the last few seasons, where players each had certain strengths and weaknesses, but it was hard to find a lineup that was strong in all dimensions. Having another outstanding outside shooter improves Purdue’s outlook, but I’m skeptical that this upgrades Purdue enough to really be in the tournament hunt.

SEC Preview: In my projections Cameron Biedscheid was projected as Missouri’s leading scorer this year. His departure is a major problem for the Tigers. Jonathan Williams looks like the top choice for the team’s new leader, but Williams also recently suffered a minor knee injury. That could hamper his production. Transfer Keith Shamburger can score, but if he is focused on scoring and not setting up his teammates, Missouri is in trouble.

And I’m not sold on the other veterans. Center Ryan Rosburg was very passive last year. It will take a major change in his game to make him a big time scorer. And veterans Deuce Bello and Wes Clark have been very inefficient at the college level.

Freshman Jakeenan Gant might be good, but he will probably not be the team’s breakout player because he will likely be playing behind Williams and Rosburg. Thus as crazy as it sounds, my best guess is that Montaque Gill-Ceaser and Namon Wright will end up scoring at a much higher clip than is typical for freshman with their recruiting rank. Gill-Ceaser re-classified, but he would have been about the 40th ranked recruit. His youth is a huge red flag, but he also has some real offensive skill both inside and outside the arc. And Namon Wright was only ranked 93rd nationally by RSCI. But on this team he’s going to have every opportunity to score buckets. With Biedschied out, don’t be surprised if one of these two freshmen steps up and fills the void.

That said, when you are talking about going from a veteran transfer to a shaky freshman as one of the team’s primary scorers, that is a huge downgrade. In my projections, Missouri has fallen off the NCAA bubble.

On the flip side, Texas A&M got fantastic news when the NCAA ruled that Jalen Jones could start in November instead of at the mid-semester break. Often when a player joins the lineup after the first semester they don’t have a chance to build chemistry with their teammates. Despite having immense talent, Florida’s Chris Walker couldn’t even crack the rotation for the Gators last year because of his late start. Texas A&M was a bad offensive team last season, and it makes a big difference that the team will get to reconstruct its offense around a natural scorer like Jalen Jones from the start of the season.

Finally, after I wrote my SEC preview I got some better JUCO recruiting data that elevated the projection for LSU’s Josh Gray. Thus I have LSU a little higher. But I think the Tigers are still closer to the middle of the SEC than to Kentucky and Florida.

MWC Preview: Since I wrote my initial MWC preview, Colorado St. added Grambling St. transfer Antwan Scott. We spend a lot of time talking about how Kentucky’s players are sacrificing their own offensive production to be part of a winning team. But it happens at other levels of basketball as well. I’m fascinated to see how Colorado St.’s roster fits together this year. JJ Avila and Daniel Bejarano are clearly stars. And the super-efficient Joseph DeCiman is back. But the team adds four transfers with significant D1 experience, John Gillon, Dantiel Daniels, Stanton Kidd, and the aforementioned Scott. All four could be major scorers, but someone is going to have to sacrifice shots on this team. The dynamic of who plays and who gets shots will be fascinating, but with so many efficient scorers, I’m confident that Colorado St.’s offense is going to be dominant.

Unfortunately, Colorado St. also received some bad news as Top 100 JUCO transfer Daniel Mulamba did not make it through the NCAA clearinghouse. I remain worried that a front-court of Stanton Kidd, JJ Avila, and Dantiel Daniels may be under-sized. And given that the team was poor defensively last season, I am very afraid that the defense is going to hold this team back from reaching its full potential.

A10 Preview: Dayton’s freshman center Steve McElvene was declared ineligible. That isn’t the end of the world, but it means there are only two players over 6’6” on the roster, and both had ORtgs of 93 and 96 last year. I’m not saying that McElvene was going to be a game-changer, his loss only costs Dayton three spots in my rankings, but Archie Miller would have much preferred to have McElvene as an option in his rotation.

American Preview: I had already forecast that Kedren Johnson would become eligible for Memphis, so my preview is unchanged.

Big 12 Preview: We’re still waiting for the TaShawn Thomas ruling for Oklahoma. Suffice to say I see it as a game-changer. I have Oklahoma 10 spots higher in my rankings if he becomes eligible.

Big East Preview: I don’t have anything new to add except to say that I’m a little surprised how low Villanova is in most preseason polls that I have seen. The Wildcats only lose James Bell, and they had three very good bench players (Josh Hart, Kris Jenkins, and Dylan Ennis) who were very efficient last year and who are ready for more minutes. I understand that Villanova was blown out by Connecticut in the NCAA tournament last year, and they didn’t add any Top 10 immediate impact recruits. But when I compare Villanova to a team like Texas, a team with a big hole at off-guard, I don’t understand why Villanova is the inferior team.

ACC Preview: I wrote this preview first, before I had processed the rosters for all the conferences, and before I had run 10,000 simulations of the season. I’m now a little more pessimistic about Clemson than in my preliminary look. Pitt lost Cameron Wright for two months due to an injury, and they are now a little lower in my projections.

Georgia Tech’s Charles Mitchell became eligible, and while he helps, I still have Georgia Tech in last in the ACC. Mitchell was not efficient last year, and Brian Gregory still remains the worst coach in the ACC according to all my advanced metrics.

Other Previews: WCC Preview, MVC Preview, The Rest of the Conferences