USA Today Basketball Preseason Poll Released: Creighton, Memphis and Gonzaga Start Ranked

USA Today has released its preseason men's college basketball poll, and several mid-majors have landed spots in the top 25. Not anywhere near the top spot, mind you. That belonged to Indiana, with Louisville and Kentucky also grabbing first place votes.

Doug McDermott and the Creighton Bluejays lead all mid-major squads, starting the year at No. 15 on the list as voted by 31 head coaches. Memphis landed at No. 16, even after losing Will Barton to the NBA.

Gonzaga was the only other mid-major to begin the season ranked, coming in at No. 22. The Bulldogs begin the year as the favorites within the West Coast Conference, with Elias Harris garnering some preseason All-American chatter.

Murray State, St. Mary's, Middle Tennessee State, Drexel and Marshall, also received votes in the poll.

With the season perceived as wide open, and with a number of mid-majors returning All-American candidates, it is interesting that more of the smaller schools didn't show up on the "Others" list. Not that we should expect any different in mid-major land, but when you look out to the Vegas odds there are other schools that have "chances" to win the NCAA title.

Davidson, Ohio and BYU were all given specific preseason odds (along with the three ranked mid-majors), outside of just the generic "Field". You would think someone would have thought highly enough of those teams to at least put them at No. 25.

For what it's worth, we were pretty high on both the Wildcats and the Bobcats.