Ken Pomeroy ranks Maryland basketball just No. 24 in preseason list

College basketball analytics czar Ken Pomeroy ranks Maryland as the No. 24 team in the country in his computer-generated preseason listing, released on Sunday. It's a far cry from most human-generated polls so far, which peg Maryland as a consensus top-five team.

Maryland being ranked this low will surely rile people up, but it's worth noting that Pomeroy's system can't account with much detail for Maryland freshman center Diamond Stone, or that forward Robert Carter has had a year off to improve his play since he last took the court for Georgia Tech.

Pomeroy projects Maryland to have the 20th-most efficient defense and the No. 29 offense in the country.

Last year, Pomeroy rated the Terps No. 33 in his preseason rating. The Terps finished at No. 34 despite winning 28 games and earning a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Pomeroy's system wasn't swayed by Maryland's record, instead finding that Maryland's point totals and underlying metrics showed a team that was more lucky than good. The Terps' .128 "luck rating" – the gap between their actual winning percentage and what Pomeroy anticipated based on their statistics – was the highest of any power-conference team in the history of Pomeroy's measurements.

Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue are all in front of Maryland on his ranking, leaving the Terps No. 6 in the Big Ten. Here's his full top 25:

This will probably change as games start to actually be played, but still: Pomeroy's computers don't show Maryland much love.