For what it's worth, here's the T-Rank's Top 15 mid-majors:
Differences:
BYU. The mid-major experts are much higher on BYU than the T-Rank, ranking them 3d of the MMs while T-Rank has BYU a bubble team at best. BYU is always a tough team to rank by algorithm, given that they have guys coming back from missions and stuff like that. But they lose 50% of their minutes from last year's squad, including star Tyler Haws. And 9 of their 15 players are newcomers to the program. Should be interesting. Here's a nice article on their team.
Rhode Island. The experts are high on the Rams, voting them the No. 5 mid-major. Rhode Island is coming off a good year, in which they finished 56th in the Kenpom and 60th in the T-Rank. They also finished 3rd in a resurgent A-10. Dan Hurley hopes to continue his turnaround project (they've moved up from 193 to 103 to 56 in the Kenpom in his three years). T-Rank recognizes the momentum, but it's hard to algorithm-out those sub-100 years. I think the T-Rank is too probably too low.
George Washington. T-Rank has them 8th, while the experts put the 18th (third in the "also receiving votes" category.) GW returns three of last year's starters, a solid core, but suffer a blow with the transfer of Kethan Savage (headed to Butler). On the other hand they bring in Tyler Cavanagh from Wake Forest.
VCU. T-Rank doesn't know that Shaka Smart isn't at VCU anymore, which probably explains why it has them significantly higher rated than the experts.
Old Dominion. This is another team on the rise under a new coach, and the experts put them 10th among mid-majors. Jeff Jones inherited a team that had finished 267th in the Kenpom the previous year. In his two years at the helm, the Monarchs have risen to 170 and 56. This gives them the third best "momentum" score in all the land. Even with that, they come in at 100th in the T-Rank. Probably too low.
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