If you want to crash the AP Top 25 after going unranked in the preseason, it helps if your team is really old. That's one conclusion to be drawn from an analysis of the current Week 8 Top 25 men's college basketball teams based on age.
Think back six months to the offseason, when last we checked IDs for the top of Division I. Back then we didn't have a AP Top 25, of course. Using my colleague Jeff Borzello's preseason top 25, we correctly surmised that, for example, Kansas would show a very old look this season.
What we didn't know back then, however, was that by late December we'd be looking at a group of "surprise" Top 25 teams that skews decidedly in the direction of "old." In fact, four of the six oldest rotations in the current Top 25 were unranked in the preseason.
Memphis, BYU, Colorado State and James Madison are four examples of markedly old teams that have played their way into the Top 25. Moreover, the fifth oldest ranked team, Illinois, barely made the cut with the AP in the preseason, clocking in at No. 25.
As always, we measure how old a team is according to its average age weighted by minutes. Here's what we think we've learned so far in 2023-24 when it comes to age and college basketball.
Memphis is very old
In terms of having players who were born a while ago, Memphis and its close competitor in age BYU fairly lap the field in the AP Top 25.
Still, it's the Tigers in particular that rate out as No. 1. At an average of 23.2 years of age, Penny Hardaway's rotation is more than two standard deviations older than the average Top 25 team (21.9).
Memphis starter Jahvon Quinerly turned 25 last month. The graduate transfer has seen a thing or two in a career that began with playing for Jay Wright in the immediate aftermath of Villanova's 2018 national title. In fact Quinerly is three months older than four-time NBA All-Star Luka Doncic.
Starting alongside Quinerly are two 22-year-olds in David Jones and Jaykwon Walton. Caleb Mills also gets heavy minutes, and he's 23.
The advanced age of the Memphis rotation in 2023-24 marks a significant transformation for a program that formerly signed one-and-done talents like James Wiseman and Precious Achiuwa. This current version of the Tigers excels at forcing turnovers, as demonstrated by the 35 total takeaways Memphis recorded in recent wins over Virginia and Vanderbilt.
BYU is often old. This season is no exception
Where rating systems such as KenPom rank Memphis somewhat lower than AP pollsters do, these same laptops are decidedly bullish on BYU. Depending on the day, the Cougars have been spotted this month as high as KenPom's top five alongside the likes of Purdue, Houston and Arizona. It's also true that, like Memphis, Mark Pope's team is very old.
At 26 years and three months, Spencer Johnson rates out as having the oldest confirmed age of any player in the current AP Top 25. He graduated high school in 2016 and, like many a BYU player before him, served a Latter-day Saints mission. In Johnson's case, he did so before embarking on a playing career at Salt Lake Community College. By the time he played his first game at BYU as a sophomore, he was already 23.
Johnson and his younger though still experienced teammates have shot the lights out this season while also holding opposing offenses to just one shot. It's been a winning combination for a group of players born around or even before the turn of the 21st century.
Then again Arizona is really ... young?
Whenever we measure how old teams are, we're quick to make the point that, of course, age isn't everything. Illinois is very old, to take one aforementioned example. Yet the Fighting Illini's two losses came at the hands of opponents that were either equivalent to (Tennessee) or even significantly younger than (Marquette) the average Top 25 team.
Arizona is another team that reminds us that college basketball does not operate according to a strict seniority system. Tommy Lloyd's group is ranked No. 4 by the AP and has already enjoyed a two-week stay atop the poll as No. 1. The Wildcats also happen to rank No. 23 out of the nation's Top 25 teams at the moment for age.
At more than one standard deviation younger than the average Top 25 team, Arizona's in the same youthful ballpark this season as perennially young rotations like those of Kentucky and Duke. Nevertheless, Arizona would appear to be a serious contender for the 2024 national title. Age isn't everything.
Yes, the adoption of the one-time transfer rule in 2021 as well as the NCAA's decision in October 2020 to grant an extra year of eligibility in response to the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to make age a salient issue in the game. It's also true, however, that this season should be "the last COVID year." The extra eligibility was granted to players who were on campus as of 2019-20, and those are today's fifth-year seniors.
In summary, teams like Memphis, BYU, Colorado State and James Madison are perhaps reminding us to give age a second look when setting preseason expectations. At the same time, Arizona and others demonstrate quite plainly that young talent can still get the job done even in the mid-2020s. This age-old competition between experience and talent is still one of the best subplots in college basketball.