Traditional powers Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, and more all fall behind TCU in one very important stat with opening day of the 2017-2018 basketball season just eight days away - ESPN’s Basketball Power Index. The metric is defined as:
a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of performance going forward. BPI represents how many points above or below average a team is. Strength of Record (SOR) is a measure of team accomplishment based on how difficult a team's W-L record is to achieve. Game predictions account for opponent strength, pace of play, site, travel distance, day's rest and altitude, and are used to simulate the season 10,000 times to produce season projections.