We are now two weeks into conference play and with that are somehow already more than halfway through the season. Time really does fly when you’re having fun. Well, unless you’re these college basketball teams, who have all been fairly disappointing so far. All six of them are currently outside of my projected NCAA Tournament field.
Disappointing Teams This Year In College Basketball So Far
Rutgers Scarlet Knights
It’s hard to think of a more disappointing team than Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights are currently a game over .500 after upsetting UCLA on Monday night, finally picking up their first good win of the season. They were thought highly of heading into the season after bringing in two of the top three recruits in the country in Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper. Those two have been as awesome as advertised. The problem is that the rest of the team hasn’t been very good. Highly thought-of mid-major transfers Jordan Derkack (Merrimack) and Zach Martini (Princeton) have failed to adjust well to the higher level of competition. Emmanuel Ogbole needed to take a step forward as a sophomore and hasn’t done it yet. Rutgers’s only real bad loss is to Kennesaw State. But it’s the fact that they’re not winning enough games overall. Plus, they just barely squeaked by the worst Seton Hall team in years.
Cincinnati Bearcats
At the beginning of the season, it looked like this could finally be the year that Cincinnati made it back to the NCAA Tournament. It hasn’t made it since Mick Cronin’s last year in 2019. The Bearcats have been terrific on defense, and are 7th in the country in scoring defense (60.5 points against per game). The offense hasn’t been good enough though. They have failed to score 50 points in each of their last two games. Similarly to Rutgers, Cincy just hasn’t beaten the good team. Currently, their only two good wins are Xavier, who is also on this list, and Dayton, who has taken two awful losses recently.
Xavier Musketeers
Speaking of Xavier, they are one of the unluckiest teams in college basketball. To be more specific, the Musketeers are 330th in luck according to KenPom. Of their seven losses, five of them came by six points or less (including the losses to UConn and Marquette, and those two were without stair big man Zach Freemantle). Zach Freemantle missed three games due to an injury which hurt. Former top 100 high school recruit Cam’ron Fletcher, who transferred in from Florida State, hasn’t contributed anything. He has only played in 8 games this season and averaged just 5.3 minutes in those games. If the Musketeers can find a rabbit’s foot and turn their luck around, then they can turn their season around too.
Indiana Hoosiers
Indiana either wins or gets blown out by an NCAA Tournament-caliber team. Their four losses have been by an average of 21.5 points, the latest one a 25-point drubbing by Iowa on Saturday. There were rumblings after the end of last season about if head coach Mike Woodson’s seat was warming up. Because of that, this could potentially be a make-or-break year for him. It’s not broken yet, but it is fractured. The Hoosiers are outside the top 100 in both scoring offense and scoring defense. The roster has tons of talent there. Additionally, there are always plenty of opportunities for big wins in the Big Ten. But so far Indiana has given people no reason to believe they can hang with the best teams in the conference.
Boise State Broncos
Now for two of my mid-major teams to watch coming into the season. Boise State hasn’t been terrible, but it has been far from what myself and others thought it could be. The Broncos suffered a bad quad 4 loss to Boston College in the championship game of the Cayman Islands Classic. The team has barely skirted by multiple quad 3 opponents. The Broncos have been really up and down statistically all season. It helps a lot that Tyson Degenhart is a contender for Mountain West Player of the Year. With the MWC not quite as good as it has been in recent years, there are plenty of opportunities for Boise to steady the ship.
Princeton Tigers
Princeton has been extremely disappointing in my eyes. Losses to Texas State, Wright State, and Loyola Chicago are all bad, and plenty of less-than-impressive wins. The Tigers haven’t been particularly good on either side of the ball, but especially on defense. What has really killed the Tigers this season is that reigning Ivy League Player of the Year Caden Pierce hasn’t been anywhere near as good as he was last year. He has scored in double figures just once in the team’s last four games, and his stats are down all across the board.
Honorable Mentions
Multiple other teams have also been disappointing so far this season. UNC, Creighton, Arizona, the entire Atlantic 10 (again), and others have failed to live up to expectations. Those three teams, however, are still currently in my projected field.
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