College basketball’s 8 most disappointing men’s teams this season, ranked

Here are the most disappointing teams in men’s college basketball so far.

Expectations are a slippery slope in this new era of college basketball. With every player in the country essentially on a one-year deal, coaches face the monumental task of keeping their top players on campus, surrounding them with the right fits in the transfer portal, and adding young talent that can help right away through traditional high school recruiting. Pulling off all three at the same time requires one hell of a salesman … and a huge NIL bag.

The preseason rankings feel more meaningless than ever these days with almost no program having true continuity year-over-year. Add in that this is the final season of the extra “Covid year” — any player enrolled during 2020 Covid season got a bonus year of eligibility — and the volume of experienced players available increased like never before.

Not everything has been a surprise this season. Alabama was expected to be a national championship contender coming off a Final Four run, and they still look like one. We knew Houston would be good, because Houston is always good. Iowa State and Duke were preseason top-10 teams who have sustained, while Tennessee continues to be one of the most consistently good programs in the country under Rick Barnes.

Other teams haven’t been so lucky. Here’s our list of the most disappointing teams in men’s college basketball with March Madness around the corner.

8. Rutgers Scarlet Knights

How can a team with two top-5 NBA draft picks miss the NCAA tournament? The better question is how the heck did Rutgers ever land two top-5 picks? The Scarlett Knights were ranked No. 25 in the AP Preseason Poll after landing Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey, the two best freshman in college basketball not named Cooper Flagg. Harper and Bailey have each lived up to the hype, but the roster around them was too young and too flawed to make real noise.

Rutgers should have known it would be in trouble after losing to Kennesaw State in its fifth game. With two other freshman (Dylan Grant and Lathan Sommerville) in the starting lineup, this team has looked inexperienced from the jump with some very real team building flaws. Rutgers does not have much shooting — they rank No. 249 in percentage of field goal attempts from three — and they don’t pass the ball well outside of Harper. The team only assists on 48 percent of its made baskets, which ranks No. 277 in DI. The defense is a bigger problem than the offense: only Iowa is lower in KenPom’s defensive efficiency rankings than the Scarlett Knights among Big Ten teams. Rutgers as a program will almost certainly never have two talents like Harper and Bailey on campus at the same time again, and they blew their one big chance.

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7. Indiana Hoosiers

Indiana spent big in the transfer portal after failing to make the NCAA tournament last year, setting up Mike Woodson for one more chance at success. Instead, the Hoosiers built a roster that would have felt more appropriate for when Woodson was coaching the Atlanta Hawks in the late 00s rather than how basketball is played today. After being a terrible shooting team last year, Indiana is once again a terrible shooting team this year, ranking No. 322 in three-point rate and No. 250 in three-point percentage. You have to be an elite defensive team to win with so little shooting in this era, and the Hoosiers are only average on that end of the floor as well, ranking 12th in the Big Ten in defensive efficiency.

Indiana reportedly gave big man Oumar Ballo $1.2 million to transfer in from Arizona. He hasn’t been worth the money: Ballo may be a skilled interior scorer and good rebounder, but he can’t defend in space, is a total non-shooter, and too often gets sloppy with the ball. Myles Rice and Kanaan Carlyle seemed like a promising backcourt duo from the portal, but Caryle has regressed as a scorer while Rice hasn’t been able to consistently make a three all year. Indiana has played a lot of teams tough in conference and fallen just short, but that isn’t good enough in Bloomington. Woodson’s tenure will be remembered as a disappointment, and Indiana will again be looking for another head coach.

6. Gonzaga Bulldogs

Gonzaga seemed poised to roar back as a national championship contender as it entered the year at No. 6 in the preseason polls. Mark Few isn’t landing five-star studs like Jalen Suggs and Chet Holmgren anymore, but he had an experienced team that returned much of the roster from last year’s Sweet 16 squad while adding some offensive firepower in the portal in the form of sixth-year guard Khalif Battle via Arkansas. A 38-point season-opening rout of Baylor cast the Zags as a powerhouse once again, but by the time the calendar flipped to 2025, Gonzaga was free-falling out of the rankings.

For only the second time since 2013, a team other than Gonzaga won the WCC regular season championship (it’s been St. Mary’s both times). The Zags lost four conference games for the first time ever under Few by dropping games to Santa Clara, Oregon State, and St. Mary’s twice. Michael Ajayi has struggled big time as a transfer coming over from Pepperidine, and star guard Ryan Nembhard hasn’t been quite as spectacular as expected. Still, Gonzaga’s metrics remain excellent as a top-10 team according to KenPom despite being unranked in the polls. With a veteran team led by Nembhard and Graham Ike, the Zags will have a chance to make a run in March. This just doesn’t look like the contender it was supposed to be.

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5. Arkansas Razorbacks

John Calipari going from Kentucky to Arkansas was the most explosive move of the coaching carousel. He brought many of his former Wildcats players and recruits with him, and then landed arguably the top guard available in the transfer portal by getting Johnell Davis from Florida Atlantic. Calipari had every opportunity to show the fans in Lexington they would miss him once he was gone, but instead his worst tendencies have bubbled up for a Razorbacks team in jeopardy of missing the tournament, while Kentucky has spent most of the year in the top-15 of the polls.

The Arkansas offense has been just awful this year, ranking No. 94 in efficiency. Davis has fallen way short of expectations against stronger SEC competition, struggling to create good looks for himself as a driver while losing his outside shooting touch. The days of DJ Wagner being considered a top prospect are long gone, and his sophomore season has been every bit as underwhelming as his freshman year. None of the highly-touted freshmen class has really moved the needle, especially not after Boogie Fland’s season-ending injury. Adou Thiero has been great when healthy and Zvonimir Ivisic has been good, but Calipari never figured out a way to get through to his guards, and it doomed Arkansas’ season.

4. Baylor Bears

Scott Drew turned down Kentucky over the offseason, then promptly got to work with a Baylor team that had to be almost completely rebuilt. The Bears lost four of their top-five leaders in total minutes from last season, but still landed in the top-10 of the preseason polls thanks to Drew’s work on the recruiting trail and the transfer portal. Baylor landed Jeremy Roach from Duke, Norchad Omier from Miami, and Jalen Celestine from Cal, while also nabbing future top-5 NBA draft pick VJ Edgecombe and four-star point guard Robert Wright to solidify the freshman class. It’s a talented group on paper, but the season has exposed the real shortcomings in this roster.

Baylor just has no size inside. After returner Josh Ojianwuna went down with a season-ending injury, the Bears don’t have a player in the lineup bigger than 6’7. Roach has been a major disappointment, chucking bad shots all year that show up in his 49 percent true shooting, down 10 points from last year at Duke. Edgecombe has lived up to the hype, but it hasn’t mattered because Baylor can’t guard the three-point line and don’t have the size to hold up inside against the Big 12’s best. Drew didn’t envision being on the bubble when he turned down Kentucky, but this Baylor team is just too flawed to be any better.

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3. UConn Huskies

No team has three-peated in men’s college basketball since John Wooden did it at UCLA in the early ‘70s. Winning a third straight natty was always going to be a monumental task for Danny Hurley after he lost two top-10 NBA draft picks and the Final Four Most Outstanding Player over the offseason, but few would have expected UConn to be unranked in the first poll of March. After making a stink that his team should have been ranked No. 1 in the preseason polls (they were still top-10), the Huskies have finally proven to be vulnerable this year, and currently look more like an 8- or 9-seed than the juggernaut they were a year ago.

UConn ranks outside of the top-100 in defensive efficiency at the moment thanks to lackluster ball pressure at the point of attack. Hurley thought he could lean heavily on Alex Karaban, his lone returning starter from last year, but he’s learned life is a lot harder when you’re the top guy on the scouting report. Returning guard Hassan Diarra has dealt with nagging injuries all year and hasn’t looked as athletic, projected first-round pick Liam McNeeley missed a chunk of time with an ankle sprain, and younger players like Jaylin Stewart and Jayden Ross haven’t developed as quickly as expected. The Huskies can still run beautiful offense full of off-ball movement when the shots are falling, but their three-peat dreams just don’t seem like reality as March approaches.

2. North Carolina Tar Heels

North Carolina was always going to have a hard time replacing a program legend like Armando Bacot, but there were still plenty of reasons for optimism as the Tar Heels headed into the season as a top-10 team in the polls. RJ Davis returned for his super senior season coming off an electric campaign that marked him one of the best guards in America, Ian Jackson and Drake Powell provided two five-star freshmen, and Belmont transfer Cade Tyson promised to be an elite shooter. Somehow, UNC is still fighting for its tournament life at the end of the regular season, and is still projected on the wrong side of the bubble. How did we get here?

Davis has regressed in a big way, with his scoring efficiency plummeting without having Bacot around to attract defensive attention. Tyson has somehow slipped from a 46 percent shooter from deep at Belmont to a 29 percent shooter this year. The defense has been a disaster, mostly because there are no reliable bigs on this roster. Credit Carolina for entering this week on a five-game winning streak, but it still has work to do to get into the field. Hubert Davis might have a contract extension, but his seat is going to be very hot next season unless UNC somehow makes a run in the ACC tournament and beyond.

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1. Kansas Jayhawks

I went long on Kansas’ issues last week so I’ll keep this brief. The Jayhawks were No. 1 in the preseason polls after returning the core of last year’s underwhelming round of 32 team and augmenting it by spending big in the portal. The pieces just never fit. Kansas’ spacing as been clunky to put it kindly all year with Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams providing no shooting in the front court, and Dajuan Harris being a sub 30 percent shooter from deep at point guard. AJ Storr has played hideous basketball after transferring from Wisconsin, looking like one of the more selfish chuckers in the country. Rylan Griffen never found a consistent role, and Zeke Mayo couldn’t carry the offense by himself against tough competition. A program like Kansas should never struggle this much offensively (currently No. 59 in efficiency). How did this team ever beat Duke early in the season? Don’t worry Jayhawks fans: Darryn Peterson is coming in next season, and Dickinson will finally be gone. I’ll bet on the Jayhawks to bounce back next year, but no one should have faith in this group to make a March run.