The Five Most Disappointing Teams In College Basketball - Brendan Darr's Blog

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The Five Most Disappointing Teams In College Basketball Stuck

Posted on January 15, 2013 at 05:41 PM.

(6)

This is kind of a broad topic, but I'll go off teams that had high expectations at the beginning of the season -- justly or unjustly -- and just haven't lived up to the hype.

5. St. Joseph's

Coach Phil Martelli was expecting a lot more out of this group in 2012-13. With his top seven scorers all returning, including his starting five, the pre-season favorites for the Atlantic 10 were expected to be much better than 9-5 (currently). A consensus top-35 team started off the year well with wins over Yale and #20 Notre Dame (OT), before dropping five of their next twelve.

In a strong year for the A-10 with the emergence of Butler and VCU, St. Joseph's still has a shot at a tourney bid, but they need signature wins and already missed a shot at Butler -- at home, no less. There's still time, but they need a lot of work.

4. UNC

There's no real shame in who the Tar Heels have lost to, except Virginia. All the loses are excusable, but something just doesn't sit right. They SHOULD be better. James Michael McAdoo SHOULD be better. Unfortunately, this is the case of a team not living up to it's lofty pre-season hype. Starting the year at #11 was way too high in my opinion, especially when their new start was just a role player last year.

This team will improve throughout the year, but they look NIT bound. However, this is clearly a down year for the ACC and you never know in this league. Maryland will be a big test for the Tar Heels at home on Saturday.

3. West Virginia

Bob Huggins was definitely expecting his transition to the Big 12 to run a little smoother than this. Even after losing his top two scorers, Huggins brought in a bunch of talented newcomers, either as freshmen or transfer to help ease that transition. It has been anything but easy. Aaric Murray is having the impact he expected to when he transferred from La Salle, but the others have not.

The Mountaineers already have lost to Oklahoma twice, and have bad losses to Davidson and Duquense as well. That's unacceptable for a team expected to finish in the top half of the Big 12 and potentially the NCAA Tournament. It may be too late for the 'Eers to right the ship this year.

2. Kentucky

Another shining example of too much praise too early in the season. We all know Coach Calipari is going to bring in a ton of one-and-done freshmen every year and he won a championship with a group similar to this last year. Unfortunately, this group isn't quite as talented as the 2011-12 group.

Their freshmen have been hit-and-miss this season. Nerlens Noel looks like everything he was cracked up to be on the defensive end, but offensively he's still very limited. He was exposed right out of the gate against Alex Len from Maryland. Alex Poythress and Archie Goodwin have been solid, but not spectacular all season long. Speaking of the game against Maryland, that's really their signature win right now and the Terps have already dropped to 1-2 in the ACC. Their other "notable" -- and I use that lightly -- is their win over a candidate for this list, Vanderbilt.

1. Drexel

It may seem odd to have Drexel at the top of this list given how some of these other teams have played so far and Drexel's relative light pre-season ranking. However, Drexel was in "Others Receiving Votes" category to start the season off, and were CAA favorites as well. Given that they were favorites to win their conference, it's downright shocking they are 5-11 and 1-3 in a post-VCU CAA.

Bruiser Flint plays a tough, grind-it-out game which can drive opponents crazy. Unfortunately, when you aren't winning it can drive your fan base crazy to see such an ugly game AND poor results. Despite struggles against some solid early season opponents, the real danger came with back-to-back losses against Rider and Tennessee State. Not to mention the three straight losses in conference. Come to think of it, the entire CAA could go down as the most disappointing.

Who are your most disappointing teams so far this season? Anyone I left off the list?

Comments

# 1 scottyo60 @ Jan 15

#3 I coulda swore you picked the wrong West Virginia team,.. Marshall has been incredibly disappointing on many levels.

# 2 scottborasjr @ Jan 15

UNC is the #1 disappointment to me, but I am a fan of the team. McAdoo has been average and Strickland and the other outside shooters haven't been near the level they need to be.

# 3 Gramps91 @ Jan 16

Yep, my cats are disappointing, but they shouldn't have been ranked so high in the first place with virtually no experienced talent. Hopefully, they will be better next year.

# 4 Kentucky_Wildcat23 @ Jan 16

@eaterofworlds888 I agree with you. When Wiltjer is our only true returning player I didn't think they would be great out of the gates. Hopefully the experience from this year for those that stay helps next year with that talented group that is coming in.

# 5 gsize19 @ Jan 16

As someone that grew up in Kentucky which is why I think I can't stand Kentucky athletics, I will say that the "one and done" project only worked for a year. Then again with all basketball, the graduation rates of schools are lucky if they are 50% but a top ranked school, development should be as key as the prestige of playing there. I wish the NBA was more like the NFL (I can't believe I just said that) and put a stipulation on when a player can enter the draft, or revamp it, if you declare for the draft out of high school, so be it, but if you go to college, you need to be there a minimum of 3 years and if you fail out, you are still not eligible until after 3 years. It would make education more of a key to our youth today! It would be more meaningful for a team, whether it be Kentucky, Cincinnati, North Carolina, Indiana, whoever to win multiple championships over a 4 year period with several of the players who already won, ( a dynasty) but to win ever year with 4-5 new starting players who are there for one reason and one reason only, win a championship (only one and in your only year at the school), BOOOOOOOOOOOORING!!!!