Ranking the Most Unforgivable Losses in the 2016-17 College Basketball Season

Every loss is disappointing, but some defeats are more difficult to accept than others. Occasionally, there are losses that just gnaw at players, coaches and fans for the rest of the season, sometimes longer. Fans can't forgive their team, and players and coaches can't forgive themselves for failing to win a particular game.

There are different types of unforgivable losses in college basketball. Losing to a clearly inferior team often can be deemed unforgivable. But other times the circumstances of the game or the repercussions of the loss also can make it unforgivable.

There have been a number of unforgivable losses this college basketball season, but we selected 10 and ranked them in ascending order. We actually chose 11 unforgivable losses, because we had a tie for the 10th slot.

10. (tie) Mississippi State vs. Lehigh

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What and When: 87-73 Mississippi State loss on Nov. 25 (in Starkville, Miss.)

Why?

Mississippi State is 12-5 overall and 3-2 in the Southeastern Conference and has road wins over Arkansas and LSU. Mississippi State even gave Kentucky a stiff challenge before losing. It has given the Bulldogs hope of landing their first NCAA tournament berth in eight years in Ben Howland's second season as head coach.

But if Mississippi State fails to get its name called on Selection Sunday, it may curse what happened on Nov. 25. That is when the Bulldogs played Lehigh in Starkville, Mississippi.

Lehigh is not terrible. The Mountain Hawks are 10-8, including 4-3 in the Patriot League. And no one can forget that Lehigh beat Duke in the first round of the 2012 NCAA tournament. However, this Lehigh team is not in the same category as its 2012 version. This season, Lehigh owns losses to Stony Brook, Holy Cross, Navy and Loyola-Maryland, none of whom has a winning record at the moment.

Certainly a Patriot League team is not expected win a game on the home court of an SEC contender, nearly 1,000 miles from home.

Not only did Lehigh beat Mississippi State, the Mountain Hawks dominated the game. Lehigh led by double digits for the final 15 minutes and held a 21-point lead with five minutes to play. Lehigh's Tim Kempton, a two-time Patriot League player of the year, was limited to 26 minutes and 13 points because of foul trouble. It forced Lehigh to play a zone defense for much of the game instead of its preferred man-to-man.

Yet Mississippi State was never in the game down the stretch.

"They totally picked us apart with their offense, their execution," Howland said in his postgame media conference. "... They cut us to shreds with their stuff."

The Bulldogs did have one major excuse: It was Mississippi State's first game without leading scorer Quinndary Weatherspoon, who missed two games with a wrist injury. It's the reason this result ranks only 10th on our list of unforgivable losses, and the reason the NCAA tournament selection committee may not judge the Bulldogs too harshly for the loss.

Nonetheless, it was Lehigh's first win ever against an SEC team, and it was a one-sided loss on Mississippi State's home court.

"Mississippi State is a talented team, but a team can always beat talented individuals," Lehigh coach Brett Reed said on the Lehigh website. "Having six (Lehigh) guys in double figures, I think there's nothing more tell-tale than that."

Mississippi State has adjusted well since, but it can't erase that one-sided loss to Lehigh.

10. (tie) Louisville vs. Baylor at Paradise Island, Bahamas

Timothy D. Easley/Associated Press

What and When: 66-63 Louisville loss on Nov. 25 (at Paradise Island, Bahamas)

Why?

There is nothing embarrassing about losing to Baylor this season. The Bears would eventually reach the No. 1 ranking on Jan. 9, and by the time they faced Louisville in the Bahamas, Baylor was ranked 20th with decisive wins over Oregon and Michigan State.

However, sometimes it is how a team loses that makes the defeat unforgivable.

Louisville was ranked No. 10 at the time and had handled Wichita State 64-54 the previous day in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament.

The Cardinals bullied Baylor at the outset, jumping out to a 25-5 lead. Louisville held a 22-point lead in the first half and were ahead by 20 points, at 44-24, when Louisville's Jaylen Johnson scored on a layup with 16:36 left in the game.

Defense has always been Rick Pitino's calling card, and with the way Louisville had stymied Baylor for the first 24 minutes, it seemed the Cardinals could win this game if it did not score another point.

At that point, the Cardinals collapsed. Baylor made 17 of its final 21 shots from the floor, many of them coming in transition. The Bears took a one-point lead with 4:08 remaining, finishing a 21-point turnaround in just 12 minutes and 28 seconds. Baylor eventually won by three, 66-63.

Pitino blamed himself afterward for not using his bench enough, allowing his starters to wear down in the second half.

"In the second half, seven straight times in a row, we were in the wrong defense running down and gave up easy baskets, and that's a sign of fatigue," Pitino said in the postgame media conference provided by the (Louisville) Courier-Journal. "... We were literally walking around, digging to get a break in the second half. ... This loss is all me, not the players. It's all me."

The Cardinals recovered, and the Baylor loss was their only defeat until they lost to Virginia on Dec. 28. However, blowing a 20-point lead with less than 17 minutes left on a neutral court is unforgivable for a team that considers itself a Final Four contender.

9. Florida State vs. Temple in New York

Andres Kudacki/Associated Press

What and When: 89-86 loss on Nov. 24 (in Brooklyn, N.Y.)

Why?

Florida State won 16 of its first 17 games this season, beating the likes of Duke and Virginia Tech by double-digit margins and knocking off Virginia on the Cavaliers' home court. However, the one loss in that season-opening run has to haunt the Seminoles.

It took place on the big stage at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Nov. 24. The result was an 89-86 loss to Temple.

The fact that Florida State lost the game was forgivable. The Seminoles were only ranked No. 25 at the time, and the Owls have a program good enough to reach the NCAA tournament seven of the past nine years.

As time goes by, though, the loss looks worse for Florida State, as the Seminoles stand at No. 10 in the rankings and are tied for first place in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Meanwhile, Temple looks like a mediocre team, with losses to New Hampshire and Tulsa, a 10-10 overall record and a 1-6 mark in the American Athletic Conference.

But that is still not what made the loss to Temple so hard to take. The defeat became unforgivable when the Seminoles blew an 18-point lead with less than 14 minutes left in the game and lost to an inferior team.

The Seminoles shot 55 percent from the field for the game and still lost after holding a 60-42 lead with 13:29 remaining.

What do you tell your team after that kind of collapse?

"You tell them that’s college basketball," Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton said, according to Wayne E. McGahee III of the Tallahassee Democrat. "You call it like it is. You evaluate it. You did a poor job defending. There’s no doubt about that."

Temple beat West Virginia the next day to justify the victory over the Seminoles, pushing Florida State's loss into the background temporarily.

In retrospect now, though, the loss was unforgivable, given Florida State's current status and the fact that it blew a huge second-half lead against a team that is now fading.

8. Valparaiso vs. Santa Clara

James Crisp/Associated Press

What and When: 87-80 double overtime loss on Dec. 22 (in Valparaiso, Ind.)

Why?

Valparaiso is 15-4 and tied for the Horizon League lead with a 5-1 mark. If the Crusaders win the conference tournament to get an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament, the Dec. 22 loss to Santa Clara will be forgotten. The so-called experts will probably mention Valparaiso as an underpublicized team to keep your eye on in the NCAA tournament, noting that the Crusaders have future pro in Alec Peters.

But if the Crusaders don't win the Horizon League tournament, that loss to Santa Clara could be costly. At the very least the memory of that game will make Valparaiso's players and coaches squirm.

When Santa Clara stepped onto Homer Drew Court at Valparaiso's 5,000-seat Athletics-Recreation Center on Dec. 22, the Crusaders were 6-0 at home, and the Broncos were 0-2 away from home.

More significantly, Valparaiso was 9-2 overall, with wins over Alabama, BYU and then-No. 21 Rhode Island. The Crusaders' only losses had come against nationally ranked Oregon and Kentucky on the winners' home courts, where those teams almost never lose.

Meanwhile, Santa Clara was 5-7, with home losses to UC Davis and UC Irvine and a 15-point road loss to San Jose State.

The game against Santa Clara should have been easy pickings for Valparaiso, which figured to go to 10-2 overall and 7-0 at home.

It didn't happen.

Valparaiso got behind 8-0 to start the game and could never shake the Broncos. The Crusaders missed their final three shots of regulation time, and Peters missed a three-point shot with four seconds left in the first overtime that would have won it. Ultimately, Santa Clara won it in the second overtime 87-80.

Peters played all 50 minutes while scoring 35 points, but he knew what the result meant.

"A game on your home floor, a game in every way possible you're supposed to win," Peters said, according to Michael Osipoff of the Northwest Indiana Post-Tribune. "I don't know if we were ready for Christmas or what, but it's tough."

This one does not look good on the resume.

7. Michigan vs. Virginia Tech

Tony Ding/Associated Press

What and When: 73-70 loss on Nov. 30 (in Ann Arbor, Mich.)

Why?

An NCAA tournament berth is expected of Michigan, which has participated in the Big Dance six of the past eight years and reached the national championship game in 2013. But with a 12-7 overall record and a 2-4 mark in the Big Ten, the Wolverines need a few noteworthy wins to get to the NCAA tournament in 2017.

Michigan seemed to have such a win in hand on Nov. 30 when it took a 15-point lead over Virginia Tech at Michigan's Crisler Center. The Wolverines still led by 10 with less than eight minutes left and by seven with less than five minutes remaining. In fact, Michigan, which scored on its first possession of the game, led for 38 of the 40 minutes.

Virginia Tech took its first lead with 1:46 left when the Hokies' Seth Allen went end to end for a layup with virtually no defensive resistance.

Virginia Tech is a good team, as it demonstrated in its one-sided victory over Duke several weeks later. But the Hokies are not ranked this week and sit in the bottom half of the ACC standings. Giving up a big lead at home to a team like that is unforgivable when the result could affect the Wolverines' postseason destination.

As Mlive.com's Brendan F. Quinn pointed out in his coverage of the game, a Michigan win "could have equated to being a quality win come March. Instead, U-M's game versus Virginia Tech will stand as a brutal loss."

Michigan guard Zak Irvin told Mark Snyder of the Detroit Free Press, “This one’s going to haunt us."

6. Middle Tennessee vs. Georgia State

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What and When: 64-56 Middle Tennessee loss on Dec. 21 (at Murfreesboro, Tenn.)

Why?

We all recall Middle Tennessee's stunning victory over No. 2-seeded Michigan State in the first round of last season's NCAA tournament. Well, this year's version of the Blue Raiders is better than that one. Reggie Upshaw and Giddy Potts, the top two scorers from last season's team, are back, yet the leading scorer this season is JaCorey Williams, a transfer from Arkansas in his first season of competition at Middle Tennessee.

Even if the Blue Raiders don't win the Conference USA tournament, they may be good enough to get an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament. That is what happened in 2013, when Middle Tennessee lost in the semifinals of the Sun Belt tournament but still landed a berth in the NCAA tournament.

But if the Blue Raiders fail to win the conference tournament this season, they will be awfully nervous on Selection Sunday when the at-large bids are given out. That anxiety will result largely because of Middle Tennessee's 64-56 loss at home to Georgia State on Dec. 21.

It was a bad loss, plain and simple. For a team like Middle Tennessee, which plays in a low-prestige conference, it can turn a trip to the NCAA tournament into a berth in the NIT.

Georgia State is not a bad team, but it is just 9-7 against Division I teams, including a 22-point loss to Mississippi State, a 12-point loss to Old Dominion, a 22-point loss to Georgia Southern and a home loss to Troy. Georgia State is not a team that should go into Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and beat Middle Tennessee, which is 15-3 in games through Jan. 18.

But it did.

"Our last couple days of practice hasn't been the best, so I kind of smelled it coming a little bit," coach Kermit Davis said on the team website.

The Panthers played a zone defense throughout, and Middle Tennessee, typically a good shooting team, could not make outside shots. The Blue Raiders made just 7 of 26 three-point attempts (26.9 percent), and that includes 2-of-11 long-range shooting by Potts, who led the nation in three-point shooting last season at 50.6 percent.

Upshaw and Williams, who are averaging a combined 33.1 points through Jan. 18, totaled just 14 points on 4-of-13 shooting.

The Blue Raiders' home loss to Tennessee State did not help either, but the 64-56 loss to Georgia State hurt more.

5. Michigan State vs. Northeastern

Al Goldis/Associated Press

How and When: 81-73 Michigan State loss on Dec. 18 (in East Lansing, Mich.)

Why?

Michigan State has been to the NCAA tournament 19 consecutive seasons, the third-longest active streak, behind only Kansas (27) and Duke (21). With a No. 12 preseason ranking and a bunch of highly touted freshmen, the Spartans seemed destined for a 20th straight appearance this season.

It has not gone exactly as planned. At 12-7 overall and 4-2 in the Big Ten, the Spartans are in danger of not getting to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1997. And that unsightly home loss to Northeastern may rear its ugly head if the Spartans are a bubble team in March.

Heading into the game against Northeastern, Michigan State had four acceptable losses, to Arizona, Kentucky, Baylor and Duke, all of whom were ranked then and remain ranked this week.

Michigan State's best player, freshman Miles Bridges, was sidelined for the Northeastern game, but the Spartans had won their three previous games without him and would beat Minnesota (on the road) and Northwestern without him to open Big Ten play.

Tom Izzo certainly had enough weapons at his disposal to knock off a Northeastern squad that had losses to Long Island-Brooklyn, Cornell and Stony Brook and would later add a loss to Towson.

And Michigan State was playing at home, where it had won 11 straight games, including all five this season. The Huskies were 1-4 on the road before entering the Breslin Center, where 14,797 hostile fans awaited.

After a sluggish start, Michigan State seemed to have control of the game when it led by six points with 11:45 remaining.

"We had a six-point lead, we have everything going our way," Izzo said, according Kyle Austin of Mlive.com. "If you look at our next three minutes, everything went wrong."

Northeastern dominated down the stretch. The Huskies led by as many as 12 points with 1:32 remaining and cruised in for the 81-73 victory.

The Spartans didn't know what hit them.

“We’re trying to figure it out still," Spartans sophomore Kyle Ahrens told Chris Solari of the Detroit Free Press after the game.

4. Nebraska vs. Gardner-Webb

Darron Cummings/Associated Press

What and When: 70-62 Nebraska loss on Dec. 18 (in Lincoln, Neb.)

Why?

Nebraska has put together some impressive wins during Big Ten play, beating both Maryland and Indiana on the road. However, if coach Tim Miles' job is in jeopardy at the end of the season, it will be difficult for him to talk his way around that home loss to Gardner-Webb.

"I never dreamt in five years this is where we would be, losing to Gardner-Webb," Miles said in his postgame comments.

The Cornhuskers struggled throughout the game. They shot 39.3 percent from the field, made just 3 of 17 three-point shots and committed 20 turnovers. Nebraska got within two points with 2:21 left but scored just two points the rest of the way. It resulted in Nebraska's sixth loss in seven games.

Chris Basnett of the Lincoln Journal Star described Nebraska's poor performance this way in his game report: "Much like the halftime dash for cash participant, there was a lot of aimless wandering around and an unsatisfying finish as the Huskers’ anemic offense somehow found a way to look even worse than it has the past few weeks."

Gardner-Webb has done nothing in the meantime to soften the blow of that loss. The Bulldogs have losses to Furman, High Point and Campbell and sit in the middle of the pack in the Big South Conference standings.

“I can't think of a word beyond disappointment that I didn't have our guys ready," Miles said after the game. "... We were inept on offense again. ... It’s unacceptable in my book; it should be for the fans, and anybody. It should be unacceptable for our players.”

The Cornhuskers are 9-9 after Wednesday's loss to Ohio State on a last-second shot. They have been unable to erase the scar left by Gardner-Webb.

3. New Mexico vs. Nevada

Juan Antonio Labreche/Associated Press

What and When: 105-104 New Mexico overtime loss on Jan. 7 (in Albuquerque, N.M.)

Why?

This amazing game in New Mexico slipped through without much notice, but the result was an inexplicable defeat for New Mexico when victory seemed assured.

Here are the hard-to-believe facts: Playing on its home court, New Mexico led by 25 points with 11 minutes left in regulation time. With 4:24 left, the Lobos led by 19. With 2:42 remaining, New Mexico led by 17. With just 1:29 to play in the second half, the Lobos held a 14-point lead.

Somehow, Nevada scored 18 points in the final 1:29 to force overtime. The Wolf Pack took six three-pointers in that stretch and made them all.

But wait, there's more. The Lobos jumped out to a five-point lead with 2:52 left in the overtime period and held a two-point advantage when Elijah Brown made the second of two free throws with 8.7 seconds left.

Following a timeout, Nevada's Jordan Caroline, who finished with 45 points, hit the game-winning three-pointer with 2.9 seconds left.

"Those were some tough lessons for our boys," said New Mexico head coach Craig Neal on the Lobos' website. "I don't think I have ever been in a game like that. You have to give them (Nevada) credit for their fight."

According to the Reno Gazette, the game set an NCAA record for largest deficit overcome in the final five minutes, at 19 points.

“I’m speechless,” Nevada coach Eric Musselman told the Gazette. “It’s the greatest game I’ve ever been a part of.”

You can credit Nevada, but losing that game was a major collapse, especially since it represented the Lobos' first home loss of the season and radically changed New Mexico's status in the Mountain West Conference.

If New Mexico had won that game, Nevada and New Mexico would be tied for first place in the Mountain West with 5-2 records through Jan. 19. Instead the Lobos are are 4-3 in the conference, two games in back of the Wolf Pack.

2. St. John's vs. Delaware State

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What and When: 79-72 St. John's loss on Nov. 29 (in New York)

Why?

A late-December surge that included a 33-point road win against Syracuse and an upset of Butler removed some of the negativity brought on by St. John's sluggish start to its season. But nothing can completely remove the stench of the Red Storm's 79-72 loss to Delaware State.

Being the fifth defeat in a five-game losing streak added to the disappointment of the loss to Delaware State. So did the fact that it was played before 4,109 stunned fans at St. John's Carnesecca Arena in Queens.

But the main problem was that St. John's lost at home to a team that had lost 20 consecutive games against nonconference D-I opponents. Delaware State's last such victory was against St. Francis-Brooklyn on Dec. 17, 2014. The Hornets' only win of this season before meeting St. John's came against Division III Summit.

Delaware State, picked to finish 12th in the 13-team Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, is 5-14 this week, and two of those wins came against non-Division I teams. The Hornets lost to Maryland-Baltimore County by 22 points, to North Texas by 33 points, to Indiana by 47 points, to Montana State by 25 points, to Binghamton by 19 points and to Texas Southern by 15.

But they beat St. John's. In fact they dominated the game. The Hornets led by 15 points midway through the second half, and after St. John's made a run, they scored seven straight points to go ahead by 13 with 49 seconds left. 

The memories of last season's 1-17 Big East record in Chris Mullin's first year as St. John's head coach were bad enough. "But on Tuesday night at Carnesecca Arena, Mullin’s team hit a new low," wrote Howie Kussoy of the New York Post.

St. John's is trying to fight back from that embarrassing loss. It already has two more conference wins than it had all of last season. That does not mean it is forgiven for that loss to Delaware State.

1. Connecticut vs. Wagner

Jessica Hill/Associated Press

What and When: 67-58 Connecticut loss on Nov. 11 (in Storrs. Conn.)

Why?

Connecticut had high hopes for the 2016-17 season. It was coming off a 25-11 season in which the Huskies got to the second round of the NCAA tournament. But this season promised to be even better. UConn was ranked No. 18 in the preseason Associated Press poll and was picked to finish second in the American Athletic Conference.

Those hopes came to an immediate halt in the season opener, when the Huskies suffered an embarrassing home loss to Wagner 67-58.

"The UConn men's basketball season, with such promise in its buildup and excitement at its launch, crashed to the floor in the first game," wrote Dom Amore of the Hartford Courant in his game story. "Intensity, leadership and cohesion were all lacking for UConn, which led in the game only once — 2-0."

The early season injuries to Terry Larrier and Alterique Gilbert that helped derail the Huskies' season had not occurred yet. Both played against Wagner and were the Huskies' two highest scorers, combining for 33 points. But still UConn could not handle Wagner, a middle-of-the-pack Northeast Conference team that has a losing overall record at the moment.

It was the first time UConn had lost a season opener at Gampel Pavilion.

"The shock was not in Wagner's performance," wrote Jeff Jacobs of the Hartford Courant. "The shock was in how bad UConn was in its season debut."

Wagner immediately demonstrated what a bad loss it was by losing its next game to Massachusetts-Lowell, which currently has a losing record and resides in the middle of the America East Conference standings. Wagner also has losses to Rider and Mount St. Mary's, and on Jan. 12, Wagner suffered an 11-point loss to Bryant, which was 4-12 at the time.

UConn cannot lose to a team like Wagner. Not at home. Not in front of 9,523 fans. Not in the season opener.