Predicting When Every Undefeated Men's 2023-24 College Basketball Team Will Lose
During the 2020-21 men's college basketball season, Gonzaga carried an undefeated record all the way to the national championship game before suffering its first loss.
In 2021-22, however, the last undefeated teams fell on January 11.
Last year, we only made it to January 3 before everyone had suffered at least one loss.
And less than six weeks into the current campaign, we are already down to just seven teams still standing with a zero in the loss column.
Who wins this annual survivor contest?
For each of the seven remaining undefeated teams, we used KenPom win probabilities to calculate the chance that they will be undefeated on each of Jan. 1, Feb. 1 and at the end of the regular season (not including conference tournaments).
Teams are presented in chronological order of their first projected loss, if there even is a projected loss on their schedule.
Please note that this methodology means teams are not listed in order of their overall likelihood to go undefeated. AP No. 1 Arizona appears early on the list because its biggest test of the entire season is coming up on Saturday. But the Wildcats almost have the best odds of running the table and will have by far the best odds of doing so if they are able to get past Purdue.
Clemson Tigers
1 of 7
Chance Undefeated on January 1: 39.3 percent
Chance Undefeated on February 1: 1.0 percent
Chance Undefeated Through Regular Season: 0.014 percent
First Projected Loss: Dec. 16 at Memphis
Because Clemson has been to just two NCAA tournaments dating back to 2012 and because Clemson has advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament just once dating back to 1998, there's probably a fair amount of skepticism about its 9-0 start.
But these Tigers have something special brewing.
Stretch-5 senior PJ Hall has been an incredible stat-sheet stuffer and a legitimate early candidate for first-team All-American. He needs to work on not getting himself into foul trouble, but he has blossomed into one of the best all-around players in the country. Hall might finish the year with 65 blocks, 65 assists and 65 made three-pointers, which has been done just twice in the past three decades, both by Shane Battier.
Hall's frontcourt mate, Ian Schieffelin, is making a strong early case for national glue guy of the year, if there were such a thing. Over his past four games against Alabama, Pitt, South Carolina and TCU, Schieffelin averaged 10.8 points and 13.0 rebounds. He is an absolute menace on the offensive glass.
Syracuse transfer Joe Girard has been a colossal addition, averaging better than 18 points and 3.6 assists over his past seven games.
And while Chase Hunter had a great big dud in Saturday's win over TCU, he entered that one averaging 11.8 points and 3.6 assists as the other half of the dual-combo-guard backcourt in which Girard has thrived.
The Tigers have pretty good depth, too, with sophomores Dillon Hunter and RJ Godfrey playing big roles off the bench thus far.
Clemson legitimately might be the best team in the ACC.
That said, opening ACC play with a home game against North Carolina sandwiched between road games against Miami and Virginia Tech will very likely produce a loss—if the Tigers can even get past Saturday's road game against Memphis. But I wouldn't be shocked at this point if this team wins the ACC.
Arizona Wildcats
2 of 7
Chance Undefeated on January 1: 20.8 percent
Chance Undefeated on February 1: 7.5 percent
Chance Undefeated Through Regular Season: 1.4 percent
First Projected Loss: Dec. 16 vs. Purdue (in Indianapolis)
If Arizona can make it to Christmas without a loss, a perfect season becomes a legitimate possibility. Because while the Pac-12 had a magical final season on the gridiron, things are not looking good on the hardwood, save for these Wildcats.
Maybe USC improves with Bronny James in the fold. Or perhaps UCLA turns a corner once its freshmen get a little more comfortable. But as things currently stand, the Mountain West has more contenders than the Pac-12, and Arizona going 20-0 is feasible.
Let's be sure not to put the cart before the horse, though, as Arizona's three remaining nonconference games are against Purdue, Alabama and Florida Atlantic, all on neutral floors.
The biggest hurdle of the bunch is the game against the Boilermakers, who fared quite well on a neutral floor in the loaded Maui Invitational.
Though Arizona has been sensational on the glass thus far this season, Oumar Ballo isn't having anywhere near the tour de force some were anticipating. And though Motiejus Krivas has been a revelation as Arizona's 7'2" freshman backup center, that duo is pretty well the extent of Arizona's options to play the 5. If Zach Edey does his thing and draws 8-10 fouls in the first half alone, things could get ugly.
Conversely, things could get ugly for Purdue if Kylan Boswell continues to build on his excellent campaign with a Boo Buie impression against the Boilermakers' backcourt.
Should be an incredible game. Maybe the best of the entire regular season. And while Arizona is projected for a close loss, it has at least a 65 percent win probability in every other game after facing Purdue. So we are one game away from starting to take this 40-0 threat a little bit seriously.
(If they beat Purdue and none of their other win probabilities change as a result of that game, the Wildcats will wake up Sunday morning with a 3.1 percent chance of entering the Pac-12 tournament with an unblemished record.)
Oklahoma Sooners
3 of 7
Chance Undefeated on January 1: 39.9 percent
Chance Undefeated on February 1: 0.5 percent
Chance Undefeated Through Regular Season: 0.0007 percent
First Projected Loss: Dec. 20 vs. North Carolina (in Charlotte)
Quite the 180 from one year ago when Oklahoma opened its season with a home loss to Sam Houston State.
The Sooners have annihilated the five opponents they were supposed to beat, but they've also picked up quality wins over Iowa, USC, Providence and Arkansas during this 9-0 start.
In all four of those games, Siena transfer Javian McCollum has been figuratively massive, averaging 17.8 points, 3.5 assists and 3.8 rebounds. Sophomore breakout star Otega Oweh also scored at least 13 points in each of those contests, including getting the game-winning bucket against USC.
Is Oklahoma the real deal?
The Sooners were a legitimate title contender during Buddy Hield's final two seasons, but they haven't even won 10 Big 12 games in a season since 2016.
This isn't your average Porter Moser team, though.
Between his decade-long run at Loyola-Chicago and his first two seasons with the Sooners, his teams consistently played at a slow pace, didn't block many shots and barely even bothered trying to grab offensive rebounds, prioritizing getting back on defense to prevent fast-break opportunities. But these Sooners rank top-100 in block percentage, top-50 in offensive rebound percentage and are operating at by far the fastest pace for any Moser-coached team in over two decades.
It doesn't hurt that they're shooting at a high level, either.
There's no way they're going undefeated, though. If they don't lose to North Carolina next week, they might lose back-to-back road games against TCU and Kansas in January. But these new-look Sooners legitimately might be top-25 good.
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Ole Miss Rebels
4 of 7
Chance Undefeated on January 1: 34.6 percent
Chance Undefeated on February 1: <0.01 percent
Chance Undefeated Through Regular Season: effectively 0 percent
First Projected Loss: Jan. 6 at Tennessee
What's funny about Ole Miss sitting at 9-0 is that the Rebels have been a little worse than KenPom projected before the season, opening the year at No. 82 and currently sitting at No. 90.
But that's because they've been winning ugly.
The final minute of Sunday's road victory over UCF pretty well encapsulated their season: led by six, committed three terrible turnovers and survived by the skin of their teeth thanks to three blocked shots in the final 12 seconds. (The last one technically wasn't ruled a block, but Allen Flanigan absolutely saved the day by knocking away an attempted layup right after committing one of those terrible turnovers.)
It was Ole Miss' fifth win by three points or fewer, as this team has had a 2021-22 Providence-like flair for the dramatic, repeatedly winning nail-biters regardless of the quality of the opponent.
The Rebels are still figuring out how to efficiently put the ball in the hoop, are committing way too many live-ball turnovers and do not rebound particularly well. As a result, a team that should enter SEC play with a 13-0 record is the projected underdog (per KenPom) for 16 of its 18 league games.
Ole Miss is perhaps still more likely to miss the NCAA tournament than to make it.
But, man, underrate Chris Beard's defense at your own peril.
The Rebels are averaging 8.2 steals and 6.7 blocks per game and have been really good on that end of the floor as of late. It's not exactly the 14.1 steals per game that Missouri averaged during its 9-0 start to last season, but this D is not going to let anything come easily for you.
That said, Tennessee is cut from the same cloth and is considerably better at it. Opening SEC play on the road against the Volunteers is all but certain to be the end of Ole Miss' quest for perfection. But do not be shocked if this team matches its win total from the past two seasons combined (25).
James Madison Dukes
5 of 7
Chance Undefeated on January 1: 77.0 percent
Chance Undefeated on February 1: 6.6 percent
Chance Undefeated Through Regular Season: 1.7 percent
First Projected Loss: Jan. 27 at Appalachian State
Not the hero we deserved, but the hero we needed.
James Madison immediately made a remarkable impression, going into East Lansing and knocking off then AP No. 4 Michigan State in an overtime thriller on opening night of the regular season.
That victory has since lost a ton of its luster, as the Spartans have stumbled to a 4-5 record, but it put the Dukes on the national radar for everyone to marvel. They have since piled up victory after victory, winning at Kent State in double overtime before defeating both Southern Illinois and Fresno State to win the Cancun Challenge.
Boston College transfer T.J. Bickerstaff has been great in the post. Robert Morris transfer Michael Green has done an excellent job running the point. Terrence Edwards shot 46 percent from three-point range last year and has been every bit as proficient this season while stepping into a larger role. Raekwon Horton is a glue guy extraordinaire.
There's a lot to like about what is unofficially emerging as both "America's Team" and perhaps the best candidate to be this year's version of Florida Atlantic.
JMU is now 9-0, and as the lone undefeated team still standing from outside the six major conferences, has the best chance of running the table.
Mind you, it's still not a good chance. You have a better chance (1.9 percent) at pulling the ace of spades from a thoroughly shuffled deck of 52 cards than James Madison's odds of entering the Sun Belt tournament with a zero in the loss column. But 1.7 percent does put the Dukes slightly ahead of Arizona (1.4 percent), a good bit ahead of Houston (0.6 percent) and well ahead of the other four teams with no realistic chance.
JMU has just two games left against teams in the KenPom top 160, hosting Appalachian State on Jan. 13 before heading to Boone to face the Mountaineers on Jan. 27. Save for those two toss-ups, the Dukes really should win every other game on their schedule.
Baylor Bears
6 of 7
Chance Undefeated on January 1: 40.3 percent
Chance Undefeated on February 1: 4.0 percent
Chance Undefeated Through Regular Season: 0.03 percent
First Projected Loss: Feb. 10 vs. Kansas
Six weeks ago, it was improbable Baylor would even make it to Christmas with an undefeated record, let alone Selection Sunday.
Heck, the Bears weren't supposed to survive their opening game, as they were a 2.5-point underdog for that showdown with Auburn in South Dakota. And they definitely weren't expected to survive the upcoming not-road-games-but-basically-road-games against Michigan State in Detroit (Dec. 16) and Duke at Madison Square Garden (Dec. 20), seeing as both of those teams were projected No. 1 seeds to open the season.
But now, it's Baylor in the running for a No. 1 seed while both the Spartans and Blue Devils are doing some serious soul searching amid one of the worst starts in the respective recent histories of those programs.
At this point, Baylor should win each of those "neutral"-site affairs.
After that, it's not until mid-February that the Bears have to play their first road game against one of the other five-best teams (per KenPom) in the Big 12. In fact, won't play on the road against Houston, Iowa State or Oklahoma at all this season, and they won't play at BYU until Feb. 20.
That said, no, we do not expect Baylor to actually make it all the way to Feb. 10 with an unblemished record.
As disappointing as both Duke and Michigan State have been, the Bears will probably drop one of those games. Even if they make it into Big 12 play with a 13-0 record, the chances of starting out 9-0 are slim to none, as they do need to play at Kansas State (Jan. 16) and at Texas (Jan. 20), in addition to tough home games against BYU (Jan. 9), Cincinnati (Jan. 13), TCU (Jan. 27) and Iowa State (Feb. 3).
Needless to say, there's a reason the Big 12 hasn't produced an undefeated conference champion in more than two decades and why six of the past 10 Big 12 champions suffered at least four losses in league play. Getting through this gauntlet unscathed is next to impossible, and that axiom might be more true than ever this year with 11 of the top 46 teams on KenPom destined to beat each other up.
Baylor does have the potential to be great, though, and Scott Drew is my early pick for national coach of the year considering how good the Bears have been in spite of losing a trio of 15 PPG scorers from last season.
Houston Cougars
7 of 7
Chance Undefeated on January 1: 78.4 percent
Chance Undefeated on February 1: 11.1 percent
Chance Undefeated Through Regular Season: 0.6 percent
First Projected Loss: None
As is the case with at least one team every December, let's be sure to clarify that not having a first projected loss does not mean Houston is projected for zero losses. It simply means there isn't a specific game with a win probability below 50 percent.
With that settled, let's note that Houston has been ranked top-three on KenPom since the preseason, but it's fair to question at this point whether this year's version of the Cougars is actually great.
Sure, they look unbelievable against the weak competition. In seven games thus far against teams outside the KenPom Top 100, Kelvin Sampson's defense is allowing just 45.1 points per game while boasting an average scoring margin of 33.8 points.
At Xavier, though? Against a team that also has home losses to Oakland and Delaware? Houston trailed late in the second half before eking out a six-point win. In that one, the Cougars suffered through one of those prolonged "can't buy a bucket" windows which afflicted them all too often last season.
And while they did ultimately defeat Utah by double digits on a neutral court in the Charleston Classic, they were tied with the Utes with seven minutes remaining.
Don't get me wrong, Houston is an upper-echelon team and has been for six seasons now.
But the best team in the country?
A team that deserves to be favored in every single game the rest of the way?
Not a chance. Not with this poor-shooting offense.
Houston is more likely to go .500 in Big 12 play than run the table. It might not even make it to January with a zero in the loss column, as next Saturday's game against Texas A&M should be a decent test.
With road games against Iowa State (Jan. 9), TCU (Jan. 13), BYU (Jan. 23), Texas (Jan. 29) and Kansas (Feb. 3) within their first nine league games, Houston will likely have multiple losses before we even get to the final five weeks of the regular season.
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