Under-the-Radar College Basketball Teams Most Likely to Crack Top 25 in 2014-15

Every college basketball season, a bunch of under-the-radar teams play their way into the Associated Press Top 25 after failing to get any sort of recognition in the first two polls of the season.

Last year, 13 teams—Cincinnati, Dayton, Illinois, Iowa State, Kansas State, Massachusetts, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, San Diego State, SMU and Texas—were ranked at some point during the season despite receiving fewer than 10 votes in both the preseason and Week 2 AP polls.

In light of that statistic, we went searching for 10 teams we think have a good shot at reaching the Top 25 this season despite a complete lack of respect to this point.

The rules are simple: If a team received 10 or more votes in either the preseason AP poll or the one announced this past Monday, it's not eligible for this list.

Everyone else is fair game. Everyone except for Dayton, that is. The Flyers didn't quite reach the votes minimum for exclusion, but we can't call them an under-the-radar team after reaching the Elite Eight last season. Don't worry, though. We've listed three other A-10 teams to make up for it.

Miami is a no-brainer after upsetting Florida on Monday night, but most of these teams are still being overlooked by the general population.

Once they catch our attention, though, it'll be hard to look away.

Seton Hall Pirates

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So, here's a scary thought.

Virtually everyone with an opinion on the matter was predicting Isaiah Whitehead to be named Big East Freshman of the Year. Maybe a few contrarians had Xavier's Trevon Bluiett or Georgetown's Isaac Copeland, but Whitehead is definitely the favorite.

Naturally, he had two points on 1-of-10 shooting with four turnovers in his debut with the Pirates. They still beat Mercer by 16 points.

To be fair, Mercer's roster is a far cry from the group that beat Duke eight months ago. The Bears lost five of their six leading scorers. The only one who didn't graduate (Ike Nwamu) scored 20 points against Seton Hall.

Still, it was promising to see Seton Hall win comfortably while getting nothing of value from its projected savior. Brandon Mobley and Sterling Gibbs led the way with 36 points while Angel Delgado had a much better college debut than Whitehead, tallying eight points and 12 rebounds.

Once Whitehead really arrives at Seton Hall, this team should make a run at the Top 25 in a hurry.

The Pirates play in the Paradise Jam this weekend, needing to go through Nevada and likely Clemson and LSU to take the crown. Should they win that and beat George Washington on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, December 1 could be Seton Hall's first appearance in the AP Top 25 since January 2001.

Washington Huskies

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After just one game, I'm all aboard the Huskies bandwagon.

Shawn Kemp Jr. finally had a game that someone with his name should be capable of on a regular basis, scoring 17 points and grabbing five offensive rebounds in the season opener against South Carolina State.

Robert Upshaw already looks like one of the most impactful transfers in the country, putting up 14 points, seven blocks (!) and six rebounds in his debut with the Huskies.

And, of course, Nigel Williams-Goss did his thing and nearly messed around and got a triple-double, finishing the night with 10 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists.

It wasn't that long ago that Washington was ranked on a pretty regular basis with the inside-outside duo of Isaiah Thomas and Matthew Bryan-Amaning leading the way.

Williams-Goss can clearly be that type of scoring and distributing point guard. If the team can just get some consistent production out of Kemp and/or Upshaw while getting the occasional three-point buckets from Andrew Andrews and Mike Anderson, there's at least a chance that Washington could make a serious run at the AP Top 25 in what figures to be a down year for the middle tier of the Pac-12.

Illinois Fighting Illini

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Last year, Illinois couldn't shoot its way out of a paper bag. The Illini shot 31.7 percent from three-point range as a team in 2013-14.

Thus far this season, they're shooting 46.8 percent from downtown.

They have both addition by transfer and addition by subtraction to thank for that improvement.

Aaron Cosby (Seton Hall) and Ahmad Starks (Oregon State) combined to make 130 three-pointers during the 2012-13 season with their former teams, shooting 39.8 percent from beyond the arc. Already this season, they are 12-of-24 and are serving as two of the three leading scorers behind Rayvonte Rice.

Good thing, too, because the Illini lost last year's second-leading scorer (Tracy Abrams) to a torn ACL back in September. Though he was a good scorer, Abrams was not a good shooter, connecting on 27.0 percent of his 111 three-point attempts last season.

They might miss his leadership, but you won't find many complaining about the fact that Abrams' injury leads to more shooting opportunities for Cosby and Starks.

Nothing the Illini do in the next few days is going to endear them to the AP voters. Games against Austin Peay, Brown and Indiana State aren't going to move the needle in a good way. But games after that against either Baylor or Memphis in the Las Vegas Invitational, Miami, American, Villanova and Oregon will be a great gauge for where Illinois is at by mid-December.

Plus, sneaking into the polls before the meat of the Big Ten schedule is kind of Illinois' thing. The Illini have been ranked at some point in each of the past five seasons, but in none of those years were they ranked beyond the month of January.

UTEP Miners

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Before the season began, Seth Davis was the only AP voter on the UTEP bandwagon. The Miners received one vote, and it came from Davis ranking them No. 25.

Evidently, Davis is still the only one buying what UTEP is mining. With Harvard dropping out of the poll, Davis bumped the Miners up to No. 24, but the two votes that they got from him are still their only votes.

Eventually, more people will be buying in to what Tim Floyd has put together in El Paso.

The Miners have only played one game thus far, but they took the screws to a major conference team, beating Washington State by a score of 65-52. The Cougars aren't expected to do a darn thing this season—they may well finish in last place in the Pac-12—but it's still impressive that the Miners grabbed 17 offensive rebounds and forced 22 turnovers against a somewhat respectable program.

Vince Hunter was the key and will continue to be one of their primary scorers. The sophomore forward had 14 points and 16 rebounds. The rebounds marked a new career high, but expect a fair share of double-doubles from the 6'8" man who averaged 12.3 points and 6.5 rebounds per game as a freshman.

Rhode Island Rams

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The Rams still have a long way to go to even sniff the Top 25, but they'll have quite a few chances to gain some serious ground in the next eight days.

Rhode Island's next two games are against Nebraska (home on Saturday) and Kansas (neutral court next Thursday). If the Rams win both of those games, they will probably be ranked in the following AP poll.

Of course, there are plenty of teams playing multiple ranked opponents in the next week.

What sets Rhode Island apart from other teams we're already assuming are going to lose those games by a landslide? After all, the Rams didn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence in the 16-point home win over Massachusetts-Lowell in which they committed 18 turnovers and 22 fouls.

For starters, they have E.C. Matthews. No one talked about him while Rhode Island was losing 18 games last season, but the shooting guard averaged 14.3 points per game as a freshman in 2013-14.

The Rams also have Hassan Martin, a sophomore forward who is averaging 19.5 points and 8.0 rebounds per game thus far, converting on 16 of his 21 field-goal attempts. A good number of national columnists talked about Matthews over the summer, but few saw Martin's hot start coming.

Even younger than those two studs is freshman guard Jared Terrell. The only 4-star recruit signed by the A-10 in this year's class, Terrell has scored in double figures in both of Rhode Island's games.

The team's other freshman (Jarvis Garrett) has scored 13 points with seven rebounds, six assists and four steals off the bench.

This is a very young team, but it is also quite talented.

Massachusetts Minutemen

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Three Massachusetts games; three Cady Lalanne double-doubles.

In three consecutive wins by single digits, Lalanne has tallied 49 points, 36 rebounds and 13 blocks.

For sake of comparison, Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky has 51 points, 36 rebounds and eight blocks through three games, and people are raving that he and the Badgers look better than ever.

The good news: Lalanne was similarly dominant for the first two months of last season in leading the Minutemen into the AP Top 25 for the first time in 15 years.

The bad news: He struggled over the latter portion of the season, recording just one double-double in the final two months after recording nine in the first 18 games.

Massachusetts was a completely different team in the second half of the season without Lalanne's dominant presence in the post. If he can keep it up for an entire year this time around, the Minutemen might not only reach the Top 25, but serve as one of the best teams in the country for the next four months.

The curious thing is that despite Lalanne's double-doubles, the Minutemen are only plus-three in rebounding margin. If Maxie Esho can become more of a force on the glass, Massachusetts will be even tougher to beat.

George Washington Colonials

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Might as well keep the Atlantic 10 lovefest going with a third consecutive candidate from the conference.

After all, VCU can't be the only one in the spotlight.

George Washington has jumped out to a nice start. The Colonials did to Grambling State what any self-respecting basketball team should be able to do, crushing the Tigers by a score of 92-40 on opening night.

Perhaps even more impressive was their 17-point road win over Rutgers just two days later.

We recognize that Rutgers may well go winless in its first season in the Big Ten, but you're crazy if you think the Scarlet Knights are going to get lampooned by at least a dozen points on their home court all season long.

The Colonials are a very good team, and they'll have a chance to prove it against Virginia on Friday night.

It's unlikely that they'll win the game, but they could cause some headaches for the Cavaliers. Like Virginia, George Washington doesn't commit many turnovers and is strong on the defensive glass.

Look for freshman Yuta Watanabe to be a difference-maker in that one.

Baylor Bears

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Once the Bears start getting consistent production out of their upperclassmen forwards, they're going to be tough to beat.

Kenny Chery is great in the backcourt, and Baylor has already gotten two solid games out of JUCO transfer Lester Medford and freshman Johnathan Motley. Deng Deng didn't even see the court in the second half against South Carolina because of foul trouble, but the JUCO transfer has 22 points in 24 minutes of action through two games.

We're just waiting on Rico Gathers and Royce O'Neale. O'Neale had just two points in the opener against McNeese State. Gathers had a simply awful 19-minute night against South Carolina with no points, no rebounds, two turnovers and four fouls.

Based on what we saw from them last season—especially Gathers' 14.5 points and 14.3 rebounds per 40 minutes—we know they're much better than that.

They don't need to both average a double-double, but they should combine to average at least 15 points and 15 rebounds per night. When they do, the Bears will have a very formidable seven-man rotation.

Even if it takes them a while to reach their potential, Baylor has the luxury of not facing a ranked opponent until January. Home games against Stephen F. Austin and Texas A&M will be tough—as will the neutral-court games against Memphis and presumably Illinois next week in the Las Vegas Invitational—but Baylor should be favored in every nonconference game it plays.

Texas A&M Aggies

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This one probably doesn't make much sense after the Aggies lost to Dayton on Thursday morning in the Puerto Rico Tipoff, but someone from the SEC eventually needs to get some love, right?

Eight of the 14 teams have already suffered at least one loss.

Kentucky is obviously great, and Florida will eventually be very good, but who is the third-best team in this conference?

Ole Miss was a candidate in the preseason, but the Rebels lost to Charleston Southern to open the season. Georgia lost to a not-very-good ACC team in Georgia Tech before barely winning a home game against Stony Brook. LSU needed overtime to win a home game against arguably the worst team in the Big 12. Auburn sneaked past Milwaukee before getting destroyed by Colorado.

Arkansas looked pretty good against Wake Forest after somehow being tied at the half at home against Alabama State, but every other middling SEC team has warts the sizes of breadboxes.

The Aggies lost a close one to Dayton—no idea how they lost with a plus-22 rebounding margin while the Flyers shot 2-of-17 from three-point range—but they slaughtered a pretty decent Northwestern State team on opening night.

Seven players scored in double figures in the Northwestern State game, and we're still awaiting a ruling on whether Danuel House—who could potentially be the team's most valuable player—will be eligible to play this season after transferring from Houston.

We assumed it would only be a matter of time until House was cleared to play after TaShawn Thomas—who also transferred from Houston this summer—was ruled eligible at Oklahoma, but there's still no word.

With or without him, A&M should be headed for a solid season. Whether the third-best team in the SEC ever comes to be regarded as one of the 25 best teams in the country remains to be seen, but Billy Kennedy's squad could at least make the debate an interesting one.

Miami Hurricanes

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Even before the incredible road win over Florida, Miami was one of my top teams for this list.

If the Hurricanes aren't ranked this coming Monday—especially with No. 25 Utah and No. 22 SMU already losing this week—it will mean something went horribly awry this weekend in the Charleston Classic, where they will face Drexel in the opener, either USC or Akron in the semifinals and probably Penn State in the championship.

If they win that tournament in the same week that they defeated Florida, they might jump all the way into the top 20.

And the 'Canes aren't even as good as they're going to be by the end of the year.

Joe Thomas has started both games at power forward for Miami, but he isn't the long-term answer. The transfer senior had trouble finding playing time at Niagara over the past three seasons. In the win over Florida, he played 10 minutes without recording a single statistic.

JUCO transfer Ivan Cruz Uceda won't be eligible until mid-January, but he will eventually be a pivotal player in the paint for a team that already has a great perimeter game anchored by Angel Rodriguez, Sheldon McClellan, Manu Lecomte and Ja'Quan Newton.

Fortunately—like Baylor—the 'Canes have a very forgiving schedule for the next six weeks. Outside of remaining in the Carolinas two days after the Charleston Classic to face Charlotte, they won't play another true road game without Cruz Uceda.

With Florida State already suffering a home loss to Northeastern and Pittsburgh potentially struggling after losing Durand Johnson for the year—still no word on why he was suspended hours before the season began—Miami should be in the driver's seat for (at least) sixth place in the ACC and a tournament berth.

Not bad for a team made up almost entirely of new transfers and freshmen.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.