The 10 Most Surprising Teams So Far in the 2014-15 College Basketball Season
The start of this college basketball season has already seen its share of surprises.
All the seasoned pros at Sports Illustrated, CBSSports.com and, yes, even Bleacher Report couldn’t have predicted how poorly some of the preseason favorites would perform.
They also couldn’t know how well some other teams would play. To quote ESPN’s Kenny Mayne from a SportsCenter broadcast, “They don’t play these games on paper. They play them in television sets.”
And when these teams hit the television sets, they surprised everyone with their play—good or bad—through the first part of this season.
Read on to see some of this season’s early surprises.
Florida
1 of 10
Florida is the hood ornament of the underachieving teams so far this season. The Gators, who as of this writing are 5-4, were ranked as high as sixth in preseason Top 25 polls.
These Gators lack chomp.
Early losses to Miami and Georgetown raised flags, then back-to-back losses against No. 5 UNC and No. 11 Kansas immolated any hope that the Gators could contend with this crop.
The Gators, rightly so, fell out of the Top 25.
Terry Lane of HailFloridaHail.com wrote:
"But that might be a good thing. Being relieved of a top 25 ranking might serve to help this Gator team. With the expectations of the recent teams removed, it can take the pressure off of a team that’s struggling to replace four starters from last year."
To Florida’s credit, its four losses have been close. The average losing margin is just 4.5 points.
This is a team shooting .440 from the field and scoring just 67.3 points per game. Its defense is keeping these games close, but Florida is by far the biggest surprise of all these squads.
Seton Hall
2 of 10
Seton Hall wasn’t on anybody’s radar at the start of this season. Now the Pirates sit at 7-1 after suffering their first loss of the season to No. 11 Wichita State on December 9.
The Pirates are the consummate team with a deep bench and a stout defense. As a team, it has 60 steals and 37 blocks through eight games.
“We practice defense a lot. Coach stresses defense and he stresses playing hard," Sterling Gibbs said on NJ.com. "At the end of the day, we have the bodies to really press and do all the things we do.”
Seton Hall has gotten great production from Gibbs, who is averaging 17.5 points per game. Also, freshman Isaiah Whitehead is adding 13.5 to the mix.
Gibbs said, “We're bringing in a fresh body every two or three minutes, which is good. Me, Jaren [Sina] and Isaiah [Whitehead] can go out there and play as hard as possible. Then the next thing you know, Khadeen [Carrington], Stephane [Manga] or someone else is coming in."
And as the Pirates head deep into their Big East schedule, that depth will be its most valuable asset.
Michigan
3 of 10
Michigan fell out of the Top 25 thanks to back-to-back home losses to the NJIT Highlanders and the Eastern Michigan University Eagles. The latter is understandable on some level. The former is embarrassing.
The Wolverines weren’t storming any castles in the preseason polls, but they were ranked 24th by Sports Illustrated and 19th by Bleacher Report. So what’s happening in Ann Arbor?
“We tried too hard a few times,” coach John Beilein said in an Associated Press story. “Sometimes, guys want to win so much.”
Michigan can say that it has time on its side. The season is about a third of the way done. So, while the team’s early fall out of the Top 25 is surprising, it’s not necessarily alarming. Yet.
“[Assistant coach LaVall Jordan] said it best the other day, just yesterday,” guard Spike Albrecht said in the AP story. “He said the season’s roughly six months, which is roughly 180 days. We just had four bad days, so we’ve got a lot of basketball left to play.”
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TCU
4 of 10
While fans of TCU football have no doubt been mourning their team’s snub from the College Football Playoff, the Horned Frogs basketball team has run off nine straight wins to open the season.
Take this headline from an SI.com story: "Kentucky, Duke…TCU? Tracking the 10 remaining unbeaten teams.”
Martin Rickman, writer of that story, wrote:
"The Horned Frogs are the least likely of the 10 teams to remain unbeaten, as KenPom gives them zero (!!) percent chance to finish undefeated overall and in conference play. In fact, they’re predicted to lose 13 games down the stretch. Come on, Mr. Pomeroy, at least Lloyd Christmas had a chance.
"
Fans of Dumb and Dumber will love that reference. Hey, North Carolina, UConn and Florida would love to be unbeaten through this part of the season.
SMU
5 of 10
SMU could be granted a pass since it lost a possible blue-chip signee to China. Emmanuel Mudiay took his talents over the Pacific in an effort to get "Made in China."
Not only that, but the ineligibility of Markus Kennedy for the first semester saddled the Mustangs with far too many hurdles. Kennedy accounted for 12.4 points and 7.1 boards a game last season.
As a result, the Mustangs have suffered.
Still, our own Jason King, who ranked them 16th in the preseason poll, said this about them before the season started:
"Even without Emmanuel Mudiay, the Mustangs will be scary. Guards Nic Moore and Keith Frazier will team with Xavier transfer Justin Martin to form one of the nation’s top backcourts. And Markus Kennedy should be a force down low."
In its second game, SMU got smoked by No. 13 Gonzaga, 72-56. That began a stretch of three losses in four games, with the other two being losses to Indiana and No. 25 Arkansas.
Things could be looking up for SMU. The Mustangs have won four in a row, and a win on the road against Michigan on Dec. 20 could be a big lift to Larry Brown’s team.
Kennedy's return in January could stampede these Mustangs through the AAC and into the NCAA Tournament they so narrowly missed a year ago.
Northern Iowa
6 of 10
For all that’s been made of Duke’s Jahlil Okafor’s field-goal percentage (65 percent), unbeaten Northern Iowa also boasts a player shooting in the 60s.
Enter Seth Tuttle. The senior forward is shooting 64 percent from the field while averaging 15.9 points and 6.4 rebounds a game. Tuttle is a big reason Northern Iowa has surprised the college basketball landscape so far.
“The senior put on a little weight in the offseason and does a little bit of everything," SI.com's Rickman wrote. "He’s helped the Panthers become one of the nation’s surprise unbeatens with a chance to challenge Wichita State for the Missouri Valley title.”
The Panthers cracked into the Top 25, and they’re doing it with defense. They’re currently 17th in points allowed.
“Our defense is much improved over the course of the last six or eight weeks," coach Ben Jacobson said in an AP story. "I like what the guys have done at the defensive end."
UConn
7 of 10
It appears beer goggles were at play by ranking UConn so high in the preseason polls. That National Championship cast a rosy glow.
Jason King showed the most sense in the preseason polls by ranking UConn 23rd. Sports Illustrated slotted the Huskies at 19, while The Sporting News went as high as 15.
After winning its first three games, UConn then lost its next three games—all at home—to West Virginia, Texas and Yale in a 45-44 reminder that there will be no trips up the Werner ladder this year.
“We're at the bottom right now," said UConn coach Kevin Ollie on ESPN.com.
It was a last-second three-pointer by Yale that sent UConn to the bottom.
Nobody expected UConn to repeat, but they did expect them to compete. Right now, it’s like UConn is shooting at a greased rim at a rate of just 43 percent from the field, good for 214th in the land.
"We've got to find some toughness in that locker room somewhere, because I'm not a loser and the guys in there in that locker room are not losers," Ollie said on ESPN.com.
Washington
8 of 10
Lots of outlets had San Diego State in the their preseason Top 25 lists, and rightly so. That made it all the more impressive—and surprising—that the Washington Huskies beat them earlier this season.
SI.com's Rickman added, “If you like smothering defenses and teams that block a lot of shots, then maybe it’s time to roll the dice on Lorenzo Romar’s bunch this year. Washington doesn’t force a lot of turnovers, but it makes getting a good shot tough on opponents and alters a lot of attempts near the rim.”
The Huskies are 17th in the land and stand at 7-0.
Tim Booth of the Associated Press wrote after Washington’s win over the Aztecs, “The matchup was a chance for Washington to prove its undefeated start wasn't a fluke. Washington improved to 7-0 for the first time since the 2006-07 season and has one major test remaining before the start of Pac-12 play: a Dec. 20 matchup with Oklahoma in Las Vegas.”
No matter what happens in Vegas, Washington has been one of this year’s surprises.
North Carolina
9 of 10
The Tar Heels stand at 6-2, which doesn’t look bad. But when you consider the losses they had, it’s surprising that UNC isn’t unbeaten.
Those early losses to Butler and Iowa slid UNC all the way down to 21 in the rankings. Many prognosticators had UNC as a preseason top-five team.
The Butler loss was particularly unsettling when you consider the manner in which UNC lost. Rebounding is normally a Tar Heel staple, and the Bulldogs were on the glass like a dog chasing a mailman. They out-rebounded UNC 57-40—29-14 on the offensive end.
The Tar Heels go as Marcus Paige goes, and Paige hasn’t been himself so far this season.
Mike DeCourcy of Sporting News expressed concern about Paige’s role:
"All-American Marcus Paige often shifted between the point and shooting guard spots last season, and the arrival of freshman point Joel Berry might make it even more logical to move Paige over to a score-first role.
It always seemed, though, that UNC was best when he was on the ball and making the decisions, even if that decision was for Paige to try and score it himself. Roy Williams will have to sort out where his best player fits best.
"
Paige’s dismal shooting (36 percent from the field) is a big reason why the Tar Heels sputtered against unranked Butler and unranked Iowa (at home).
VCU
10 of 10
A once-potent VCU team now sits as the 37th strongest team, according to kenpom.com.
VCU made many preseason Top 25 lists, including No. 19 in Sports Illustrated, No. 18 on CBSSports.com and No. 22 with Bleacher Report.
To date, VCU is 5-3 with losses to No. 12 Villanova, No. 7 Virginia and unranked Old Dominion.
David Gardner of Sports Illustrated wrote in a preseason blurb of VCU, “Shaka Smart is still searching for his first regular-season conference championship, and this should be the year that he gets it. The Rams will be the class of the A-10, according to our projection.”
That still could be the case. VCU ranks 20th in steals per game with 9.5, so it has proved to be disruptive.
Under Smart, VCU normally pairs its tenacious D with an efficient offense. VCU ranks 212th in field-goal percentage at .427. That puts the "common" in commonwealth.
All statistics were provided by ESPN.com.
I hang out on Twitter @BrendanOMeara. Say hello.
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