10 College Basketball Teams That Need to Make Big Adjustments in the New Year
The first act of the college basketball is over. The cement isn’t set on what and who many of these teams are.
With conference play starting, these teams have opportunities to clean up what has been has been largely a disappointing start to their seasons.
That could be Florida flailing its way out of the preseason Top 25 or UConn’s travails against the likes of Yale. The state of Michigan alone has two teams that need to make some serious adjustments or be laughed out of the Big Ten.
The iceberg is straight ahead, but there still remains distance to turn these ocean liners around in time for Act 2 of the 2014-15 season.
Syracuse
1 of 10
Current record: 7-4
Why they’ve struggled
The Orange were supposed to be better than this. Losses to Cal and Michigan stand out as blemishes on Syracuse’s resume.
Syracuse has been all right on the defensive end, but it has benefited from a weak schedule with blowout wins against Colgate, Loyola and Kennesaw State.
Depth has been a problem for head coach Jim Boeheim, and only time will tell if that will be an issue as the Orange pass through the rigors of the ACC.
They can salvage the season if…
Rakeem Christmas continues his All-American play. He’s averaging 16.5 points and 8.7 rebounds per game while shooting 61 percent from the field.
The Orange could get on a roll early in the ACC with games against Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Wake Forest, Clemson, Boston College and Miami before Syracuse plays UNC on Jan. 26.
Michigan State
2 of 10
Current record: 9-4
Why they’ve struggled
The wrist injury to Branden Dawson didn’t help, but it could be as simple as making or not making threes.
Sports Illustrated’s Seth Davis wrote a piece about the Spartans' strengths and woes from three-point territory. The Spartans are a top-15 team from beyond the arc.
Davis wrote, "This is a wonderful way to play—as long as the shots are falling. When they don’t, a team has to turn to Plan B, or Plan C, and it’s not clear what that plan is for Michigan State."
And that’s the problem. As head coach Tom Izzo told Davis:
"Yeah, and it’s hurt us at times. I’m a little surprised, frankly, that we’re shooting it as well as we have been. We’ve also been a better rebounding team and a better defensive team than I thought, but we haven’t been a great turnover team, and we’re an awful free throw shooting team. So yeah, there are plenty of concerns.
"
They can salvage the season if…
Izzo said it: Shoot better free throws. As a team the Spartans shoot just 63 percent from the line. Also, if the Spartans can hedge against a bad night from the three-point line, they’ll be better for it.
In its embarrassing overtime loss to Texas Southern, Michigan State went 4-21 from the three-point arc. If the Spartans are willing to live with the three, they need to be willing to die by it, too.
North Carolina
3 of 10
Current record: 8-3
Why they’ve struggled
North Carolina can boast that it exited nonconference play 3-1 against ranked teams. However, losses to Butler and Iowa—the latter at home—bring doubt to the Dean Dome.
Marcus Paige, a preseason ACC Player of the Year candidate, has been shooting poorly while trying to run the entire offense. The Tar Heels need his game to catch fire.
They can salvage the season if…
Paige heats up and Kennedy Meeks continues his excellent play.
UNC is in the top third of the ACC, but can it contend with Duke, Louisville and Virginia? Those are awfully big hurdles for a team that has been erratic and unpredictable through the first third of the season.
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Nebraska
4 of 10
Current record: 8-4
Why they've struggled
Nebraska finished a highly unpredictable fourth in the Big Ten last season, and no one would be surprised if it finishes around fourth or fifth this year. But the team has some work to do, especially when you take what Bleacher Report’s Scott Polacek noted.
He wrote, "The Cornhuskers lost to Creighton and Hawaii, the latter of which is less explainable, but the real problem was the home loss to Incarnate Word. That just isn’t supposed to happen, especially after Nebraska made the NCAA tournament a season ago."
Corn, husked.
They can salvage the season if…
The Cornhuskers bring up their shooting. In that inexplicable loss to Incarnate Word, the Huskers shot just 22-52 from the field and 5-17 from the three-point arc.
Yes, Terran Petteway and Shavon Shields have been solid, and they’ll have to keep their play firing high for Nebraska to have any shot making the tournament for a second straight year.
Michigan
5 of 10
Current record: 7-5
Why they’ve struggled
The expectation on Michigan was never very high, but it definitely wasn’t this low. John Beilein’s team is broken, and it’s hard to see where the light will come from.
Sports Illustrated’s Ryan Krasnoo said that Beilein’s teams shoot well from beyond the arc and play sound, foul-free defense. In Michigan’s terrible losses to NJIT and Eastern Michigan, its strengths became weakness. Hence the 7-5 record and first back-to-back nonconference losses at home since 2007-08.
They can salvage the season if…
Zak Irvin graduates to elite-level playmaking. He can be as good as any when he’s on, but that’s the problem—his game can sour.
Krasnoo wrote, "It's not time to hit the panic button in Ann Arbor just yet. This is still a tremendously talented team with one of the nation’s winningest coaches at the helm, and they still have a couple weeks to figure it out before the start of a grueling Big Ten slate."
The Wolverines have shown little reason so far that they can break through. If Beilein doesn’t figure this out soon, this season will be over by Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
UConn
6 of 10
Current record: 5-4
Why they’ve struggled
Here’s a UConn team coming off a national championship and relying solely on Ryan Boatright. It’s also a team nobody thought would struggle quite like this.
UConn’s reliance on Boatright has made the Huskies far too one-dimensional.
"We have to have other guys step up," head coach Kevin Ollie told reporters. "We need another playmaker besides Ryan. Ryan is getting double teamed, he passes it to someone else and somebody else has to make plays."
Three straight losses—including one to Yale—have signaled that Ollie’s team could be in for a disappointing and middling season.
They can salvage the season if…
Other players such as Amida Brimah and Rodney Purvis can take some pressure off Boatright. Brimah had that nice 40-point game against Coppin State and then followed that up with a doughnut against Duke.
Just like Ollie said, other guys need to step up.
UCLA
7 of 10
Current record: 8-4
Why they’ve struggled
UCLA lost a ton of talent from last year’s team. This isn’t news, per se; many teams lose talent and still bounce back. Look no further than Kentucky.
But Steve Alford lost Zach Lavine, Kyle Anders and Jordan Adams to the NBA, leaving him with a team capable of trailing 41-7 at the half.
In UCLA’s three losses to ranked teams, it lost by an average of 21.3 points.
They can salvage the season if…
The Bruins play better defense. They stand at 299th overall in points allowed (72.0) and 102nd in steals per game (7.3). That means they’re not pressuring the ball enough and creating contested looks.
On the bright side, the Bruins have won the games they were supposed to win—but how will they fare against Arizona, Utah and Oregon?
The Bruins might need another year to feel strong again given that they have nine combined freshman and sophomores to just five juniors and seniors.
Kansas
8 of 10
Current record: 9-2
Why they’ve struggled
Kansas’ record is just fine. Most teams would take 9-2 and not look back. The manner in which Kansas lost those two games raises some questions about its viability in the Big 12, though.
The Jayhawks lost to Kentucky in the Champions Classic, which was expected. It could have been worse. It could have been 41-7 at the half.
Kansas’ blowout loss to Temple launches the rescue flares.
Chris Johnson of Sports Illustrated wrote, “Temple (8-4) attacked Kansas early, opening up a 12-2 lead before Kansas called its first timeout. The Jayhawks never really recovered from the rough start.”
They can salvage the season if…
Here’s the deal, Kansas isn’t in jeopardy the way many teams on this list are heading into conference play. Bill Self and Co. have solid wins against No. 13 Utah and No. 20 Michigan State.
Losing by 22 to Kentucky and 25 to Temple (Temple!) raises questions as to whether the team could be susceptible to trap games. Kansas should never lose to a team ranked 62nd in defensive efficiency, according to KenPom.com.
Kansas' primary challenger is Texas. Kansas might have a hard time winning the Big 12 this year with the Longhorns pawing at the dirt ready to charge.
Florida
9 of 10
Current record: 7-4
Why they’ve struggled
Florida hasn’t been able to play a complete game. Specifically, it’s the second halves of games that have de-toothed the Gators.
It doesn’t look quite as bad for the Gators as their record would suggest. Those four losses were by an average of 4.5 points. That speaks more of an inability to finish than a lack of talent.
“We’re a team that kind of broke apart a little bit, not because of jealousy or bad chemistry or don’t like each other. They’re focused on themselves. That’s a dangerous recipe," Donovan said, per The Alligator's Erica Hernandez.
They can salvage the season if…
They avoid Kentucky? Impossible, but don’t discredit Florida yet.
Yes, the Gators fell out of the Top 25 earlier in the year, but they could just as easily be 8-1 or 9-0 given how close those losses were. Via The Alligator:
"If we would’ve played the first half and second half as kind of mirrored halves together and come up short, we would probably be evaluative of where we’ve got to get. Right now for me, this is not even a basketball thing. It has nothing to do with basketball. This is much, much more of a mental issue in terms of them handling their own personal expectations.
"
Florida is a top-15 KenPom team and a top-10 defense. With the exception of Kentucky, the SEC lacks power—so Florida could find itself in a battle with the Wildcats come March 7.
Wichita State
10 of 10
Current record: 10-2
Why they’ve struggled
Don’t be deceived by that 10-2 record. It looks a lot better than it is when you consider Wichita State nearly lost to Alabama and Hawaii. Throw in a loss to unranked George Washington in the Diamond Head Classic, and suddenly this team doesn’t look quite as shiny—if it ever did.
Ron Baker has struggled at times (13-of-41 in the Diamond Head Classic), which partially explains his team’s struggles in that tournament.
This isn’t the team that went unbeaten in last year’s regular season. And as Sports Illustrated’s Michael Beller noted, the Shockers might not even be the best team in the MVC.
Beller gives that honor to Northern Iowa.
They can salvage the season if…
They focus on their superiority within the MVC.
"… [C]onsider the notable gap in talent and experience they should hold over the rest of their competition until the brackets are revealed on March 15. Given that, it isn’t hard to image that, even if Wichita State can’t replicate last year’s undefeated regular season, it might be able to do the next best thing.
"
Yes, Northern Iowa is one of the big surprises of the season so far—and the Panthers will give the Shockers a run in the MVC—but Wichita State is still the team to beat.
If the Shockers continue to be the resilient team that wouldn’t fall against Alabama, they can still win despite not being the team they were a year ago.
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