7 Underrated College Basketball Teams at the Start of February
College basketball fans inexplicably love the "Ov-er-ra-ted!" chant when their team pulls off a home upset of a higher ranked foe, but let's do a little "un-der-ra-ted!" shouting as we polar plunge our way into February.
The imperative question when talking about underrated teams is: Underrated by whom?
The AP poll?
National championship oddsmakers?
Bracketologists?
Everyone?
Yes. All of those. And a few more, as we've come up with the seven teams who are most underrated right now within various subsets of the national audience/metrics.
Teams are presented in no particular order, aside from saving the underrated title contender for the end of the list.
Most Underrated by the AP Poll: Florida Gators
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Though the AP Top 25 is completely irrelevant when it comes to seeding the field for the NCAA tournament, it generally is a good barometer for how the nation's best teams presently stack up against one another.
But sometimes the AP poll completely whiffs when it comes to identifying a team that has been really good since getting out to a rocky start—even if that team is the reigning national champion.
Per Torvik data, Florida entered this past weekend as the third-best team in the country dating back to mid-December, behind only Arizona and Houston. During a 10-2 stretch in which nine of the 10 wins came by double digits, the Gators' lone narrow victory was the 98-94 road win over Vanderbilt. And though they did recently suffer a home loss to Auburn, they bounced back quite nicely with a preposterous 47-point win at South Carolina.
And yet, the Gators were ranked 19th in last week's AP poll, with voters evidently still struggling to forgive their 5-4 start to the season, in which three of those losses came away from home by either a one- or two-possession margin against current projected No. 1 seeds Arizona, Duke and Connecticut.
All the predictive metrics view Florida as a top-seven team, and good luck finding a sportsbook that has the Gators listed at anything worse than the 10th-best odds of winning it all. Yet, not a single AP voter last Monday had the Gators higher than 14th, and two voters didn't have them on their ballot at all.
Most Underrated by the Predictive Metrics: UCF Knights
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Let's stick in the state of Florida for a minute with a pivot to a UCF team that is two-thirds of the way through maybe its best season ever.
Sports Reference has a "Simple Rating System" score for each team in each season, which combines scoring margin and strength of schedule to spit out a single number suggesting how far above or below average a team was that season.
Prior to this season, UCF's highest SRS score was a 13.37, predictably coming during the 2018-19 campaign when the Knights received an at-large bid for the first (and thus far only) time in program history.
Their current SRS score is a 14.57, and they are sitting pretty for a single digit seed in the dance.
But as far as the predictive metrics are concerned, UCF is going to be an underdog in the first round pretty much regardless of what seed line it lands on.
Between BPI, KenPom and Torvik, the Knights' average "quality" rank is right around 50th in the nation, basically tied with Big 12 brother TCU, who has minimal hope of dancing.
This is, of course, because UCF doesn't win convincingly enough.
Its last victory by a margin of 10 or more points came on Dec. 20 against FGCU. And that was after four-point home wins over Hofstra and Oakland in November. Moreover, the Knights' four losses were by a combined margin of 60 points, tanking the year-to-date scoring margin.
They beat Kansas, though. (With Darryn Peterson, we might add.) Their early 12-point win at Texas A&M has aged like a fine wine. Saturday's home win over Texas Tech was mighty impressive. And though some of their losses have gotten ugly, they did put up a decent fight in the 84-77 loss to Arizona.
Themus Fulks, Riley Kugel and Co. are a force to be reckoned with, no matter what KenPom's data says.
Most Underrated by the Resume Metrics: Louisville Cardinals
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The predictive metrics that would have you believe UCF was quite lucky to pull off a pair of Quad 1A wins would also have you believe that it's a borderline unbelievable fluke that Louisville has whiffed in all four of its opportunities of that ilk.
The Cardinals are allegedly one of the 15 best teams in the country, with BPI, in particular, hanging onto hope that this is a fringe title contender.
Meanwhile, the resume metrics (KPI, SOR and WAB) paint Louisville as a fringe top 30 team, losing all five games it has played against top 25 foes, while also taking a bad loss to Stanford.
Who's right, though?
Is Louisville a Sweet 16 caliber team? Or a squad that may well play in and lose an 8/9 first round game in the dance?
It's tough to say, because we haven't seen this team at full strength in a while.
During the Cardinals' 9-1 start with wins over Kentucky, Indiana and Cincinnati, they sure looked like the real deal. But then they lost star freshman Mikel Brown Jr. for five weeks to a back injury. And even though Brown has now been back for a couple of games, they had been without key reserve big man Khani Rooths in recent weeks due to an illness.
Ryan Conwell has done his darnedest to pick up some of that slack, but they've been unable to pick up a quality win while shorthanded. But with Brown and Rooths in the fold on Saturday against SMU, the Cardinals won by 14, with that duo combining for 32 points.
Perhaps when Louisville plays at UNC and at Clemson in back-to-back games in late February, it will be healthy and ready to secure some quality victories.
Most Underrated by Bracketologists: Miami-Ohio RedHawks
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Hi. Bracketologist here. And I don't think that 22-0 Miami-Ohio has much of a case for an at-large bid, should one become necessary.
Obviously, the zero in the loss column is very appealing, and if the RedHawks make it through nine more games unscathed before taking their first loss in the Mid-American Conference tournament, maybe they'll be awarded a spot in the field regardless of what their metrics end up being. Goodness knows this year's bubble is weak enough at the moment to justify throwing a bone to Miami-Ohio instead of, well, Miami-Florida.
However, the RedHawks have only played one game in this entire season against a team currently ranked in the top 120 of the NET—a three-point home win over No. 52 Akron on Jan. 3—and will not play another game against a top 120 team, unless they run into Akron in the MAC championship game.
They put together the weakest nonconference schedule in the nation, which is a fantastic way to earn the ire of the selection committee. And while their resume metrics are solid, the predictive metrics all say this is a borderline top 100 team.
Every bracketologist has Miami-Ohio in the field as the MAC's projected auto bid, but the vast majority have the RedHawks on the No. 11 seed line, somewhere around 45th overall on the seed list.
Regardless of the strength of schedule, though, a team that's still undefeated in early February deserves more respect than that.
Over the years, plenty of half-decent teams have put together laughably weak schedules and come nowhere close to a 22-0 start. Hate to admit it, but this is a case where the AP poll has it right, putting Miami-Ohio in the Top 25 for the first time since February 1999.
Most Underrated by Joe Average Basketball Fan: Nebraska Cornhuskers
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Even in the immediate aftermath of Indiana winning a national championship in football, it sure has felt like a lot of college basketball fans are reluctant to believe that Nebraska might actually be really darn good this year.
Despite a road win over Illinois, a home win over Michigan State, six Quad 1 wins and 12 total wins over the top two Quads, there were a lot of "Yeah, but it's Nebraska" sentiments during their 20-0 start.
And, look, I get it. While both North Carolina and Kentucky have won 134 games in NCAA tournament history, the Cornhuskers are the only major-conference program that has never won a game in the dance, immediately eliminated all seven times they've been included.
That sort of history makes it irrationally difficult to believe that Nebraska is suddenly going to reel off four wins in a row to reach a Final Four, let alone six straight to win it all.
Temporarily ignore that history, though, and you just might see a Nebraska team that's similar to 2015-16 Villanova.
No, I'm not saying that Sam Hoiberg is the next Jalen Brunson, but the way this Nebraska team shares the sugar, strokes the three, scores efficiently and defends at a high level is all reminiscent of that first Jay Wright championship team.
One big difference is that Villanova still had one spot on the floor reserved for a conventional big man. Whether it was Daniel Ochefu or Darryl Reynolds, you knew full well the guy playing the 5 wasn't going to be teeing up any threes. But Nebraska's primary big man, Rienk Mast, shoots almost as many threes as twos, and when either he or Pryce Sandfort gets on a heater, the 'Huskers can beat anyone.
Most Underrated by Everyone: Saint Louis Billikens
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Back in mid-November, I wrote up some knee-jerk reactions to the first couple weeks of the college basketball season. And while they didn't all age particularly well—LOL at the "both Georgetown and Syracuse might actually matter again" section—one of those early reactions was: Watch out for Saint Louis.
Some 10 weeks later, it's time to reiterate that request to watch out for the Billikens, who are now 21-1 and routinely beating the pants off of competent competition, but not as well-regarded as they ought to be.
It's not great competition, mind you. They've defeated a handful of bubble teams, but it's plausible they'll enter the NCAA tournament having not previously encountered a single other team in the field.
Here's the thing, though: Saint Louis leads the nation in effective field-goal percentage on both offense (61.0) and defense (42.6), which is patently absurd.
Two years ago, current SLU head coach Josh Schertz and current SLU star Robbie Avila were at Indiana State for an offense that led the nation in eFG%. But the Sycamores ranked 146th in that department on defense, which is typically how it goes.
Last year's Duke team finished third on offense and first on defense and almost won a national championship. The year before that, UConn ranked seventh and third, respectively, and did win a title. And en route to a No. 1 seed in 2022, Gonzaga almost pulled off the double dip at No. 2 on offense and No. 1 on defense.
Those are the exceptions to the rule, though, and even those teams can't hold a candle to Saint Louis' current net eFG% of +18.4.
Bracketologists generally have the Billikens somewhere around No. 24 overall. So do all of the metrics on the team sheets and the AP poll, while the sportsbooks tend to have them down around 30th most likely to win it all.
Do yourself a favor, though, and watch a Saint Louis game or two before the madness begins, because they sure do look the part of a team that could crash the Elite Eight as a No. 5 or No. 6 seed.
Most Underrated by National Championship Odds: St. John's Red Storm
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Truth be told, I was originally going to go with Michigan State in this spot, as the Spartans are a top 10 team in most estimations, but the consensus 13th most likely team to win it all as far as the betting odds are concerned.
Before diving in on MSU at around +3000, however, I decided to dig a little deeper into the fray, just to see if there's a team down in the +5000 or longer range who could legitimately win a title.
And there, down around 25th in the consensus odds, listed as long as +9000 on multiple books, sits St. John's and Rick Pitino.
A month ago, I could've accepted that. Because a month ago, it wasn't exactly a foregone conclusion that the Red Storm would even make the NCAA tournament. They were 9-5 overall with no great wins, had just suffered a bad home loss to Providence and simply didn't look anything like the contender they were supposed to be.
Lately, though, the Johnnies have found their footing, winning seven in a row, cutting down drastically on turnovers, protecting the defensive glass and storming comfortably back into the at-large picture.
Of course, we'll see what happens when they run up against Connecticut.
Sitting at 9-1 in Big East play would be quite the feat in most seasons, but this isn't one of those years. The Johnnies did score a quality win at Villanova, but it's the Feb. 6 and Feb. 25 games against the Huskies that will tell us how well this squad stacks up against a legitimate contender.
But that means if you're thinking about buying the Red Storm to win it all, you better do it before they upset UConn. That +9000 line could shrink to more like +3000 in a hurry if Zuby Ejiofor and Co. get it done on Friday.
